It’s been a month since I last used my weekly column space to discuss the on-field status of the Orioles. In early April, it was too early to make serious judgments. In the month since then? Not much has changed.
The Orioles are a fifth of the way through the season and … they’re still not a good baseball team. Their .687 OPS is in the bottom half of the league. And it’s unbelievably barely above .500 against left-handed pitching, which sounds horrible, but honestly, .502 is actually higher than I expected it to be.
The Orioles’ team ERA is worse than every team in the big leagues besides the Marlins. Their opponents’ batting average actually IS worse than the Marlins, although the Rockies and their elevation prevent them from being in dead last.
The Orioles are a bad baseball team. Injuries have decimated them. But it goes far beyond just the injuries.
A month ago, my question was whether the Orioles’ slow start was an extension of their 42-46 slump to the finish line last year. I’m not sure that’s really a question any longer. This isn’t a team that caught in a funk and just needs to snap out of it. It’s a fundamentally flawed team and has been for some time.
Still, the Orioles are only 20 percent through the season. If they go 6-11 in their next 17 games, they’ll match the 19-31 start the 2019 Nationals famously got off to before going on to win the World Series. Last year’s Detroit Tigers were eight games under .500 on Aug. 11 (!) before making the playoffs. They were sellers at the trade deadline!
But just because there’s precedent for teams dramatically turning things around in the middle of the season, that doesn’t mean we can assume this team somehow will. What would make us believe there’s a path to fixing this?
Zach Eflin appears to be on the cusp of returning. That would help. If Tomoyuki Sugano can sustain his success and Eflin is as good as he was before being sidelined, that’s a pretty decent 1-2 punch. But that’s two! Dean Kremer’s seven shutout innings against the Royals May 2 were downright miraculous by Orioles standards. Perhaps you’ve heard that Kremer has a history of being a good bit better after May 1 than he is before May 1 …
So maybe they have, like, two and a half starters when Eflin gets back? That’s … something? And then there’s their bullp … well, at least Félix Bautista looks like Félix Bautista again.
The offense CAN be better. At least I think it can be better. Jackson Holliday is finally showing prolonged signs of being Jackson Holliday. He is hitting .341/.449/.561 since April 16. Gunnar Henderson is similarly showing signs of being Gunnar Henderson again. Jordan Westburg and Tyler O’Neill are on the cusp of returning.
Will any of that fix their grotesque performance against lefties? I’m … not hopeful.
After the Rangers fired offensive coordinator Donnie Ecker on Sunday, quite a few Orioles fans wondered if perhaps hitting coach Cody Asche might meet the same fate soon. But we know that’s not the scalp the most bloodthirsty of Orioles fans want.
Is it time to have the Brandon Hyde conversation? Depends who you ask. And I’m doing lots of asking. CBS Sports MLB analyst David Samson, a former front office executive with the Marlins and Expos, thinks it is. While acknowledging the Orioles’ struggles aren’t Hyde’s fault, Samson is of the belief that they “have to” fire him.
“I think this new owner is going to have to make a change,” he told me. “I’m sorry for Brandon because I know him well and I’ve worked with him in my career. But there is something going on in Baltimore that if you’re the new owner David [Rubenstein], you can’t accept that.”
Samson actually thinks the Orioles should do it before Memorial Day because they need as much of the season as possible on the other side of the managerial change.
Not everyone agrees. FOX Sports MLB analyst and two-time All-Star catcher A.J. Pierzynski asked the obvious follow-up.
“Does firing him change anything?” Pierzynski asked rhetorically. “It’s the same people, it’s the same position players.”
So what would actually make things any different for a hypothetical managerial replacement?
I’m still probably closer to Pierzynski’s opinion than I am Samson’s, despite joining the chorus of confusion as to why Charlie Morton appeared in a two-run game May 4. I’ve thought Memorial Day was the first appropriate time to consider that option and I’m not ready to move off of that. My gut tells me the Orioles are pretty much the same no matter who the manager might be the rest of the way. But I understand this is how baseball works.
Hopefully something … anything … changes between now and then.
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