Mountcastle's next gig: Guest singer for All Time Low?

This story was excerpted from Jake Rill’s Orioles Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

Ryan Mountcastle -- Orioles first baseman, MLB’s RBI leader and co-home run leader (entering Saturday) and ... future guest singer for alternative rock band _All Time Low_?

Many O’s fans saw Mountcastle show off his vocals in a TikTok posted by the team during Spring Training. The 26-year-old belted out the opening lines of “Dear Maria, Count Me In” by All Time Low after he was asked to name his favorite karaoke song by teammates Adley Rutschman and Kyle Stowers, the club’s “social correspondents” during its sixth annual “Athletes & Artists Play for Kids” charity event weekend in Sarasota, Fla., in mid-March.

Dear Mountcastle, count them in.

“He’s gunning for my job, to be honest,” said Alex Gaskarth, the lead singer of All Time Low who noted he’s had at least 30 people reach out to him sharing the clip of Mountcastle. “I’ve got to start learning to play baseball so we can switch it up.”

Jack Barakat, the lead guitarist for All Time Low -- which formed in Towson, Md., in 2003 -- is already planting the seeds in Mountcastle’s head. That happened earlier this week, when the two met for the first time prior to the Orioles game vs. the A’s on Wednesday at Camden Yards.

On Tuesday night, Mountcastle tied a Baltimore record against the A’s by collecting nine RBIs, matching the mark held by Hall of Famer Eddie Murray (Aug. 26, 1985) and Jim Gentile (May 9, 1961). During that game, the team made an Instagram post with the caption, “Dear Mounty, count us in.”

That sparked an idea for Barakat, who was on a train from New York to Baltimore at the time. The 34-year-old longtime Orioles fan hadn’t been to a game in a while. So he decided it was time to return to Camden Yards, acquiring tickets for Wednesday night and using a connection to set up a meeting with Mountcastle, which occurred in front of the first-base dugout after batting practice.

Of course, Mountcastle’s TikTok performance came up.

“I was like, ‘Yo dude, you’ve got to come out and do it on stage with us,’” Barakat said. “And he was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know about that.’”

It was a special moment for Mountcastle, who grew up listening to alternative rock music during his formative years in central Florida, long before he was selected by the Orioles in the first round of the 2015 MLB Draft. When he became a fan of All Time Low, he was unaware of the band’s ties to Maryland, where Gaskarth, Barakat, drummer Rian Dawson and bassist Zack Merrick all grew up.

“[Barakat] was a super cool dude,” Mountcastle said. “Big fan of his and All Time Low. So sick. Pretty cool experience for me, for sure.”

Likewise for Barakat, who has been attending games at Camden Yards since he was a kid in the mid-to-late 1990s.

“Getting that mutual respect back that I share for him and the O’s was a really cool experience, and he seems like a legitimate fan of the band,” Barakat said. “He seemed like he was legitimately excited to meet me, and that was a really cool experience.”

Not only does Mountcastle enjoy All Time Low’s music, but he’s using “Dear Maria, Count Me In” as his walk-up song this season. He likes the tune and enjoyed the fan response to the spring TikTok, so he decided to go with it.

Barakat can recall hearing the band’s song “Monsters” played at the ballpark in between innings in the past. Gaskarth got to perform the national anthem before an Orioles game in 2015. But neither can remember having a player choose to walk to up to their music.

“That is the most flattering and the coolest part,” Gaskarth said. “If that’s the thing that you want to go out and get fired up while having it play, the fact that he went with that is very cool for us.”

Gaskarth and Barakat both plan to get to more games at Camden Yards this season. They said there have even been preliminary talks about having the All Time Low members throw out a first pitch.

If that happens, expect them to continue their pitch to Mountcastle.

“I know he turned down my offer to have him sing on stage, but honestly, he definitely could do the intro,” Barakat said. “Like just listening to him sing it, I was like, ‘Oh, he could definitely do this.’ So we’re definitely going to stay on him about that.”