The first month of the season has been bad. Will it get any better?
This season has been an absolute disaster for the Baltimore Orioles so far. They entered the year with tempered, yet very real, World Series ambitions. And while early injuries dinted those dreams just a touch, few saw this scenario on the horizon.
Through one month of games, the Orioles find themselves in the basement of the AL East. Only two teams in all of MLB are worse than them: the Chicago White Sox and the Colorado Rockies, two punchline franchises of the last few seasons. This is not the sort of company the Orioles were supposed to keep once the Mike Elias-led rebuild was completed.
While the Orioles did look like a solid group on paper coming into the season, a sub-.500 campaign was not out of the question. The rotation lost Corbin Burnes and failed to adequately replace him. The offense, although talented, had slumped badly in the second half of 2024 and was largely a rehash of that squad. The hope was that most young players would take steps forward and that the veterans would secure a solid floor. In almost every case, that has not happened.
But the point of this blog is not to toil in the negative, at least not too much. There will be plenty of time for that. Instead, let’s try to step back a bit and see if, despite their obvious flaws, we can squint a bit and still see the goodness that made this team a pre-season contender.
Cedric Mullins and Ryan O’Hearn
When the offseason simulations ran to determine that the Orioles could make a run at the AL East title, these two were likely viewed as role players that made a difference on the margins. Still important, but far from leading the offensive charge. Now a month into the season, it’s hard to imagine how much worse the Orioles would be without either one.
Mullins leads the team in hits (24) doubles (5), home runs (6), walks (19), stolen bases (5), RBI (20), on-base percentage (.421), slugging percentage (.547), and OPS (.967). Seems pretty good! O’Hearn doesn’t get quite as many starts as Mullins, so he’s behind on most of the counting stats, but is right in the mix for a lot of the rate stats, hitting .303/.378/.530 on the season.
Mullins has reinvented himself. He’s running faster than he has in years. He’s showing patience at the plate. And all the while he is hitting the ball with authority on a regular basis. O’Hearn has a beautiful Baseball Savant page. There is no smoke and mirrors to his performance. He hits the ball hard. He doesn’t whiff. He looks great at the plate. In other words, there is no reason to expect some major drop-off in performance for either.
Ramón Urías deserves an honorable mention as well because his numbers are good too: .317/.386/.400. But the reason Mullins and O’Hearn get top billing is because their outcomes match their inputs a lot more, whereas Urías comes off a bit luckier with his .360 BABIP along with other factors.
The starting pitchers are getting less horrible, and more healthy
No one is going to mistake the 2025 Orioles for the 1971 crew that boasted four 20-game winners. But the situation is (very) slightly improving.
Tomoyuki Sugano is establishing his finesse style of pitching. He has now started five games, and is yet to allow more than three runs in any one outing. He has also thrown seven innings in each of his last two starts. That will work.
Three of Cade Povich’s last four starts were at least decent, and his most recent game against the Nationals was downright good. His season FIP is down to 4.37, and when he is “on,” he looks like the most talented arm in the current crop.
In all likelihood, Kyle Gibson is going to make a start against the Yankees this week. Signed at the very end of spring training, the 37-year-old Gibson should walk right into the current rotation. If anything, he is consistent. He should give the Orioles a predictable, albeit underwhelming, start every fifth day.
Zach Eflin is throwing bullpens and looks on track to be back in early May. Trevor Rogers is rehabbing and will probably be ready to roll sometime next month as well. Chayce McDermott is about to face live hitters. Grayson Rodriguez’s arm situation isn’t great, but it’s better than some feared. Kyle Bradish is throwing bullpens and could be ready early in the second half.
The point here is that the Orioles are getting closer to showing off the depth they thought they had built during the winter. Things seem like they will get significantly better sometime in May. Bradish is the X-factor. If/when he is healthy, the rotation will have the ace they need. That’s all great. Of course, the team needs to still be relevant by that time for this to really matter.
Time—and a mediocre American League—is on their side
It’s not even May yet. The Orioles have 135 games in front of them. If we do a little quick math, in order for this team to get to 86 wins on the season (the win total for the final Wild Card spot in 2024), they will need to win 56.3% of their remaining games. Over a full season that would be a 91-win pace, the exact number of wins they had last year. It’s not impossible, folks!
The bar to make the playoffs could end up a couple wins lower than that. Only six teams in the AL currently have positive run differentials. Last year nine teams had positive run differentials. It seems clear that this year’s junior circuit is, on the whole, worse than it was a season ago, and it is clearly worse than the NL. It leaves open the chance for a diminished Orioles team to bounce back.
But that will require one heck of an improvement over the next few months. It’s not unheard of. Just last year the Mets returned from being 11 games under .500 in late May to not only make the playoffs, but get all the way to the NLCS. Do this year’s Orioles have more talent than the 2024 Mets? You can debate that amongst yourselves.
The homegrown guys should start producing…eventually
The most obvious route for a turnaround is the Orioles lineup. The organization was built on the philosophy that young, talented hitters can elevate a roster and paper over flaws on the pitching side of things. The Orioles don’t have much hope if they can’t count on Gunnar Henderson, Jordan Westburg, Jackson Holliday, and Adley Rutschman to be closer to the type of producers they hoped for coming into the season. So far, that hasn’t happened.
But these aren’t a bunch of guys with no track record. Henderson was an MVP candidate a year ago. Westburg was an all-star prior to his injury. Holliday has far too much talent to be mediocre. And Rutschman had looked fixed the first week of the season. They should be better than this.
And maybe they will be! The Orioles have to hope so. They have invested far too much money, time, and technology to get each of these guys wrong. At some point, they have to figure things will turn around. It’s the only real chance the team has in making a run at a playoff spot.