At this point, the Orioles 2022 season is over, and they were in it until October. After fighting hard against the Yankees and winning game one in the Bronx on Friday, it didn’t matter in the end. The Mariners walked off the Athletics to end their twenty-one-year playoff drought, which also finished the Orioles. Despite the team fighting hard, a pitiful September buried them.
What is interesting is that despite losing out on the playoffs, they did do something that hasn’t been accomplished in over 100 years: have a winning season the year after losing 100 games. Finishing above .500 was the only thing that mattered to me after the way they played in September and they got there.
The bottom line is that a bad September and missing the playoffs should not get in the way of what has been a fun and historic year for this franchise. It can be easy to do this (I have done this as well with my rants about the offense and Hyde), but it is also much harder to look at this year in perspective.
This team is not perfect, far from it, and sometimes their manager makes a bone-headed decision that will make you rip your hair out, but these issues can’t distract you from how much fun this team was to watch.
So today will be about saluting the 2022 Orioles, a young hungry team that no one believed in, that yet found a way to get the job done more than anyone predicted.
When fans think back to the 2022 season in review and think about the fine details of what made this team so fun, it is important to remember just how much the baseball world itself and pure luck was against this team this year.
Let’s start with what all thirty teams had to deal with, an abridged spring training that meant that teams had to prepare for a full 162-game season on a shortened schedule with little to no notice out of the lockout. Even when spring training kicked into gear that little bit of luck that every team needs just wouldn’t swing the Orioles’ way. They lost Adley Rutschman and Heston Kjerstad the same day for an extended amount of time and had to wait for them both to ramp-up again. Another hit came when they lost John Means to Tommy John Surgery in April.
But wait it gets better…the Orioles then got the worst news possible at the start of June when they had to shut down Grayson Rodriguez.
So for those of you who are keeping score at home, the Orioles had to overcome the loss of a generational talent at catcher, a top-two pick, their ace from last season, and their future ace and number one pitching prospect. Every team deals with injuries but the Orioles just could not catch a break this year and this isn’t even considering smaller injuries to guys like Dean Kremer, Tyler Wells, and Kyle Bradish.
Sprinkle in some pitching prospects’ injuries and you have a recipe for disaster that could have seen the season blow up in the O’s face.
Yet through all these issues, they still clinched a winning season and contended for the wild card all season.
With all these injuries working against the Orioles it isn’t surprising they got off to a bad start, but every fan knows when the tide started to change for the better.
May 21st, 2022, the day so many fans were waiting for finally happened. After waiting through weeks of rehab, Rutschman finally made his debut and this team just wasn’t the same. Even through some offensive struggles at the start, Adley was everything as advertised this year. When you have such a good season that the WAR he puts up is in line with Hall of Famers, yeah that will work. It is a shame he won’t win the Rookie of the Year Award because he missed so much time at the beginning of the season. Adley will happily settle for the Most Valuable Oriole Award though and is still only 24. He completely flipped the script for both the offense and especially the pitching.
Speaking of the pitching, it was nothing short of magical this year. This rotation was filled with pitchers who had a bad history and ERAs approaching the tens, yet they made it work. Every pitcher in that rotation deserves credit including guys like Spencer Watkins and Austin Voth, who clearly outdid themselves this year. Obviously we can’t go a second further without mentioning Chris Holt, the Orioles pitching coach. Pitchers have to perform, but it would not be possible without the correct guidance.
What is the most exciting part is that the young pitchers, Kremer, Bradish, and Wells performed so well that for the first time in countless years, there is confidence in these guys to perform going forward into next season and beyond.
Also shoutout to Jordan Lyles, whose hunger for innings helped save this team a couple of times and was a welcome personality on this team.
Salute to the 2022 Orioles staff for performing this well without GrayRod or John Means.
The main stars that shined the brightest though, were in the bullpen. They were rock solid all year and rarely had a moment of weakness. They were led by guys who had little to no previous success in the big leagues or were unknown assets. Guys like Cionel Perez, Dillon Tate, Felix Bautista, and in the first half Jorge Lopez were shut down nearly the whole year and they allowed the team to shine. While pieces like Joey Krehbiel and Bryan Baker could get on your last nerves at points, the rest of the bullpen was so good that it didn’t matter if two of the other pieces struggled.
If the 2022 Orioles had a huge flaw, it was the offense. Throughout the year they really could never have one huge stretch where they could be considered great. There were moments for sure, but nothing truly consistent. This was due to players going into slumps at the worst time possible and a lack of talent. It seemed like when a slumping player would break out of it, another important piece would just go into a worse slump. Guys like Cedric Mullins, Ryan Mountcastle, and especially second half Austin Hays were the main culprits.
Of course not even to mention the severe lack of talent with Rougned Odor getting consistent starts and seeing Robinson Chirinos get nearly every Sunday start doesn’t help this at all.
They did get an infusion of young talent in September with Gunnar Henderson making his long awaited debut and with Kyle Stowers and Terrin Vavra getting more starts.
Included in this is Santander’s hot second half and Adley being himself to help the offense.
Unfortunately this help wasn’t enough and they finished with a well below-average offense. The constant slumping by players and clear lack of talent was just too much to overcome.
Despite falling short at the end, the season was obviously a success. Going from 100 losses to finishing above .500 is a huge win for this organization and everyone deserves some credit.
This fun season makes the 2023 Orioles all that more exciting. Especially after Mike Elias’s “liftoff” comments after the trade deadline. Whether or not he actually does make big moves is to be determined, but he has lived up to his word this far.
Imagine an Orioles rotation with the young pitchers healthy with GrayRod and another good pitcher in the mix. Imagine an offense without the lack of talent and slumping bats with a couple of additions either through free agency or trades. It is easy to dream about the 2023 Orioles, but there is a time and place for that.
For now let’s close the chapter on the 2022 Orioles. They were a young scrappy team that fought through the toughest adversity and luck to do something that hasn’t been done since the 1900s. That is special and needs to be congratulated.
This is only the beginning Orioles fans, the 2022 season is only the first chapter in a book that is still to be written and its author is a man that deserves to be trusted.
This team had so much swagger about it from home run chains to creating chaos and firing the fans up, this season is one that we should hold dear in our hearts.
So I salute you 2022 Orioles and thank you for being the sun that shines through this dark cloud of a rebuild and here’s to brighter days ahead.
Thank you 2022 Orioles and the chaos and fun you created.
