This 2022 season of Orioles baseball has been nothing short of magical. The team has exceeded any and all expectations that even the most optimistic of fans could have laid out. A team that has failed to win more than 54 games in any season since the start of 2018 is 56-52 and two games out of a playoff spot on August 7th.
Nobody could possibly be upset with what has transpired to this point in the season. When this magical run comes to end, this season will go down as one of the best of my lifetime, playoffs or not. It is finally fun to be an Orioles fan again.
So then why have I been on a Twitter rampage for the last week or so? Admittedly, I might be short-changing how long I’ve been hitting “Send” on critical tweets. Depending on who you ask, some would say I’ve been at it for years. But I digress.
I’ve been asked many times why I can’t just be happy with how this season has played out to this point. And therein lies the misunderstanding that has made me want to write just my second article since March 2020.
I am not unhappy with this team. I am downright giddy about where this team is and for what lies ahead. Having said that, being happy and being satisfied are two different things. I am not satisfied with the Orioles simply being relevant again. I want more, and so do many others. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
I am just shy of my 38th birthday. The Orioles last won a World Series almost a full calendar year before I was born. In my lifetime, they have posted just 13 winning seasons and made the playoffs a grand total of five times, one of which was a Wild Card Game loss to the division rival Toronto Blue Jays. One game, but it still counts as the playoffs.
When I see the team that was my very first love as a child flirting with just their sixth postseason berth in my lifetime, I start salivating. I want the playoffs. I need the playoffs. Give. Me. The playoffs. It is because of this desire to see a winner for the first time in my life that my passion comes out in hyper-critical tweets. I’m sure you didn’t need seven paragraphs to figure that out if you follow me. But again, if the Orioles don’t make the playoffs, that does not mean that this season isn’t a wild success. So let’s dig a little deeper into this, because 240 characters on social media has not been enough for me to get my point across.
Yes, the Orioles have played well enough for long enough this year that we can no longer call this a fluke. The Orioles are good. But how good are they?
Through 20 games, the Orioles were 6-14. Since that game on April 29th, they have gone 50-38. That’s a 92-win pace for more than half of a season. No fluke.
When Adley Rutschman was called up on May 21st, the Orioles lost to Tampa Bay 6-1 to fall to 16-25. Since that date, they have gone 40-27. That’s a 97-win pace over the course of more than a third of the season. Again, no fluke.
And when they dropped to 24-35 after a June 10th loss in Kansas City, they began a 32-17 stretch over the next 49 games. That is a 106-win pace over just under a third of a season’s worth of games. There is a trend here. They have only gotten better as the season has gone on.
Now, if we look closer at those significant stretches of good baseball to see how the Orioles fared against teams that had winning records at the time they played, the numbers are still okay, all things considered, but not quite as fruitful.
Since the Orioles’ loss on April 29th, they are 18-19 against teams at or above .500. Since the loss in Rutschman’s debut, they are 12-12 vs. those teams, and since June 11th when they entered the day a season-high 11 games below .500, they are 10-10 vs. those teams.
Yes, the argument can be made that if you play .500 ball against the good teams and beat up on the bad teams, that’s really all you need to make it to the playoffs. And it’s a fair argument. Except for the fact that the Orioles’ schedule is extremely backloaded.
There is exactly one third of the season left as I am writing this article; 54 games. Of those 54 games, 34 are against teams that currently have a .500 record or better. And there are another 11 against Boston, who aren’t going to lie down for anybody, especially not a division rival that is keeping them in the cellar.
I do believe the Orioles can play at least .500 ball the rest of the season, which would give them 83 wins. Unfortunately, I don’t believe .500 ball the rest of the way gets them into the playoffs. So let’s break the schedule down further.
Even though the Orioles are 27-35 against teams at .500 or better, let’s assume that the trend of more than a half-season’s worth of games continues and they split those 34 games, going 17-17. Then assume the Orioles continue their season record against Boston and go 7-4 in the final 11 matchups. That’s 24-21. That leaves nine games against teams with losing records, against whom the Orioles are currently 29-17. That gives you a 6-3 record in those nine games, which puts you at 30-24 the rest of the way this year, and 86-76 for the season.
Since the Wild Card came into existence in 1995, eight teams have made the playoffs while recording 86 wins or fewer, but only twice since 2012 when a second Wild Card team was added, the most recent being the 85-win 2017 Minnesota Twins. This year, however, MLB added a third Wild Card team, giving the Orioles a better chance.
So how does the Orioles’ schedule match up with the three teams ahead of them in the Wild Card race: Toronto, Tampa Bay, and Seattle?
Toronto, just like the Orioles, has 34 games against teams at or above .500 remaining, including 15 with Baltimore, plus another six against Boston. Tampa bay has 32 games remaining against those teams, including three with Baltimore, plus nine with Boston. Seattle has the easiest schedule remaining with just 18 games remaining against teams at .500 or better.
Which leads me to my overall point with this article. I know I have been ruffling some feathers with my critical tweets. I get that when your team is playing its best baseball in five years, it can be aggravating to see somebody constantly tweeting out negativity. And I am sorry for that. I truly am. But it is because the playoffs are so close I can taste it, and so I want the Orioles to put their best foot forward.
Last week, Mike Elias traded away his longest tenured Oriole, 1B/OF/DH Trey Mancini, and the team’s lone All-Star representative in closer Jorge Lopez. I was on board with both moves for various reasons that are best suited for another article. He also traded for light-hitting OF Brett Phillips, a head-scratcher of a move considering there were already five outfielders on the active roster, plus left handed slugger Kyle Stowers knocking on the door at Triple-A.
After the trades, Elias said he has to work in probabilities, and while the Orioles are in the Wild Card picture, it’s a high probability that they don’t get it; probably not the smartest public statement Elias has made during his tenure. He then flew to Texas to meet with his team leaders, like Austin Hays, Cedric Mullins, and others to reportedly explain the trades he made. In my opinion, the trip to Texas was as much about damage control after his foolhardy comments as anything else.
After the meeting with his players, Elias said things to reporters like, “…this is a team that is going to have to be reckoned with now, and from this point forward, in our division,” and “I think we’re right there. I think it’s liftoff from here for this team.”
As great as it was to read those statements, one that stood out to me was when he said, “there’s a lot of help coming from the minor leagues, and it’s going to start this year. And we’re just to going to keep adding from this point forward.”
That statement made me, and probably many others, think that guys like Stowers, Jordan Westburg, and maybe even Gunnar Henderson were on their way to Baltimore imminently. Yet, every game this past week Rougned Odor and Phillips found their way into the box score, whether in the starting lineup or pinch hitting.
The Orioles, at 56-52 and two games out of a playoff spot, are the only team in all of baseball with three players on their active roster batting below .200 with at least 100 at-bats. What’s more is that those three players—Odor, Phillips, and Robinson Chirinos—actually all have 150+ at-bats this season.
And while the Orioles have rostered Odor and Chirinos all season, they also no longer have Mancini in their lineup. Plus, Ryan Mountcastle hasn’t homered in over a month, and Austin Hays is banged up and slashing just .197/.252/.316/.568 with two HRs and seven RBI since hitting for the cycle on June 23rd. The addition of Phillips does next-to-nothing to combat that loss of production, and if anything, only makes it more glaring.
Actions speak louder than words, and Elias rostering Odor and Phillips speaks very loudly and in the same tone as his statement about playoff probability at the deadline. The time is now to supplement the talent on the team with those knocking on the door down at Norfolk. The time is now to see what Stowers and Westburg/Henderson can do.
The Blue Jays, Rays, and Mariners aren’t fielding sub-par lineups with the playoffs on the line, so why are the Orioles? Just because you’re ahead of schedule, just because you’re not likely to win the World Series this year, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. That’s not to say that they aren’t trying, but boy is it hard to justify when sub-standard players are suiting up for you every day.
I understand that calling up Westburg or Henderson to play every day doesn’t just mean designating Odor for assignment. It also means potentially taking playing time away from Ramon Urias and Terrin Vavra. And if you call up Stowers with one of those two, it makes it that much more difficult because now you’re certainly taking playing time away from Urias and Vavra as Hays, Mullins, and Anthony Santander are everyday players and Stowers would be brought up to play every day as well.
It’s exciting to be an Orioles fan again. The stadium is filling back up, the Birds are competitive day-in and day-out. No matter what happens from here, this season will be etched in our memories forever. These are the hard decisions that winning ball clubs have to make. And make no mistake about it, the Orioles are a winning ball club again.
It’s time for the people running the team to start acting like it.
Be sure to listen in as Ryan Blake and I get Give That Fan a Podcast back up and running in earnest!
