Wow, what a week for this team. The Orioles have won six games in a row, currently sit 14-7, have the second-best record in the American League, and are coming off a week where they didn’t lose a single game.
The vibes are very high right now in Birdland, and the O’s are pulling out some heart-pounding and fun wins. They had two walk-offs against the Tigers this weekend, neither coming on hits, and have gotten some insanely clutch pitching performances. This Orioles team is scrappy and hard to beat on a nightly basis.
Despite all the winning, this week was still a battle of the glass-half-full versus glass-half-empty crowds.
Do you take the excellent pitching and ignore who they faced, or worry about the lack of offense and think this unbelievable streak by the pitchers is all a facade due to poor competition?
It can be a bit of a double-edged sword looking at this team right now, so let’s wrap an action-packed and exciting week into five reactions.
The Starting Pitching was Flawless
This was obviously the most promising aspect of the past week. For the first several weeks, the offense was carrying the O’s while the pitching lagged. This week it was the pitchers who carried the load. In their last five starts, they only gave up one run and had a scoreless streak of 30 innings.
Orioles Starting Pitchers in the last 5 games:
31 IP
1 ER
19 H
8 BB
34 SOThe rotation is on fire right now and is the driving force of the team’s six-game winning streak. pic.twitter.com/1R0TUJ71R8
— OriolesMuse (@OriolesMuse) April 23, 2023
That is incredible, and yes, they played two bad teams with bad offenses, but who cares? You have to beat whoever is in front of you, and they pitched their butts off this week. The rotation isn’t going to do this all year, but they needed a week like this to build confidence.
Even when the pitchers didn’t have their best stuff, they battled and won.
It was a pleasure to watch this rotation this week. They deserve the lion’s share of the credit for the undefeated week.
Offensive Regression Cause for Concern?
From the biggest positive to the biggest negative:
The offense was great for the first few weeks, but now they have hit a bump in the road. They only scored fourteen runs over the past five games, and even that was a bit inflated by two games where they scored four and five runs.
The scores during their six-game winning streak: 8-4, 1-0, 4-0, 2-1, 5-1, 2-1
This can’t continue, so what happened to the offense? The simple answer is that Adley Rutschman and Ryan Mountcastle are slumping. Last week, I said that the team goes where Adley takes them. Well, take that and apply it to the offense.
Adley and Mountcastle slumping has tanked the offense, as nobody else has stepped up. Jorge Mateo missed games this week, Ramon Urias isn’t consistent, and while Anthony Santander has been a little better, he still isn’t really hitting either. Every time it looks like Gunnar Henderson is showing some life, he has another 0-fer.
The offense has got to be better, but for that to happen, they need guys like Austin Hays and Cedric Mullins to step up. Unfortunately, Hays is slumping, and Brandon Hyde won’t bat Mullins high in the order when a lefty is on the mound.
The problems with the offense boiled over on Sunday, as they were getting perfect gamed into the seventh until Mountcastle broke it up. They only scored that one pivotal run yesterday because of Mateo’s speed, and then their walk-off wasn’t even a hit; it was on a passed ball.
No doubt that the Birds’ offense is not just riding the struggle bus, they are driving it.
Cano Should be Here to Stay
We got some big news about the state of the bullpen this week, as we learned that Dillon Tate and Mychal Givens will start minor-league rehab assignments this week. While we don’t know how much time is needed for both to get fully ready, a problem is quickly approaching: too much bullpen talent. They need to make room for these two important arms, yet that decision gets harder by the day.
Everyone outside of three relievers are performing well.
But get one thing straight, Mike Elias: I don’t care if you have to release someone, I don’t care if you have to rename the bullpen, I don’t care if you have to move the wall back to 450 feet…Yennier Cano can’t be the one who gets sent down when Tate and Givens get back. Since his call-up, Cano has breathed new life into the back end. His stuff is filthy, he is commanding it, and he hasn’t allowed a run to score yet. He has been the definition of lock-down, and that’s while coming into vital and high-leverage spots. He is the perfect setup man for Félix Bautista right now.
The Orioles can’t send him down once everyone is healthy. They just can’t.
On the Other Hand, Perez…
While the majority of the ‘pen has been holding up their end of the bargain, one key member hasn’t. Cionel Perez was one of the most valuable pieces to the 2022 O’s. He came into every type of situation and shut the door on all of them. But with his impressive stats came signs of regression, as his advanced metrics said he got very lucky.
Well, that pendulum has swung the other way and hard, as Perez is probably the worst reliever out there at the moment. In only 8.2 innings, he has an ERA of 5.19, a WHIP of 2.65, and has given up 18 hits. Particularly scary, though, is that he has allowed 23 baserunners in those 8.2 innings. What makes this worse is that he has no remaining minor-league options. He would have to clear waivers to be sent down, and there is no way that’s happening.
So when Tate and Givens come back, what do you do? Perez and Austin Voth have been the worst relievers (and no, I still don’t understand why Hyde puts Voth in high-leverage situations), so they are the obvious candidates to get moved, but is that realistic? Kegan Akin does have an option, but that is only one spot. It can’t be someone like Cano or Michael Baumann, so it comes right back to Perez.
His time with the Orioles might be coming to a frustrating end.
All In All, a Very Good Week!
So how should we remember this week, then? Of course, in a positive light. These banked wins against poor teams all count the same at the end of the season.
Yes, the offense has got to step up with a much better Red Sox team coming into town but look at it this way: the Orioles stole two wins from Detroit this week, and they aren’t clicking right now. They have the second-best record in the American League, are seven games above .500., and again, aren’t hitting on all cylinders.
Imagine what this looks like when the hitters get hot again. Maybe a call-up or two happens soon to get some juice into this offense, and they go on another run.
They could struggle against the Red Sox this week, and going into Detroit, where offenses go to die, might not seem like the best path to get the hitters going, but right now, there is something about this team that screams “special.”
If they can win games where they get perfect gamed into the 7th inning with three of their worst relievers on the mound to complete a sweep, then this team can go places. How far will they go? Who knows, but right now, it is best to focus on the positives.
Thank you for reading, and come back next week when we are hopefully talking about a bunch more wins.
