It was yet another frustrating week of baseball for our Baltimore Orioles. They were walked off on ninth-inning home runs in two of the three games in New York against the very beatable Mets, both on pitches from trade deadline acquisition Seranthony Dominguez, who’d theretofore been quite reliable. Then, their ostensible ace Corbin Burnes was beat like a drum for the second straight outing, and though they managed a four-game split with the Houston Astros, they again failed to string together three consecutive wins for the first time since late June, they totaled just 20 hits over the set, and they’re now 1.5 games back of the New York Yankees in the American League East.
The O’s are just 11-12 in the month of August, continuing their run of ~.500 baseball that now extends nearly three full months.
Were it not for their scorching April and May, the O’s would certainly be on the outside looking in of the American League playoff picture. Fortunately for us, those games count as well, and as a result of their great start, the Orioles are still six games up of the Boston Red Sox in the loss column for the final berth.
But is there any reason to believe they can reverse their fortunes here over the final days of August and through September? As we’ve seen, all it takes is to get in to the tournament and be the hot team at the right time. Neither the Texas Rangers nor Arizona Diamondbacks looked like “true” World Series contenders at this point in 2023, and yet there they both were, facing off in the fall classic.
And so, as disappointing as things have been here in Birdland ever since that fateful evening Gunnar Henderson donned the Lego cleats on Sunday Night Baseball, we need to take the long view.
Burnes will certainly turn things around. He’s too good, and his track record too extensive and impressive to believe otherwise. He may not return to his pre-ASB Cy Young form, but if the remainder of his starts down the stretch are of the “quality” variety, that’s a big improvement right there. The returns of at least a couple injured players such as Grayson Rodriguez, Danny Coulombe, Jordan Westburg, and Jacob Webb should be out there on the horizon somewhere.
So there’s certainly no reason for Baltimore to fully turn the page to football season long before the leaves start to change color, as we became accustomed during the dark years.
For this piece, specifically, I’d like to talk about reasons for optimism on offense.
The Birds’ bats have been absolutely dismal; there’s no denying it. As mentioned above, just 20 hits in the four games against Houston, including a season-low two on Sunday Night Baseball. It was a similar story in the preceding two series against the Sawx and Mets, with hit totals following the 10-run, 17-hit loss (ugh) on Friday the 16th of 5, 3, 6, 11, and 3 again. The power surge of early summer seems a distant memory. Pushing runs across the plate has been quite the uphill slog, and would be even worse without the surprise contributions of players like Ramon Urias, whose three-run blast was all the scoring the team managed last night, and Emmanuel Rivera, who’s drawn three walks in two starts (guess the Birds’ seven hitting coaches haven’t gotten to him yet).
So, why should we look on the bright side? Is there even one?
The BABIP dragon has been a big culprit this week. Since Saturday August 17, the Orioles have a team batting average on balls in play of a ridiculous .192. That’s 16 points lower than MLB’s second-worst team, and nearly 100 points less than the league median team over that time, which is at .286. Of the 12 Birds with at least 10 plate appearances since 8/17, 10 have BABIPs below league median, and well below their career numbers.
That’s some rotten damn luck right there!
And it isn’t like they’ve only been hitting nubbers (though I know it may seem that way to those of us who’ve watched). Last night, for instance, the Birds had six of the top 10 exit velocities of the game. Those balls went for:
GIDP
Groundout
Single
Lineout
Home Run
Flyout
So the Orioles were 2-for-6 on balls hit over 100 MPH. Houston? 4-for-5.
Statcast defines a “hard-hit ball” as one with an exit velocity of over 95 MPH. In 2023, hard-hit balls had a batting average of .506 (source). In the seven games against the Mets and ‘Stros, the Orioles had 70 hard-hit balls, producing just 21 hits, for an average of .300. Over .200 points lower than expected!
Whining about luck is lame; I get it. But in baseball, all a player can do is hit the ball hard. The rest is up to the baseball gods. Those baseball gods have been smiting the O’s relentlessly lately.
Even if the batted ball luck isn’t, one thing working in our favor is the fact that BABIP is the kind of thing that can turn around on a dime. Here’s to the Birds’ September luck making up for this rotten stretch of slamming baseballs directly at well-positioned fielders.
stats via FanGraphs & Baseball Savant
