The Orioles put themselves in position to make a run at the playoffs with two successful months to begin the season, but as the calendar turned to June, problems on the mound — both in starting and relief pitching — began to reveal themselves. The club also lost a key performer in center fielder Cedric Mullins, who suffered a Grade 2 right groin strain on May 29.
Here are four quick midseason observations on the Orioles.
The rotation still lacks a No. 1 starter and an innings eater.
After the Orioles signed veteran right-hander Kyle Gibson to a one-year, $10 million contract to replace Jordan Lyles on the eve of the winter meetings, we watched as the rest of the free-agent starting pitchers came off the board.
In January, the Orioles sprung a surprise offseason trade, dealing Darell Hernaiz from a deep pool of infield prospects to get lefty Cole Irvin from the Oakland Athletics. Irvin was coming off of two solid but unspectacular seasons in the Athletics’ rotation. The one thing that was certain about Irvin was that he could eat innings.
Shockingly, after three dismal starts for the Orioles, Irvin was optioned to Triple-A Norfolk. He was recalled to start against the Kansas City Royals on June 10, but the club’s plans for him remain unclear. The 6-foot-4, 225-pound lefty went 6-1 with the Tides, posting a 3.21 ERA and 1.05 WHIP in 42 innings. Irvin didn’t miss many bats, though, striking out 22.
Still, it seems as though the Orioles clearly need more innings from starters. Irvin should get a long look this summer to see if he can do what he was acquired to do — be a stabilizing force for the entire pitching staff.
It hurts to admit mistakes, but Mychal Givens may very well be one.
I loved the move to sign veteran right-handed reliever Mychal Givens to a one-year, $5 million deal. It was very savvy for Orioles GM Mike Elias not to rest on the laurels of a bullpen that was very, very good in 2022. As it turns out, he may have spent a nice chunk of his limited resources on the wrong person.
I was a huge fan of Givens from 2015-2020 before he was traded to the Rockies for Terrin Vavra and Tyler Nevin. Givens was one of the more reliable relievers in baseball during that time, striking out 406 hitters in 336 innings. Now 33, Givens didn’t show the same velocity or command prior to being placed on the injured list for right shoulder inflammation on June 2.
More importantly, Givens’ results were shoddy to say the least. Knee soreness landed him on the injured list toward the end of camp. He returned on May 21 and struggled mightily out of the gate, giving up six runs in his first six appearances back.
Givens was brought in to assist a contending team but brought little to the table in the early going. It remains to be seen whether he can still deliver.
We wanted Grayson Rodriguez to be great right away, but there’s a lot of work left to do.
Any discussion of how right-handed starter Grayson Rodriguez was developed has to factor in that key lost minor league season of 2020. He spent time at the alternate site in Bowie, but that is the season when I believe the club would have aimed to ramp up Rodriguez after light workloads in 2018 and 2019.
No fault can be handed out for Rodriguez’s limited innings in 2018. He tossed just 19.1 innings in nine appearances (eight starts) after being drafted in the first round that summer. But in 2019, he tossed just 94 innings in 20 starts. That’s not even five innings per start.
Then Rodriguez bumped into the pandemic in 2020. In 2021, the Orioles needed to be somewhat careful to ramp him up and not put too much stress on him. The result was 103 innings in 23 starts. That’s less than five innings per start.
I always took his dominant minor league numbers — 419 strikeouts in 292 innings entering the 2023 season — with a grain of salt. He was hardly ever facing hitters three times in a game and sometimes not even the entire opposing lineup twice. Judging dominance under those circumstances was a relative matter.
In 2022, Rodriguez was working his way toward a promotion to the major leagues when he suffered a strained right lat muscle in June. Between rehab outings and his time at Norfolk, he ended up throwing 75.2 innings across 17 starts — again not even five innings per outing.
Rodriguez is still a very good prospect. Sure, maybe his struggles in the majors — 7.35 ERA and 13 homers allowed in 45.1 innings — have taken some of the shine off him, but it’s really that the pandemic, injuries and kid gloves have conspired to make him much less a finished product than he needs to be to survive as a starting pitcher.
Fans have been patient and respect what Mike Elias has done, but there are expectations now.
June is when the in-season hot stove tends to heat up. With no big-time pitching prospect due up anytime soon, you’ll be reading names like Patrick Corbin, Mitch Keller, Eduardo Rodriguez and Marcus Stroman and wondering if Elias can spring a deal. He was at former Astros GM Jeff Luhnow’s elbow when the Astros traded for Justin Verlander in August 2017 and Gerrit Cole in January 2018.
The complicating factor here is not only what you’ll have to give up in terms of prospects, but also how do you get someone good and then keep them around?
That is the cost of having built up expectations. The fans won’t like a repeat of the 2014 trade deadline, when the club acquired star lefty reliever Andrew Miller but later made no effort to keep him. That cost, ironically, was a young left-handed pitching prospect named Eduardo Rodriguez. Yes, Miller was a great get by Dan Duquette, but ownership wouldn’t stretch to keep him.
This time around, Mike Elias has a needle to thread — to get an ace and be able to keep him around.
Photo Credit: Kenya Allen/PressBox
Originally published June 15, 2023