Entering the season, the expectations, excitement and energy for the Orioles were higher than at any point to start a year since the rebuild began five years ago.
The home-opening win over the New York Yankees on Friday — with 45,017 fans, most of whom were in Orioles orange, rocking the park — took those emotions to new heights, with Bryan Baker’s strikeout in the eighth and the one-run victory having the potential to serve as a stepping stone in a post-rebuild world.
But, just as the Orioles lost the final two games versus the Boston Red Sox last weekend after an opening day victory, Baltimore followed up Friday’s thrilling triumph with two straight defeats against the Yankees.
“We’re playing some close games,” Hyde said after the Orioles’ 5-3 loss Sunday. “I feel like we’re making some mistakes that we can’t do against good clubs. Boston, we could’ve won two there, and then here just some mistakes on the mound. We haven’t been playing our best defense yet. We’ve got a long way to go, and there’s a lot of year left. We’re going to keep playing these guys a lot more.”
The Orioles are 2-4 against American League East foes and 4-5 overall entering Monday’s homestand against the Oakland Athletics. They are in last place in the division as the only team below .500 and are already five games out of first place.
“It’s still early in the year, so you can’t really put too much of a price tag on it,” said right-hander Tyler Wells, who was the losing pitcher Sunday after allowing four runs in six innings.
Wells is right. It is early — too early to draw any drastic conclusions about what the two series could mean for the future of the 2023 Orioles. Remember, Baltimore went 7-14 in April last year and was below .500 until the club got hot in the summer and eventually fell just three games short of the playoffs.
However, the gap between the Orioles and the top contenders in the division will remain until it doesn’t. That’s not to say it won’t close this season, but through six games — approximately 12% of the division schedule — it hasn’t yet.
Despite the series loss to the Yankees, Orioles players that braved the reboot are confident the club is now in a position to truly compete against the juggernauts in the AL East. The Yankees won 99 games last season and are 6-3 entering Monday; the Tampa Bay Rays, who claimed the last wild-card spot over the Orioles in 2022, are 9-0.
“Last year, I think we opened up some eyes for sure,” first baseman Ryan Mountcastle said. “Coming into this year, it feels like we got a tick better, and I think other teams are starting to realize that we’re not the same Orioles team we were the previous couple years before last year. It’s fun, and we’re going to have some big games like that. It feels like all the division games have a little more meaning now.”
After the 7-6 win Friday, Yankees manager Aaron Boone anointed the Orioles, whose self-stated goal is to make the playoffs this season, as “contenders.”
“As far as I’m concerned, they’re a tough team to beat and they’re contenders now,” Boone told reporters. “You know you’ve got to play well to beat them. … They’re a formidable opponent. We know that. We saw that building the last couple years but certainly last year, and now they’re playing with a lot of confidence. They’re a tough team to play against.”
But after the losses Saturday and Sunday, Baltimore’s struggles against the Yankees have bled over — for at least one series — into 2023. The Orioles went 7-12 against them in 2022. They went 9-10 against each of the Toronto Blue Jays, Red Sox and Rays — finishing an 83-79 campaign with a 34-42 divisional record. Against nondivisional opponents, Baltimore scored 63 more runs than it allowed and went 49-37.
Their run differential against the division was even worse. The Orioles were outscored by 77 runs (approximately one run per game) with a Pythagorean record — a metric that calculates a team’s record based on its run differential — of 29-47 against the AL East.
“We’re more talented, but we also play in a really, really tough division,” Hyde said. “Everybody in the American League has gotten better, and we’re very aware of that. I don’t want our guys to think about last year or think about raising expectations for themselves, except going to win every single night.”
That record against the AL East, though, was still a big step up for a team that was the sport’s worst from 2018 to 2021. Mountcastle noted how the Orioles went 1-18 against the Rays in 2021, adding that the rebuilding club “just didn’t know how to win.”
“We know we can go out there now and beat whoever if we go out and play our game,” Mountcastle said. “It’s a lot more fun like that versus the past where you just showed up to the field and we don’t know. But now we look at our lineup versus other teams, and I feel like we can go up there against anybody.”
Many of those AL East defeats in 2022 were close games, just like the four losses so far this season. The Orioles fell to the Red Sox by one and four runs and to the Yankees by two and three runs.
“To have a lot of close games not go our way, that was a positive sign for us that we were able to stay in games and compete throughout the game,” center fielder Cedric Mullins said about playing close with AL East teams last season. “We’re gonna have games where we do fall short, but we have that confidence coming in that we can take a lot of those games as well.”
One silver lining for the Orioles’ woes against the AL East is that they’ll play fewer games in the division this season than in past years. With the MLB’s new balanced schedule, teams will play just 52 divisional games — 24 fewer than last year. That gives the Orioles more margin for error should they continue to play markedly better against teams outside the AL East.
Notably, though, the Orioles still have 10 more games against both the Red Sox and Yankees and 13 contests apiece versus the Rays and Blue Jays.
“We’ve got a lot of baseball left,” catcher Adley Rutschman said.
What’s to come?
The early stumbles against the AL East won’t matter this week as the Orioles take on the Athletics in a four-game series at Camden Yards and go on the road versus the Chicago White Sox in a three-game series.
The Athletics entered the season projected to be the worst team in the AL, and they’ve played as advertised thus far. Oakland is tied with the Detroit Tigers for the worst record in the majors at 2-7. But the Orioles, who struggled against left-handed starter Nestor Cortes on Sunday, will likely face three more lefties versus the Athletics.
Grayson Rodriguez, the Orioles’ top pitching prospect, is expected to start his first game at Camden Yards on Tuesday. He made his MLB debut last week in his home state of Texas against the Rangers with friends and family in attendance.
What was good?
Rutschman.
The Orioles’ offense had its ups (Tuesday’s win over Texas and Friday’s victory over New York) and its downs (the loss to the Yankees on Saturday) this week, but Rutschman was an unsurprising bright spot.
Rutschman went 8-for-21 with a home run and four walks this past week, with his 4-for-4 performance Sunday boosting his season-long slash line to .389/.476/.556. The switch-hitter went 3-for-3 off Cortes — a positive sign for Rutschman’s outlook versus left-handers — and then roped a solo home run as a left-handed hitter in the eighth.
What wasn’t?
It’s early in the season, but the Orioles’ starting pitchers have mostly failed to go deep into games.
Command issues, high pitch counts and defensive miscues have led to longer innings early in contests, causing Hyde to pull his starters before the sixth inning.
Only twice in nine games this season has an Orioles starter recorded more than 15 outs. Kyle Gibson pitched seven innings of two-run ball Tuesday, and Tyler Wells allowed four runs in six innings Sunday.
Excluding Kyle Bradish’s 1 2/3-inning start in which he left early with a foot injury, Orioles starters have averaged just under five innings pitched per start. Baltimore’s rotation has pitched just 9 2/3 more innings this season (39 2/3) than its bullpen (30).
On the farm
If Orioles prospects want to make it to the big leagues, they’re going to have to be versatile. That was clear last week in the minor leagues, as multiple top prospects played new positions.
Infielder Jordan Westburg started games at four different spots — second, third base, shortstop and left field. Westburg, who spent all spring in big league camp, has experience playing the infield positions, but his start in left field was the first of his pro career.
Outfielder Heston Kjerstad, who played only right field last season, started two games at first base for Double-A Bowie. And shortstop Jackson Holliday made a diving stop at second base, his secondary position, with Low-A Delmarva on Saturday.
Holliday, Westburg and Kjerstad are the Orioles’ Nos. 3, 6 and 12 prospects, respectively, according to Baseball America.
Athletics at Orioles
Monday, 6:35 p.m.
TV: MASN
Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM
()
