Orioles’ lefty Cade Povich stands to benefit greatly from this most recent scoring change from MLB

On Sunday afternoon, the Orioles lost to the Royals in brutal fashion.

A three-run first inning, given up in large part due to an outfield mistake by Jorge Mateo, was all the juice the Royals needed to fend off the O’s and capture a series victory.

The mistake itself was the cause of a surge of frustration from the Orioles fanbase.

Mateo, who typically plays in the infield, had been tasked with manning center field in order to give Cedric Mullins a day off.

The Orioles are a man short with Colton Cowser on the IL, and have few good options behind Mullins to handle duties in center in the interim.

The play itself was a routine fly ball, where Mateo ranged back to his left. He lost track of the ball and whiffed on the catch, allowing Royals’ shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. to reach third base.

At the time, the play was ruled a triple by the official scorers in Kansas City, which makes sense as these things are mostly subjective and they want to boost Witt’s stats as much as possible.

However, for anyone watching it was a clear error by Mateo.

Orioles lefty Cade Povich benefits from MLB scoring change

Starter Cade Povich got the following batter to fly out, which should have been the end of the inning, had Mateo made the catch on Witt.

However, a pair of singles and a double later, and Povich was charged with 3 earned runs and the Orioles gave up a lead that they’d never reclaim.

The hits are all on Povich, of course.

However, MLB has come out and corrected the call on the Mateo play, changing the official scoring from a triple to a three-base error for Witt.

So, not only will Povich benefit from Witt scoring, but because the inning should have ended, Povich won’t be responsible for any of the three runs that scored that inning.

As a result of the changes, Povich still has 7 runs allowed on the year, but now just 4 of them will be earned. That’ll drop his ERA on the year from 6.10 to a much more palatable 3.49.

That’s a huge difference.

Whether it comes with a confidence boost for Povich remains unclear, as the scoring change certainly won’t alter the result of the game.

It’ll still go down as a loss for the O’s.

But for those of us watching, it does make a difference. Hopefully the error will cause Brandon Hyde to think twice about playing Mateo in center again, as well.