With the Orioles hosting Kansas City in the Wild Card Series and aiming to snap an eight-game postseason losing streak dating back to 2014, I’ve offered a dozen thoughts, each in 50 words or less:
1. This season was a grind, but Brandon Hyde expressed a sentiment I’ve pondered for weeks now. “I’m hoping it makes us tougher honestly. The adversity that our guys went through this year, I hope it benefits us this postseason. I think it’s going to benefit these guys in the future.”
2. Despite the rotation being decimated by injuries, Corbin Burnes starts Game 1 exactly eight months after being acquired from Milwaukee. This wasn’t his most dominant season overall, but the reliable Burnes made tweaks to his cutter that brought much more swing and miss in September. He’s in a good place.
3. Burnes is obviously the ace, but projected Game 2 starter Zach Eflin is pivotal to this club playing deep into October. His 2.60 ERA over nine starts was outstanding, but a career high in walks in his final start and his late-August bout of shoulder inflammation are variables that linger.
4. It’s a shame Gunnar Henderson and Bobby Witt Jr. aren’t facing off on a bigger stage than the Wild Card Series because they’re truly special talents. While this will be Witt’s postseason debut, we’ll see what Henderson does after he was one of the lone bright spots last October.
5. Some debated whether Baltimore would be better off facing Kansas City than red-hot Detroit, but the 1-2 starting punch of Cole Ragans and Seth Lugo is excellent and Witt had a historic MVP-caliber season overshadowed by only Aaron Judge. As Ragans said Monday, “It’s the playoffs. Everybody’s good.”
6. The Royals finished second in the majors in starter ERA — Baltimore was fifth surprisingly — but Kansas City’s bullpen ERA was fifth in the majors in September. Meanwhile, the Orioles ranked 29th over the final month. Royals closer Lucas Ercig was someone I wanted Mike Elias to target at the deadline.
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7. Despite that pitching edge, the Royals scored the fewest runs in baseball in September. As a team, Kansas City batted .203 with a .577 on-base plus slugging percentage — easily league worsts — over the final month of the season. And you thought the Orioles bats struggled down the stretch.
8. Royals manager Matt Quatraro remained hopeful that the lefty-swinging Vinnie Pasquantino could be available for the series a little over a month after a broken thumb ended his regular season. His bat could give a struggling lineup some much-needed juice.
9. Since July 1, Adley Rutschman ranks among the bottom five qualified hitters in baseball in average, slugging percentage, OPS, and weighted on-base average. If he’s healthy, now is as great a time as any to break out of something too extreme to label a slump. James McCann has been better.
10. Salvador Perez was a 24-year-old catcher with most of his outstanding career in front of him when he went 1-for-15 in Kansas City’s 2014 AL Championship Series sweep over Baltimore. The Orioles hope to keep his potent bat similarly quiet over the next few days.
11. Jordan Westburg went 5-for-26 with a double, a walk, five RBIs, and seven strikeouts upon returning from a fractured right hand. The Orioles really need his offense from the right side, so you hope this last week was enough of a tune-up after a 52-day absence.
12. After a lackluster second half and a litany of injuries that stifled this club’s ceiling, the buzz and excitement aren’t the same as last October, which could prove helpful. After finishing the season on a high note, the Orioles just need to win a couple games and go from there.
Prediction: The outcome of any three-game set between two good teams amounts to no more than a coin flip, so those claiming to know how this series is going to go are kidding themselves. After enjoying a remarkable 30-game improvement from 2023, the upstart Royals enjoy the overall pitching edge and added veterans last offseason to ease the burden on young players and improve their overall chances, which is something some have argued Elias could have done more deliberately over the last couple years. Still, the Orioles are older and more experienced than they were last October, and the offense woke up over the final week of the season, something the run-starved Royals are still hoping to do. You hope that’s enough to get Hyde’s club over the hump for a date with the New York Yankees in the AL Division Series. There isn’t nearly as much trust in this bullpen as you typically need to navigate a deep October run, but I’ll take the Orioles to edge the Royals in three games. Baltimore can’t lose to Kansas City in the postseason at home again, right?
