Having 140 games to go in a season off to a bad start could be a blessing or a curse for the Orioles.
The entire organization — front office, coaches, and players — must decide which one it’s going to be.
Whether you’re tired of hearing this or not, it is still early. Everything — or mostly everything — could still end up being fine.
You don’t need Baseball Reference to recognize that countless great teams over the years have endured 9-13 stretches at various points over a six-month regular season. However, the only other clubs not to win two games in a row more than once or win more than two straight overall are the Chicago White Sox and Colorado, who’ve gone a combined 9-36 as baseball’s undisputed worst teams. Since winning two in a row and a series for the first time all season last week, Baltimore has been outscored 44-14 in dropping three of its last four, a stretch including Sunday’s humiliating 24-2 loss and Tuesday’s listless one-hit effort in a 7-0 defeat in Washington.
Brutal.
Early or not, the Orioles have exhibited play more indicative of a bad team than a good one over the season’s first four weeks. And including the postseason, the Orioles are now 51-61 since that intense series win in the Bronx last June, which proved to be the high-water mark of the 2024 campaign.
There are other issues plaguing this club at the moment, but we shouldn’t bury the lede. Entering Wednesday, the Orioles rank last in the majors in starter ERA (6.22) by a whopping three-quarters of a run. They simply must find a way to improve the starting pitching to at least be able to tread water until more reinforcements arrive.
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The rotation was always the weak link with general manager Mike Elias addressing ace Corbin Burnes’ free-agent departure and Kyle Bradish’s continued absence by signing the 41-year-old Charlie Morton to a $15 million contract and 35-year-old Japanese right-hander Tomoyuki Sugano to a $13 million deal. Already needing more favorable outcomes with those additions as well as incumbents, it’s no wonder the starting pitching has been an utter disaster with top projected starters Zach Eflin and Grayson Rodriguez as well as a few depth options on the injured list.
Suspect-at-best planning from Elias and bad injury luck have been a crippling combination in the early going. As a result, questions are only growing louder about the executive’s ability to get the Orioles over the hump after leading the organization through a lengthy rebuild.
But it isn’t just the starting pitching.
The up-and-down malaise that plagued the Orioles lineup over the second half of last season has carried into 2025 with the offense being inconsistent at best. Baltimore has scored three runs or fewer in half of its games now.
Wasn’t offense supposed to be the club’s calling card and the foundation of the entire rebuild? The lineup needs to be doing the heaviest lifting if the Orioles have any hope of overcoming their starting pitching. And unlike the rotation, you can’t chalk up the woes to injuries when outfielder Colton Cowser is the lone everyday player on the IL.
Despite a stated offseason emphasis on improving against left-handed pitching, Baltimore currently owns a slash line of .165/.247/.225 against southpaws. The Orioles aren’t just struggling against lefties; they’re performing as though they’ve never even seen them before.
Whether this offense reaching its ceiling would even be enough to overcome the rotation is a fair question, but you’d like to be able to find out at the very least.
8Not to be slighted, the defense has been below average and the baserunning underwhelming.
Is the rotation such a black hole that it gives everything else license to be sucked into the misery?
Did the degree of regular-season success in 2023 and the first half of last year leave this organization complacent and too smart for its own good?
Where’s the leadership on the field and in the dugout?
That brings us to manager Brandon Hyde, who has mentioned more than once now that his young players are having a difficult time letting tough moments go and moving on. That the Orioles followed that pitiful Easter loss and an off-day with Tuesday’s listless showing against the Nationals doesn’t speak well for Hyde, the other coaches, or the players.
If there was one lasting impression from Hyde’s early seasons as manager, those teams consistently played hard despite their obvious talent deficiencies. That’s not to suggest the current players aren’t trying, but the body language and energy haven’t been inspiring. Aside from Cedric Mullins, the club looked flat and defeated Tuesday night — on April 22. I didn’t think there was such a thing as the dog days of April.
It’s increasingly difficult to shake the feeling that something is off with this team and has been for quite a while now. You have to question whether there’s a critical blind spot for Elias and an analytics-driven front office that did commendable work modernizing baseball operations from where it was seven years ago. But just because the human element is difficult to quantify doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
8There’s plenty of blame to go around, but there are only so many adjustments you can make in the midst of a season. And if Hyde and this coaching staff aren’t getting talented players to respond more favorably, you have to wonder if some difficult changes need to be made. Whether that’s really fair or not isn’t the point when it’s part of your job description to fix it.
Morton may simply be washed up, but what about the 29-year-old Dean Kremer sporting a 6.84 ERA after being a league-average starter over the last three seasons? Why is Cade Povich worse than he was last year? Pitcher injuries are all over the game, of course, but is there something contributing to a seemingly higher volume than normal here?
The Orioles replaced hitting coaches Matt Borgschulte and Ryan Fuller by promoting Cody Asche and Sherman Johnson from within the organization and hiring Tommy Joseph, who was an assistant coach for a below-average Seattle offense last year. Was that a meaningful shakeup after last year’s second-half swoon or little more than window dressing?
What exactly is this coaching staff doing when we’ve watched uninspiring and sloppy play coming out of spring training when teams should be at their sharpest?
Or have we overrated the resolve and mental toughness of this young core that was hyped for years before even arriving in the majors? Is the perceived lack of veteran leadership a bigger part of the problem than anyone even realized?
Twenty-two games do not make a season, of course, but it’s enough to begin shedding light on problems that may warrant significant action without swift improvement.
The Orioles have 140 games to turn this thing around and restore outside confidence in what they’re doing in the front office and dugout as well as on the field. But that’s also an eternity to endure if what they’ve built is broken without an easy fix.
8No, this isn’t what anyone expected a couple years ago, but the front office, coaches, and players can’t just keep pretending all is well because it once looked and felt so promising.
There are fingers pointing all over the place as the problems persist and the losses mount.
Those 140 games are either an opportunity to make this poor start an aberration or a glimpse into an absyss.
