The Orioles finished a frustrating opening series on Sunday as the Red Sox beat them 9-5. They are currently 1-2 and are having some issues early on. What were supposed to be flaws are now strengths, and what were supposed to be strengths are now flaws. It was an uneven series full of heartbreaks and frustrating outcomes with some positives and optimism sprinkled in. No, the O’s aren’t dead, they have plenty of time to fix the issues, and a 100 year-old ballpark might have had an impact on one of the aspects of the team.
Still, some scary things happened that need to be addressed early.
So here are five reactions from the first series.
Wow, What an Offensive Performance
The offense was the biggest issue with the 2022 version of this team. So many players had bad or unlucky seasons last year and they didn’t make big changes to the lineup, so expecting huge improvements wasn’t smart. The Red Sox pitching stinks but, the offense was awesome this series. They scored 23 runs, had 38 hits, nine doubles, seven home runs, and drew fifteen walks.
Not enough for you? Well, how about this slash line: .339/.426/.607 with a 1.033 OPS. All of these stats rank at least top four with the majority ranking in the top three of the league.
Pretty much every player had a good series. Adley Rutschman looked awesome, Austin Hays and Cedric Mullins may be back, Anthony Santander looked good, and Ryan Mountcastle continues to kill baseballs. Even if Gunnar Henderson didn’t get a hit he has six walks and an OBP of .429. How can we go any further without mentioning Adam Frazier who leads the league in OPS currently and has three doubles and a home run.
Yes, the Red Sox have no pitching, but this is the thing to hold onto if optimism is needed. What a start for the bats.
The New Rules Were Made Just for the Orioles
While the bats stole the show, the O’s baserunning wasn’t far behind. It got so bad that the Boston catchers didn’t even throw to second on attempted steals most of the time. The O’s have ten stolen bases already and Boston just didn’t look like they cared. Jorge Mateo has four, and Mullins has three right now. These new rules just seem like they were made for players like them, and Boston had no answers for it.
How much of this was the Boston pitchers just trying to focus on the hitters? Honestly, who knows, but man was it exciting watching them run wild.
What Happened to the Defense?
Enough positivity…let’s get into the ugly. This defense was abysmal. The five errors don’t even begin to describe how bad it was. Cedric Mullins couldn’t track fly balls for some reason. Ryan McKenna cost the O’s a game, basically, the series. Mateo and Ramon Urias had throwing errors, Gunnar had a miscommunication with Terrin Vavra, Hays allowed a ground-rule double, after poorly tracking a ball, and Santander cost the O’s runs in the first games.
In each of the three games, there were at least three to four runs that were due to bad defense. This can’t continue, especially with a team that was built off defense last year. There is just no good excuse for it. Maybe Fenway, the sun, and the weather had something to do with it? The issue with that assessment is that Boston had no trouble with fielding fly balls so why did the Orioles?
This defense has got to shape up, because this can’t continue.
The Pitching Wasn’t THAT Bad
OK, now that you’re done laughing, stick with me: it is the truth. Despite having bad ERAs, the pitching wasn’t that bad in this series. They had no shot with this defense and that is a problem with pitchers who aren’t high strikeout guys and they rely on groundball and flyball outs. This isn’t a problem when your defense actually plays baseball, but when they don’t the ERAs are going to be high.
Kyle Gibson’s start got ruined by Santander, Cole Irvin got BABIP’d so bad that it is criminal. Cionel Perez had to deal with Austin Hays just not reading a flyball and allowing a ground-rule double. There is so much more, but the point has been made. No pitcher got it worse than Felix Bautista. Mateo nearly caused a meltdown in game 1 and McKenna sold him out in game 2. Bautista deserves an apology.
Dean Kremer, however, was awful in game 2. He got staked to a 7-1 lead and allowed four runs right afterward. You can’t do that as a starter. Bryan Baker was also shaky but overall the pitchers got the shortest of the short end of the stick.
No, they didn’t go deep, and yes, they allowed runs, but especially for Irvin and Gibson, what do you expect when the guys behind them are playing like the Bad News Bears?
Are Mullins and Hays back?
Enough negativity. Let’s end on a high note.
Two players who were looking for a bounce-back season might have found it. Hays and Mullins were both bad defensively, but they were awesome offensively. Mullins hit a huge home run against Chris Sale in game two that should have put the game out of reach and had another clutch homer against Tanner Houck in the finale. Hays hit a huge home run against Sale and added two doubles and a stolen base this series. Mullins had three stolen bases, as mentioned earlier. Mullins looks like his 2021 self and Hays looks like himself again. If they played better defense, this would be the biggest positivity about a potential sweep to open the season.
At the end of the day, we should be talking about a potential sweep or at the very least a positive series win. Instead, we are here sulking because the strength of the team was its biggest weakness. There are no excuses to be made for how badly they played defense. Maybe it was Fenway Park, or maybe it was because they didn’t have their coffee, but the Orioles have too many good defenders to play that badly. There is plenty of time left to fix this problem…but the problem shouldn’t need fixing. These are good defenders who just seemed to all have brain farts on the same weekend.
Here’s to getting it fixed, and quickly.
