The Orioles’ season has been defined by a frustrating lack of punch when the game is there to be grabbed, and Sunday night’s loss to the Brewers offered another sharp example.
With the bases loaded in the sixth inning, Jeremiah Jackson put the first pitch he saw on the ground for an out, a swing that drew criticism from Orioles manager Craig Albernaz. Jackson, a fringe player nearing the end of the season, had a chance to deliver the kind of big hit that could have flipped the game. Instead, the at-bat became another reminder of how often Baltimore has let pressure situations slip by.
That moment fit a larger pattern. Orioles hitters, with a few obvious exceptions, have too often failed to keep pressure on pitchers who appear to be wobbling.
In a low-scoring game, there’s value in making a struggling arm keep working, in forcing extra pitches, in waiting for the mistake that might come after the walks and hit batsman have already loaded the bases. Baltimore did not do that nearly enough.
The Brewers showed the opposite approach in the weekend sweep. Milwaukee is not at the top of the sport by accident, and its style was on full display against the Orioles.
The Brewers leaned on old-school, fundamental baseball and made the most of their opportunities, while Baltimore came up empty. Over the three-game series, the Orioles went 2-for-23 with runners in scoring position and stranded 26 runners.
They pitched well enough to hold Milwaukee to four runs over the final two games, but they were shut out in both.
The offensive problems have run deeper than one series or one at-bat. Baltimore’s attack has been uneven all season, and a lot of that traces back to the underperformance of several young players who were expected to drive the lineup.
Gunnar Henderson has produced runs, but he spent much of the first half struggling to keep his batting average above .200. Colton Cowser has had trouble against left-handed pitching.
Jackson Holiday’s season was thrown off by a pair of wrist injuries.
On Monday afternoon, Albernaz said he and the coaching staff will spend the winter digging through what happened and where the club can improve. Asked whether the Orioles need to rethink their approach at the plate, he pushed back on that wording.
“To me, it’s not rethinking,’’ Albernaz said. “Even if you’re great at an area or it’s an area that you excelled in, it’s not rethinking it. You want to constantly evaluate and see where the blind spots are and see where stuff is going to come up because you always want to be on the side of being proactive instead of reactive.”
That evaluation will stretch beyond the big league staff, with the front office and the rest of the organization also involved in sorting through what went wrong and what needs to change before next season. Albernaz said that process is already underway.
“That’s something where we’re all talking - not only up here as a big league coaching staff, but throughout the rest of the organization,’’ he said. “In the areas we’re excelling at and also in those [other] areas, how can we get better.”
For the Orioles, that winter work starts with the same basic lesson that has haunted so many lost chances this year: change the emphasis from losing to winning.
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