Mark Reynolds, 2012 Topps Allen and Ginter #271

The Orioles are enjoying the rarity of back-to-back days off, thanks to yesterday's rainout in Texas and today's travel day. I'm doing my best not to dwell on the team's three losses in their past four games (gulp), so I figured I'd check in on an old friend. When Mark Reynolds signed with the Rockies during the past offseason, my imagination ran wild. Finally the ultimate all-or-nothing hacker would be calling the thin air of Coors Field home. "The Sheriff" has started eight of Colorado's 12 games so far in 2016, so let's see how many homers he's bashed...

None?

Nope. Madison Bumgarner has a home run this year. Odubel Herrera has gone deep. Baltimore's newest darling Joey Rickard has touched 'em all. Something called Jeremy Hazelbaker has three homers, and yet Mark Reynolds is sans dingers. He's batted .250/.323/.357, with three doubles and three RBI. But he does have 10 strikeouts in 31 trips to the plate, so at least something is going according to plan.

Mark Reynolds, 2012 Topps Gypsy Queen #27

I don't know many card collectors who get excited about Gypsy Queen, with its drab borders and beginners' Photoshop filters. So it was only mildly surprising to see several packs of 2012 GQ sitting in a $1.59 markdown box at our local Target this evening. I picked up five packs, just to indulge my curiosity. Two of the packs featured four of the same cards (out of six total per pack), which is some shoddy collation. But I did get a few nifty cards, including Rollie Fingers and Mark Reynolds. The Birds' former "Sheriff of Swattingham" (hey, I didn't pick that nickname) just signed a minor league deal with the Brewers this week. It's a long way to fall in three years; it was as recently as 2011 that Reynolds led the O's with 37 home runs and posted a 116 OPS+. I can say that I'd rather have seen the Orioles bring him back as a potential platoon DH, instead of some of the castoffs that they've gathered this offseason. Delmon Young? My blood runs cold.

Mark Reynolds, 2012 Topps Archives #199

There's not much room for sentimentality in baseball. In this vein of thinking, yesterday the Orioles chose not to tender Mark Reynolds a contract. Though "the Sheriff" hit 60 home runs over the past two seasons and proved to be a surprisingly adept defender after switching to first base last year, he probably wasn't worth the $11 million that he would have made if the O's had picked up his option for next year. He's now a free agent, and the reported lack of contract talk from GM Dan Duquette makes it likely that he'll sign with another team for 2013. It's a shame, but I'll play the optimist and suggest that the Birds can probably find someone better going forward. So long, Mark, and thanks for all the dingers.

Mark Reynolds, 2012 Topps Opening Day #42

Baltimore fans have waited for 15 years to see a home playoff game, and now it seems as though they might have to wait longer. Rain has already delayed the start of Game One of the American League Division Series for nearly two hours, with no end in sight. But whenever the O's start their postseason showdown with the Yankees, they'll need some contributions from Mark Reynolds. "The Sheriff" has been a bona fide Yankee killer in 2012, batting .294/.410/.804 with 5 doubles and 7 home runs among his 15 hits in 15 games against New York. He also drove in 14 runs. It's really happening, folks. Orioles and Yankees for a spot in the ALCS. I may not exhale all week.

Mark Reynolds, 2011 Topps Chrome Orange Refractor #129

I did not get to see the Orioles win three of four games over the long weekend, since I was busy traversing the interstates of Eastern Pennsylvania, canoeing, sitting by a lakeside fire, and so forth. No complaints there, especially since the O's used some solid pitching, timely hitting, and even the occasional spectacular defensive play to draw within a single game of the Yankees for the American League East lead. They're peaking at the right time, particularly Mark Reynolds, who had a pair of home runs in each of the Birds' two wins against New York and made some surprisingly deft plays at first base to save errors for his infield mates. The unprecedented good fortune keeps accumulating for the most enjoyable Orioles team of my adult life, as they won three separate series in the Bronx for the first time since 1976, when Reggie Jackson wore orange and black and some early-season games featured Tippy Martinez and Rick Dempsey in navy pinstripes. In yesterday's 8-3 comeback win over the Yankees, Randy Wolf earned the victory in his club debut with 3.1 innings of emergency relief of Chris Tillman, who left after 3 innings with elbow discomfort. When the O's picked the 36-year-old lefty Wolf off of the scrap heap last week, it didn't seem to be a good fit. So naturally he was right there when the team needed him. That's how things go in 2012.

Mark Reynolds, 2011 Topps Heritage #36

Last night, I posted a Mark Reynolds card and made a passing mention of my hope that he would heat up and hit a few home runs in the Boston series. Within a few hours of publishing, I had witnessed a two-homer, four-RBI performance by the man known to some locals as "The Sheriff of Swattingham". The O's drew first blood against the Red Sox, winning 7-1. I had the urge to dabble in clairvoyance again this evening, but instead I think I'll quit while I'm ahead. Of course, if Mark wanted to muscle up once more...

Mark Reynolds, 2012 Bowman Gold #52

This card showed up in a package that just arrived from across the Atlantic Ocean, courtesy of Jack Plumstead of The Pursuit of 80's(ness). We haven't traded in a few years, so it was nice to hear from him...even if I do hope that my Orioles trounce his Red Sox in the three-game series that just got underway an hour ago. It would be especially nice if Mark Reynolds could reverse his near-season-long struggles and crank out a few home runs against Boston pitching. Although this photo appears to have been taken at a Grapefruit League game in Sarasota, it's nice to see an Esskay sign making its blurry presence felt in the background. As a true O's fan, naturally I buy only Esskay chicken and pork franks. Whenever I check the receipt from the Food Lion, I always get a chuckle: the shorthand from the scanner reads "Oriole Meat Franks". I choose to believe that no Baltimore Orioles have been harmed in the production of my wieners, but if they have, they are quite delicious.

Mark Reynolds, 2011 Topps Gypsy Queen #231

Hey, an Oriole is the best at something! As reported by Lewie Pollis at Beyond the Boxscore, Mark Reynolds had the highest power factor in the major leagues in 2011. Great! So what's power factor? It's just extra bases per hit: subtract the player's hits from his total bases and divide the result by his hits. It's a slightly more reliable measure than slugging percentage, in that it doesn't penalize sluggers who make less contact overall. As Pollis points out, somebody who went 1-for-4 with a home run would have the same slugging percentage as a player who went 4-for-4 with all singles. Reynolds, who had 27 doubles, a triple, and 37 home runs, totaled 65 extra-base hits of his 118 total hits. That's 258 total bases on 118 hits, giving him a power factor of 1.186. That's pretty far ahead of runner-up Curtis Granderson and his PF of 1.105, and nearly double the league median of .621. O's shortstop J.J. Hardy also cracked the top 25, slipping in at 23rd with a PF of .824. Of course their infield-mate Robert Andino had the ninth-worst number in baseball at .308, but who's counting?

Mark Reynolds, 2011 Topps Diamond #378

Yesterday I was finally able to get my hands on some long-overdue cards of the newer Orioles: Mark Reynolds, J. J. Hardy, Vladimir Guerrero. Sure, Reynolds is cheesily Photoshopped into an O's uniform here, with some telltale orange socks (the Birds wear black) and a Diamondbacks letter font on the back of his jersey. But this shiny parallel card is just so mesmerizing that I'm willing to forgive it. As it stands, Mark has given the Orioles just about what they should have expected: low average (.222), lots of strikeouts (a league-leading and team-record 190), a fair amount of walks (72), and a metric ton of home runs (37). With three games left to play, Reynolds has already hit the most homers by an Oriole since Albert Belle left the yard 37 times in 1999. It's part of a group effort that has seen Baltimore hitters swat 186 home runs, fourth-most in the American League and 51 more than their tenth-ranked total in 2010. It's not always fun watching this team, but it's rarely dull watching Mark Reynolds play.