Remember that long sweepless streak the Orioles had? It started in May 2022 after losing three straight against the Detroit Tigers. The streak lasted 106 regular-season series until the St. Louis Cardinals ended it this May.
That was a remarkable run of consistency. Maybe that series in St. Louis was the first chink in the armor of this Orioles club that just got swept out of the postseason for a second consecutive season. This time around, it was two in a row to the Kansas City Royals. Last season, it was three in a row to the eventual World Series champion Texas Rangers.
Last year it seemed as if winning the American League East and earning a first-round bye took the edge and momentum from a team that did just about everything right during the 162-game regular season.
The 2024 season was a lot like a taffy-pull, perhaps starting with that sweep at the hands of the Cardinals. But then the Orioles were swept again by the Houston Astros in late June. And again by the Chicago Cubs just before the All-Star break.
Then in the second half of the season, the Orioles dropped two of three to the Marlins in Miami, the Padres in Baltimore, the Blue Jays in Toronto, the Mets in Queens, the Dodgers in Los Angeles, the Rays in Baltimore, the Red Sox in Boston, the Tigers in Detroit, the Giants in Baltimore and the Tigers again, this time in Baltimore.
The Orioles then closed out the regular season by winning five of their final six games. The returns of infielders Ryan Mountcastle, Ramón Urías and Jordan Westburg and relievers Danny Coulombe and Jacob Webb helped the Orioles win two of three against the Yankees and sweep a three-game series against the Twins in Minneapolis. That quickly turned into fool’s gold once they played a team with something to play for.
The Orioles’ pitching staff, rebuilt on the fly this season, did a great job in the two losses to Kansas City. Orioles pitchers ended their season giving up a total of three runs in 18 frames, but an offense that looked in disarray for much of the second half scored one run against the Royals.
All told, a team that went into Houston in late June with a 49-25 record went just 42-48 the rest of the way, including the Wild Card Series.
Sure, the injuries were a huge problem. But it felt like if it wasn’t the starting pitching, which suffered blow after blow, it was a leaky bullpen with Craig Kimbrel falling off the cliff. Or it was poor baserunning or substandard defense. Ultimately, though, it was the bats that dragged the club down.
Rest assured, changes are coming and plenty of them. Most notably, it’s hard to imagine Corbin Burnes getting the kind of dough he’ll be looking for. Anthony Santander may have priced himself out of Baltimore with a 44-homer season.
I have never felt that Ryan Mountcastle was a Mike Elias type of player, but those discussions can be had at another time. There will be plenty of time for deeper postmortems and breakdowns of how GM Mike Elias can fix what is broken.
For now, we’ll put the season to bed. Actually, the club’s offense already did that by scoring just one run in two games against a Royals team it had beaten four times out of six in the regular season.
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