It’s been a whole team effort from the Orioles to play at a .500 clip since early June.
Even back towards the end of May, when the Orioles were still playing at a similar kind of pace compared to what they did a year ago, the team was regularly suffering enough annoying losses that it was not hard to feel like the team just didn’t have the “it” that let them go 101-61 for the 2023 season.
I wrote about this at the time, looking back on what happened from each of Dan Duquette’s playoff teams to what went wrong the next season. The 2024 Orioles, at least at the end of May, were not ready to be lumped in with those past disappointments, even after the frustration of the sweepless streak finally coming to an end against the then- (and still-)underwhelming Cardinals.
Here as August is about to turn into September, it’s a different story. The 2024 team has clearly fallen off the pace. Through 133 games, the 2023 club was 83-50. The Orioles are now six games off of that pace, and if they continue their winning percentage for the full season, they’ll fall seven games short of what they did a year ago.
Compared to the ‘13, ‘15, and ‘17 teams that I wrote about months ago, where one consistent bit of disappointment is that they didn’t make the postseason, the 2024 Orioles have an obvious benefit working in their favor. There’s now a third wild card spot. As many problems as the O’s have had this year, they’re strongly likely to at least qualify: Baseball Reference and FanGraphs both give over a 99% chance of making the postseason. Even if there were still only two wild cards, they’ve got a 4.5 game cushion. And they might still win the division, trailing the Yankees by only a game.
Starting rotation health
The 2023 Orioles had so much stability in the starting rotation that it was easy to take it for granted. There were three different pitchers who started at least 30 games for the team, and another two pitchers who started 20 and 23 games.
Of the pitchers who began the season in the starting rotation, the only injured list stint was when Kyle Bradish took the line drive off of his foot in his first start and missed very little time. He’s one of the three to start at least 30 games. The only absences from the rotation other than that short Bradish IL stint were related to performance rather than injury.
There is a lot more chaos this season. The plans that we all imagined in the first days after the Orioles traded for Corbin Burnes didn’t even last one day into spring training. That was when Mike Elias revealed offseason injury concerns about Bradish and John Means, each of whom missed the start of the season and later needed elbow surgery after their return. Tyler Wells also had to go under the knife after only a handful of starts.
The only pitcher who could still possibly start 30+ games is Burnes. That’s a lot of shuffling that the team has had to do. The good news is that the team has mostly weathered this chaos. In terms of overall rotation ERA, the team has improved from 4.14 last year (11th in MLB) to 3.87 this year (9th in MLB), which is basically the difference between having Kyle Gibson as your veteran innings eater and Burnes. The 2024 O’s are extremely fortunate that Albert Suárez fell into their laps.
One-run games: The back end of the bullpen
In 2023, the Orioles had a record of 30-16 in one-run games. So far in the 2024 season, their record in the same games is 14-16. They matched last year’s total in one-run losses with last Wednesday’s walkoff loss at the hands of the Mets.
The 2023 Orioles had a total of 21 games over the whole season where a relief pitcher took the loss. That’s the fewest that any team suffered. To go along with this, they had the fifth-best reliever ERA at 3.55. The 2024 Orioles are already at 19 losses from their bullpen. This is tied for eighth-fewest among MLB teams, with their team bullpen ERA of 4.10 at 19th place.
It’s easy to point to this being the difference between Félix Bautista (1.48 ERA, 0.918 FIP) and Craig Kimbrel (3.86 ERA, 1.221 WHIP), with Kimbrel’s recent meltdown out of the closer role thrusting an also-shaky Seranthony Domínguez into the role. It’s also the difference between 2023 Yennier Cano and 2024 Cano, between 2023 Bryan Baker and 2024 Baker, and the bad luck and/or bad performance involved in Jacob Webb having a better ERA and WHIP than last year but taking five losses. This little list is not the complete list.
One-run games: Hitting with RISP
The other part of losing close games is that the Orioles aren’t getting the same good fortune from their batters in situations where they’ve got a man in scoring position, which really helps if you’re going to mount a late comeback. The 2023 Orioles finished the season with a .287/.356/.481 batting line across a total of 1554 PA. This year’s edition of the team is on pace to have about 70 fewer chances with RISP overall, and when they do get them, they’re hitting just .254, with many fewer doubles, home runs, and walks. In all, it’s a drop of 85 points of OPS with RISP.
It’s not scoring runs overall that’s been the problem for the Orioles. They’ve got the third-most runs scored of any MLB team, with 661 runs. The 2023 O’s were 7th in MLB with 807 runs scored. The Orioles are hitting better, overall, than they did a year ago, even improving their OPS as a team while the league-wide offense has declined substantially.
Lack of month-to-month consistency
The 2023 Orioles never had a .500 or worse record in any full calendar month. The worst month was June, when they were only 13-11. There were four different months where they had a winning percentage of .600 or better.
The 2024 team has not been able to duplicate these feats, either. As we all know, the Orioles fell short with a 12-13 record in July, and they’re going to need to win three of the last four games this month to finish above .500 for August. The team did start off hot, winning more than 60 percent of its games in April and May, but they haven’t found a third hot month.
There’s not a lot of confidence in seeing the O’s suddenly turn the ship around and do this in September, although at least some of their current injured players should be back by the end of next month. Zach Eflin is supposed to be a minimum-length IL stay, with Ryan Mountcastle also coming back soon. Grayson Rodriguez and Jordan Westburg should be back before the season ends. Webb is supposed to be back as well, for whatever that’s worth.
Scattered power outages
The Orioles are an impressive home run-hitting team overall. Ryan O’Hearn’s home run last night was the team’s 200th of the season, and Ramón Urías hit another one later to put the team on top for what turned out to be for good. Their 201 home runs as a team are second in MLB, behind only the Yankees. The O’s are more than 20 home runs ahead of the third place team, which is the Dodgers.
The Baltimore Banner’s Paul Mancano observed on Twitter before last night’s game that the Orioles are 12-19 when they don’t homer, and 12-27 when they hit only a single home run. That’s rough, combining for a 24-46 record in these games. The flip side of this stat is that the Orioles have a 53-10 record when hitting two or more home runs.
That being the case, they’ve got to keep hitting some homers, and one challenge for them is that a number of players who might have been counted on to deliver more power aren’t doing it. O’Hearn’s home run last night was just his second since the All-Star break. Adley Rutschman also has only two over the same time frame. Mountcastle has only hit one, and newcomer Eloy Jiménez has yet to homer as an Oriole.
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After their improbable 101-win season a year ago, there was always a strong chance that the Orioles would end up fielding a better-on-paper team this season and still win fewer games than they did a year ago. They were very good and also very lucky. Barring an incredible surge in September, we’re seeing the variety of big and small things that have led to a drop of seven wins based on their current pace. The 2024 Orioles just aren’t as lucky in so many ways.
That’s not to say that there’s no luck working in the Orioles favor at all. One way that things are working out for the O’s is that there aren’t any elite teams out there. No team is winning at a clip of .600 or better. All of the issues discussed here still exist, and yet the Orioles are only a game out for the division lead. They can take that back if they improve a little bit over the final month or so of baseball. One way or another – or preferably more than one – they just need to actually improve over what they’ve been doing by playing .500 since mid-June.