If you were waiting for Orioles executive VP/general manager Mike Elias to either fall on his sword or stick it into somebody else during his media availability on Tuesday, you’ll have to be even more patient than the man himself.
Elias basically conceded most of the areas of concern that have kept the fan base awake at night for the past couple of months but did not waver in his belief that he still has a team that can make a good account of itself in the playoffs.
“I think we’re going to get right here before the season’s over,’’ he said before the Orioles lost, 10-0, to the San Francisco Giants. “I think we’re going to make the playoffs and I think we’re going to do really well in the playoffs. And so, I think this is something that this group is going to get behind, and the players that have been putting a lot of pressure on themselves to pick up the rest of the lineup, they’re going to figure out the right approach and then we’re going to get some guys back, and I think we’re going to feel like ourselves again here before too late.”
We all hope he’s right, of course, but with less than two weeks left in the regular season, the best thing that can be said about the way the Orioles continue to perform in the second half is that they still are more than likely to hold on to the first American League wild-card playoff seed. What happens after that is anybody’s guess.
It was just a couple of weeks ago that everyone was hoping that a span of early September games against some of the softest teams in either league would be an elixir for whatever it is that is ailing this club, but it was the O’s who turned out to be the soft spot on too many occasions.
Elias acknowledged on Tuesday that the team that won 101 regular-season games last year and was on another 100-win pace early in the summer has lost its way. Mostly, he pointed to the midseason injuries that made a big dent in the offensive chemistry, but also to the pressure that has weighed on the players trying to fill those voids.
“You go back to like the middle of 2022, this group of players more or less, and we’re one of the winningest teams in baseball since then, and now within the span of a few months it’s gotten away from us, and we’re going through a trying time,’’ Elias said.
The Orioles obviously still have a winning record and remain in mathematical reach of another AL East title, but they have not been a winning team for a long time. Last night’s latest indignity at the hands of Blake Snell and the Giants dropped their record in the second half to 26-29.
“And this is the first time together I think that this group is experiencing this,” Elias said, “and obviously there are circumstances outside of our control that are making it worse and perhaps causing a good deal of it. But I do think this group, all of us individually within this group, are experiencing this kind of negativity as a winning team … as a team that up to a couple months ago was one of the best teams in all of baseball. This is hitting all of us together at once, and when that happens, all of us I think individually reflect on it and what could do better or could have done better or will do better going forward.”
They have 11 games left to do that before the playoffs begin and have given little indication that anything is going to change, but fans can take heart in the fact that nothing is guaranteed in the era of the four-tiered MLB playoff format.
The Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks proved that last year, when no one at this same point in the season could have envisioned them squaring off in the World Series.
“I believe in these guys, I believe in the staff,’’ Elias said. “This has been an unpleasant stretch here for the latter part of the summer and we’re all processing it individually, but we’re ready to pull this together and I believe that we’re going to. We’ve still got time to do so.”