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Baltimre Riles: Where’s the O?

Mark Trumbo of the Orioles holds his bat horizontally and looks dismayed.
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The final result of a chaotic series at Oriole Park at Camden Yards over the weekend was that the Orioles won two of three games over the Boston Red Sox and have yet to lose a single series three weeks into the 2017 season. Yet all anybody can talk about is what happened between Manny Machado, Dustin Pedroia, Matt Barnes, and the rest of the actors in that unseemly play.

Therein lies the problem. What we should be talking about, at least in Baltimore, is the play on the field.

Now don’t get me wrong: there is a lot to be happy about in Birdland. When all is said and done, the Orioles still have the best record in the American League at 12-5. Their starting rotation, despite Kevin Gausman‘s early struggles, ranks fourth the AL with a 3.50 ERA–a massive surprise considering the rotation was supposed to be the weak point on this team. But with all the ruckus going on this weekend, it has been easy to overlook the fact that the Orioles simply are not hitting, and thus not scoring.

A week ago Sunday, the Orioles rattled off 11 runs on 15 hits, including four home runs en route to a decisive 11-4 victory over the Happ-less (pun intended) Toronto Blue Jays. Since then, the Orioles have scored just 15 runs on 43 hits while hitting just five home runs in six games, failing to score more than three runs in five of those contests. That’s a 2.5 runs/gm average, and a team batting average of just .219.

Mark Trumbo, the Major’s home run champion in 2016, hasn’t homered since Opening Day and is batting just .227. Manny Machado, a perennial MVP candidate, is batting just .206. Chris Davis, who has averaged 99 RBI in his five seasons in Baltimore, has just four through 17 games.

These are your daily 3-4-5 hitters, ladies and gentlemen.

As a team, the club is batting just .243 and ranks last in walks, 12th in runs, and 11th in OBP while scoring three runs or fewer in 11 of 17 games. This is the type of production (or lack thereof) that saw the Orioles fall out of first place in 2016 and almost miss the playoffs. In fact, the trend of scoring three runs or fewer is a disturbing one.

In 2016, the Orioles scored three runs or fewer 72 times, going 19-53 in those 72 games. That means they went 70-20 in games in which they scored four runs or more. That’s 50 games above .500 if the Orioles simply score four or more runs.

There’s no doubt that the Orioles bats are going to wake up sooner or later. These guys just have too good of a track record. Still, the lack of offense to this point is disheartening and the weakness of this lineup against left-handed pitching is a serious cause for concern (last in the AL at .234 in 2016, 8th at .236 in 2017).

The bottom line is this: the Orioles are never going to be great at getting on base. Their offensive game plan is to bash as many home runs as possible and hope to bludgeon the opposition into submission. Everybody knows that power has many peaks and valleys, and the hope for the Orioles is that when the power hits one of those valleys, the pitching can make up for it, which it has to this point.

Still, much like the lineup has a proven track record, so does the starting rotation, only this track record isn’t nearly as good. There’s a reason the Orioles rotation was so heavily doubted coming into this season.

So what happens if the other shoe drops?

Only time will tell.

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