The Orioles continue to dazzle Baltimore and the sports world with late inning heroics, huge come from behind wins, and stellar performances up and down the lineup.
It is clear that last year’s success was no “fluke,” and it should come as no surprise that O’s find themselves only two games out of first place of the AL East – especially when you look at the biggest difference between 2012 and 2013, and the reason why this team is even better than the last:
Batting Average with Runners in Scoring Position.
All last year, it seemed like the Orioles could not come up with the clutch hits, on an inning-to-inning basis, to plate runners and win more ball games. This was evidenced by the low run differential (+7) and silent bats during the postseason (.195 BA).
The 2012 Orioles batted only .256 w/RISP. Pushing across those runs when they are out there is huge in order to be successful. Leaving runners on base has to be one of the most frustrating things for a ball club, especially when those runs could have been the difference.
The 2012 Birds were even worse when they had two outs and ducks on the pond, batting only .229 with two outs & RISP.
Getting those clutch hits, especially with two outs, is what separates studs and duds, contenders and pretenders, and that is exactly what Buck’s boys are doing this season.
So far this season, the Birds are batting .289 w/RISP and have scored the third most runs in MLB (+30 run differential). Even more impressive is that even with two outs & RISP, the Orioles are batting .280.
At the beginning of the season it seemed like the Orioles could only score runs when there were two outs.
Chris Davis, Nick Markakis, Manny Machado, and Adam Jones are all batting over .300 when they have runners in scoring position and two outs. Jones in particular is batting .500, showing why he is considered one of the leaders on this team.
Timely hitting is huge if you want to be contender throughout the season and into the postseason. You can’t win games without scoring runs, and leaving runners on is killer.
Scoring more runs will also tremendously help the Orioles rotation, since they don’t quite have the fire power to throw shutouts left and right; it will give the pitchers a cushion and take a little of the pressure off.
If the Orioles can continue to come up with the big hits when they need them, then not only will they continue to win, they will have the bats to make a deep postseason run – something that couldn’t be said last year.
