The Orioles will gladly take winning three out of five, which translates to a 97-win pace over 162 games.
Even with superstar shortstop Gunnar Henderson on the injured list, they swung the bats extremely well in their three victories, which speaks to the depth and potential of the lineup. And aside from Felix Bautista’s unnerving ninth inning on Monday and a couple Cionel Perez outings, the bullpen fared pretty well with a 2.70 ERA over the first five games.
But that first turn through a starting rotation that dominated the discourse all offseason and spring training?
To say it was a grind would be an understatement — and probably kind.
There were no concerns with facto ace Zach Eflin, who was quite good over six innings of two-run ball.
However, the 41-year-old Charlie Morton wasn’t as he failed to survive the fourth inning in his Orioles debut.
Despite giving up five runs, Dean Kremer at least provided some length by pitching into the sixth inning.
Hand cramping prevented Tomoyuki Sugano from finishing what was shaping up to be a solid debut as a 35-year-old pitching in the majors for the first time after a distinguished career in Japan.
And lefty Cade Povich struck out eight over 4 1/3 frames, but he needed 94 pitches to get that far.
One quality start and a 6.26 ERA over 23 innings, an average of just 4.6 innings per start. That’s obviously not going to cut it moving forward.
To be fair, you’re not going to see a ton of deep outings over the first couple weeks of a season when starters aren’t yet fully built up. Entering Tuesday’s action, there had been only six starts of seven innings and a total of just 42 six-inning outings around the majors.
But the Orioles will need better and longer starts, especially with long reliever Albert Suarez on the IL with a shoulder problem and the current eight-man bullpen having just three pitchers — Bautista, Yennier Cano, and Keegan Akin — with minor-league options. There just isn’t much roster flexibility or length in the pen, which is why manager Brandon Hyde was already welcoming Tuesday’s rest after five straight days of games to begin the season.
General manager Mike Elias bet $15 million on Morton fighting off Father Time one more year and $13 million on Sugano’s stuff translating to the majors. The Orioles need Kremer, 29, to at least be the league-average hurler he’s been for the better part of the last three seasons. You can see the flashes of a good major league starter in Povich, but the almost-25-year-old has to figure it out sooner than later for Baltimore’s sake. Of course, the Orioles also aim to have Kyle Gibson and Grayson Rodriguez join the rotation conversation in the not-too-distant future, but exactly when that will happen remains unclear, especially with Rodriguez working his way back from elbow inflammation.
If the Orioles want their bullpen — which has its own questions, of course — to last, they can’t afford to have the quest for 27 outs feel quite as laborious as it did for much of that first turn through a bottom-heavy rotation. And while the offense is expected to be good enough to do the heavy lifting most nights, the lineup will now be without outfielder Colton Cowser for the next couple months, leaving less upside.
Yes, we all know it’s early, but this is what we’ve been talking about since ace Corbin Burnes left for Arizona a couple days after Christmas.
The starting pitching doesn’t need to be great for the Orioles to be a playoff club. It may not even need to be particularly good. But it will need to be more reliable than what we’ve seen thus far, which begins with getting through five innings more consistently at the very least.
If not, winning three out of every five will grow increasingly difficult as the season advances.
