What a wild and disappointing week for the Orioles. As high as the vibes felt after the first week of games, that’s how low they feel after back-to-back walk-off losses in Pittsburgh.
The team let itself down in consecutive games, and the O’s now sit at 5-4. It’s not a terrible record, and the 2023 team had the same record, but we all just feel this squad could be so much better. There may be a silver lining in that: this is a good team that will get better, especially with some call-ups coming over the next few months, but they were a disappointment in the Steel City.
On the one hand, you could say they didn’t deserve to take two of three against KC, while on the other, they could have easily swept the Pirates.
We have a lot to get to, so let’s get into it.
Offense Disappears
This is the main issue with this team right now. Everyone before the season talked about how deep the O’s Offense was and how the pitching is what would potentially hold them back.
Funny how that works.
In actuality, since the first two games, the Birds’ bats have been a massive disappointment. They scored 24 runs in their first two games, and they have 23 in seven games since. The two walk-off wins helped the win column, but even in those games, they struggled.
The at-bats seem to be getting worse (no walks Sunday), and noone can seem to get that timely knock (0-for-14 w/RISP on Saturday) to spur the offense. It doesn’t help that Austin Hays, Cedric Mullins, and Ramon Urias haven’t hit at all this year, but where is the power from Adley Rutschman? Where was Anthony Santander this weekend?
The only guys holding up their end of the bargain are the Ryans, Mountcastle and O’Hearn (when he plays).
Maybe it’s the platooning. Maybe it’s the weather. Whatever it is, it needs to get fixed, and quick.
Soft-Tossing Lefties Still O’s Kryptonite
That is a perfect segue way into the next topic, because the problem is clear: soft-tossing lefties. Two of them stymied the Birds in Pittsburgh, and going back to the KC series, righty Michael Wacha has reverse splits, so he might as well be left-handed.
This has been an issue for a while now, and no one on the Orioles can figure it out. It is understandable on some level because the best hitters on the team are left-handed, and Adley and Tony switch to the weaker right-handed version of themselves. Let’s sprinkle in the fact that Mullins can’t lefties either, and the team’s other right-handed starters are Jordan Westburg, Jorge Mateo, Urias, and especially Hays, who has been getting roasted this week, who all are struggling. It starts to make sense.
So let’s do the math: if Gunnar Henderson and Mullins can’t hit lefties, and Adley and Santander are weaker against them, that means that others are going to have to help out, and the call remains unanswered.
The only solution is for Gunnar, Adley, and Tony to step up against lefties, while those other role players to do their job.
Prospect Call-Ups Won’t Fix Everything
This also flows into my next point: even if, by some miracle, Mike Elias on the off-day makes a bunch of changes to the roster that fans want, including calling up Jackson Holliday and Heston Kjerstad, getting rid of Urias and Hays, and giving those spots to a mix of Colton Cowser, Heston, and Holliday, it still wouldn’t fix the more significant issue.
Rookies struggle early on, and expecting all these new pieces to come in and tear up major-league pitching is just wishful thinking. The rookies have more upside, and maybe they are better players than the ones we have now, but this doesn’t go away once the kids are up.
If the problem is to be fixed, then Gunnar needs to be the superstar that he is, Adley needs to tap into his power, and Tony needs to join Mountcastle in being a threatening middle-of-the-order bat. There will be a day when the kids are called up, but to expect that everything changes immediately once they get up here is just wrong.
The top three have to figure it out, or it won’t matter.
Sorry, Pitchers
What is sad about this week is that, lost in all the struggles with the offense, is that the starting pitching was awesome.
Grayson Rodriguez and Corbin Burnes are a deadly top two, and Grayson looks every bit like the guy who was promised to the fanbase. How about Dean Kremer, though? On Sunday, he looked fantastic, but the team let him down. Tyler Wells hasn’t looked perfect, and Cole Irvin is who he is now, but it is tough for these guys. They weren’t dominant by any stretch, but they gave the team a chance to win…if only they could hit their way out of a wet paper bag.
It’s still fair to dream about a rotation with Grayson, Burnes, Dean, Kyle Bradish and John Means before long.
This could be something special. It’s a bummer that, so far, the offense has hidden how good these guys have been.
A Lesson in the Madness
Here is the lesson in all of this: these aren’t the 2023 O’s anymore. Maybe in another dimension where Felix Bautista is healthy, they win the series or even sweep the Pirates. That series just had the vibe of a series from 2023, didn’t it? It almost felt similar to the Blue Jays series in May last year. The problem is that Felix isn’t walking out of those bullpen doors this year; the back end is weaker than previous years, so the difference has to be made up somewhere.
That difference has to come from the lineup. The Orioles can’t win close games as consistently as they could last year, so the bottom line is that they need to score more runs.
Despite the bad vibes, things will undoubtedly get better. We still have to get the kids up, and moves will eventually be made to help iron some of the bullpen issues. For now, this team needs to find itself.
Unfortunately, they get to do so against a Red Sox pitching staff that’s on fire. Improvements might still be a bit off in the distance. Things will get better, but when that happens remains TBD.
