The Orioles are staring at another ugly offensive afternoon, and the timing couldn’t be worse. They haven’t scored in consecutive games, they’re up against one of the American League’s better left-handers, and the Red Sox are coming in with the kind of edge that suggests a four-game sweep means plenty to them.
Craig Albernaz, the rookie skipper, is also starting to sound less like a manager trying to sell a plan and more like a man running out of answers. After a Friday decision that left him wondering whether he’d lose sleep over pulling yet another starting pitcher at the wrong time, Saturday brought a flatter explanation for the bats.
“Seems like our guys are offensively pressing a little bit, trying to do too much” was Albernaz’s tepid response to a lingering offensive crisis Saturday night.
But the problem, as the reporting around this team has pointed out for weeks, goes deeper than pressing. The Orioles’ hitting structure is broken from top to bottom, with young hitters chasing launch angle in the minors and a front office that keeps drafting and paying players who can punish fastballs but struggle with offspeed stuff. There’s also been little sign of consistent correction at the major league level, and the same familiar names keep getting pushed to the front of the lineup.
That includes Adley Rutschman, Gunnar Henderson and Jackson Holliday, who have continued to occupy key spots regardless of what the overall production looks like. The result is a lineup that has been dragged down by the same issues over and over again.
“Right now, we’re just falling on our faces,” Albernaz offered Saturday.
That line fits the state of this club. Baltimore is 69-74, and the problems are piling up everywhere: shaky defense, a 1-5 stretch in the lineup most nights, little damage against starting pitching, no meaningful work on the bases, and no real ability to manufacture runs.
Over the last six games, the Orioles have produced just seven RBIs in the first six innings. The rotation and bullpen carried more than their share earlier, but even that cushion has started to wear thin.
The numbers are brutal. Over the last seven games, Baltimore is hitting .211 in innings one through six, with a .271 on-base percentage and a .297 slugging percentage. That adds up to a .568 OPS, with just one home run and seven RBIs in that stretch.
The full-season numbers from the 1-5 spots tell a similar story. Entering Sunday, those lineup slots were batting .234 with a .324 on-base percentage, .400 slugging percentage, a .724 OPS and a 23% strikeout rate.
Even the starting lineups as a whole haven’t offered much help. They came into play Sunday with a .709 OPS and a .393 slugging percentage, and Baltimore’s offense has badly needed to be better than that if it’s going to support any real run at contention.
Now the Orioles have to try to avoid a sweep against Payton Tolle, a tough lefty who has 14 strikeouts in two career outings against Baltimore, though he was hit around in one of them. For a team that hasn’t looked especially interested in playing all nine innings this season, that’s a dangerous place to be.
In Other News...
Orioles Late-Season Injury Picture Just Got More Complicated
The Orioles spent part of their series against the Guardians sorting through a late-season injury picture that keeps shifting around the edges. Keegan Akin and Ryan Mountcastle are both with the club, giving Baltimore at least a couple of familiar faces back in the mix, while the team also laid out where several others stand in their recoveries as the calendar keeps moving toward the finish.
Mountcastle will not play again this season because of an oblique injury, a reminder of how much attrition has worn on the roster, and the rehab updates do not bring a simple wave of reinforcements just yet. Luis Robert Jr. and Christian Franklin are working in Sarasota, Flix Bautista is at Triple-A Norfolk on assignment, and Kyle Bradish is being handled carefully after Tommy John surgery, with his workload watched closely as the Orioles keep managing one of the more complicated health charts on the board. [Read more 🡒]
Orioles Face Two Big Questions As Wild Card Push Gets Tighter
The Wild Card race has tightened enough that every little update matters, and Craig Albernaz had a familiar opponent in mind when he talked about the Orioles place in it. The Baltimore manager, who spent time on the Guardians coaching staff, knows how closely these two clubs are watching each other as the standings compress and the margin for error shrinks. For the Orioles, the late-season picture is being shaped not just by the schedule, but by the health of a roster that has had to juggle a few key moving parts.
Ryan Helsley, Tyler ONeill, Flix Bautista, Ryan Mountcastle, Keegan Akin, Luis Robert Jr. and Christian Franklin all figure into that evolving injury picture, and Baltimores recent stretch has made each of those updates feel more important. The club has been trying to keep pace while sorting through those absences and tracking its recent results, but with the Guardians right there in the mix, the bigger questions are starting to come into focus. How quickly those players can return, and how much they can help once they do, may decide just how long the Orioles stay in the hunt. [Read more 🡒]
Orioles Fans Just Got Another Brutal Reminder About This Rebuild
A rough week for the Orioles in Boston did not end with much comfort for anyone still tracking where this rebuild stands. The Red Sox completed a four-game sweep, and in the same stretch of bad news for Baltimore, former Orioles catcher Adley Rutschman was already making noise in his new home with Boston by leaving the yard against Angels pitcher Grayson Rodriguez, another familiar name to Baltimore fans.
Rodriguez, once a first-round pick the Orioles hoped would help anchor the next wave, is now with the Angels after being dealt last winter for outfielder Taylor Ward. His Baltimore exit followed a frustrating run of injuries and uneven performance, which only adds to the sting when ex-Orioles keep popping up in meaningful moments elsewhere. Baltimore did at least stop the bleeding with a win the same day, ending a six-game skid, but the bigger picture for fans remains hard to ignore. [Read more 🡒]