He’s the Orioles home run and doubles leader, he’s hitting .317 this month, .471 this week and has a .356 on base percentage.  You’d think with those accolades, I would be talking about an Oriole who gets a little more credit than third baseman Mark Reynolds does, but I’m not.

The Sheriff of Swattingham became Baltimore’s home run leader last night, just one batter after Derrek Lee hit a three run bomb that gave the O’s a 4-0 lead.  The Sheriff’s homer traveled 440 feet out in left center and it gave the Orioles all the cushion they needed to take the series from Cincinnati.

If you’re disappointed in the Orioles acquisition of Mark Reynolds this season than you don’t know anything about Mark Reynolds.  In short, he’s going to hit home runs, drive guys in, strikeout and hitting a few ticks above .200.  His average is sitting at .227 after 74 games in 2011 at this point last year he was hitting .212.

Now for the good stuff on #orioles Mark Reynolds: He just hit a HR to take over the team lead with 14.less than a minute ago via web

The current criticism of Mark Reynolds is his high errors total so far this season.  Reynolds has 16 errors in 73 games at third this season, last year he played 142 at third and had 18.  His career high is 34 in 2008 and low is 11 in previous year.

What should the Orioles be hoping for out of Reynolds?  I would say around 30 home runs, an average above .200 defense that won’t lose games for them.  With his current season pace, Reynolds will hit just above 30 homers (30.68 to be exact) and finish above .200.  If his defense levels out then you certainly can’t complain.