The Orioles may be losing their way in 2013, just as they have become one of the best-represented clubs at the MLB All-Star Game. It was as if all the good feelings were there and the great possibilities, but suddenly the Orioles can’t seem to bloop a single with men on – or get men on for that matter – on days when their starting pitching is good, or get any decent starting pitching or back-end bullpen help on days when their hitting is on fire.
Sure, some O’s are playing sensationally well, including All-Star leading vote-getter Chris Davis, also leading the league in home runs, and Manny Machado, leading the league in Wins Against Replacement.
But the team’s issues are many, and the addition of Scott Feldman, a Cubs pitcher who formerly starred for Texas (and played under Buck Showalter) is a good one, but Feldman alone won’t solve the O’s problems.
Consider a few of them:
1. Jim Johnson
The O’s closer has blown six saves as of July 6th, and has struggled mightily despite sharing the league lead in saves. The Yankees’ Mariano Rivera, by contrast, is automatic, with only one blown save on the season. Johnson’s command is completely off on anything but his fastball, he can’t throw many first-pitch strikes, and teams are just sitting back and waiting for the fastball which they have regularly been depositing into the outfield with hard-hit liners or run-scoring grounders.
The worst part? Buck Showalter has been almost abjectly opposed to pulling Johnson from the role when clearly he is losing games for the team. Showalter has gristled at or blown off media questions on the subject, but eventually it may be Peter Angelos or Dan Duquette doing the asking, and you can imagine something will soon have to be done. The guess here is that the pen will be shuffled after the All-Star break.
2. Poor starting pitching
The Orioles starters are near or at the bottom of the league in fewest starts of eight innings or more. Even the O’s “consistent” starter Chris Tillman has been up-and-down in a 10-3 start to the season. Injuries have played a part, but a mediocre year from Jason Hammel, a season so poor from Jake Arrieta that he was traded away, and horrendous pitching from former starter Freddy Garcia, and rough starting pitching from Kevin Gausman make it tough to win ballgames, especially when O’s starters generally do no better than getting the team into the sixth inning; which leads to:
3. Wearing out the bullpen
The O’s pen has been pitching middle-of-the-pack this year, nowhere in the galaxy of last year’s phenomenal record of not losing a single regular season game when leading after seven innings. The pen has been amongst the leaders in innings pitched and (as I wrote about in my column about the “McDowell effect”) even good bullpen pitchers wear out through over-use. The flip side however was revealed during the Yankees Radio call on the July 6th game in which Yanks analyst Suzyn Waldman announced that Showalter said [lefty pitcher Brian] “Matusz was not available” for the July 5th game the Orioles led into the bottom of the 9th with a score of tough Yankee lefties on the way to hit. “I probably would have pitched Matusz,” said Yankees play-by-play man John Sterling, “with the slew of left-handed hitters coming up.” So it’s either overuse of the pen, with the O’s recently ranked 15th in the league, or simply not having the pitchers available (due to, of course, overuse).
4. Lack of timely hitting
It seems everyone is slumping now except for Chris Davis. In short succession the Orioles lost close games in Chicago against the White Sox (a team otherwise slumping) and then two in a row against the Yanks, the latter two games the Orioles led late in the game, the first a Jim Johnson blown save. But in neither the losses in Chicago nor the first Yankee game did the Orioles bother to show up at the plate. The first Yankee game featured part-time starter Ivan Nova shutting down the O’s while throwing a complete game that ended in a victory for him after Johnson’s blown save. Then as usual against Rivera – who has more saves against the O’s than any other MLB team – the 9th was a waste of any O’s fans’ time to watch, with a Ryan Flaherty bloop single to center the only drama that ensued, while the Sox and Yankees tore up the O’s bullpens in late innings.
5. Untimely bad managing
The O’s know they have a good manager in Showalter, a steady hand through a long season. Yet, even Showalter can make strange mistakes. When White Sox slugger Adam Dunn had already torn up the O’s with a big homer earlier in the series, but was barely making contact against left-handed pitchers, Showalter inexplicably chose to leave Tommy (formerly named “Home Run”) Hunter in against him, and sure enough Hunter served up a namesake, walk-off hit-me-here pitch. In the previous contest, Showalter appeared to leave starter Hammel in too long, and the Sox took advantage and won that game, their lead padded by another Dunn home run.
So, with the Red Sox on a phenomenal run – especially against bad teams, the same ones (like the Padres) who have menaced the Oriole – and the O’s doing their best Alan Rickman from “Die Hard” impression in the standings from once being behind just 2.5 games, to nearing six games out, the O’s have their work cut out for them.
