It isn’t as easy to be an optimistic Orioles fan as it was a few weeks ago. Injuries are piling up and it’s hard not to wonder if the big league roster can withstand another early season assault on the health of the pitching staff.
Somehow, the O’s were able to win 91 games last year and reach the playoffs in spite of losing a huge chunk of the projected starting rotation as well as several other key players for extended periods.
So here we are little more than two weeks from Opening Day with starting pitcher Grayson Rodriguez sidelined indefinitely with elbow soreness and shortstop Gunnar Henderson possibly unable to start the season on time because of an intercostal strain. Throw in the knee injury that will keep new reliever Andrew Kittredge out for at least a couple of months as well as a few other roster uncertainties and it’s starting to not feel like Christmas anymore.
This is the point where I like to go to social media and take the pulse of Orioles nation, because we all know that the internet is the best place to get an accurate sense of public sentiment (Sarcasm Alert!). And sure enough, between the lingering disappointment from the superstar-less offseason and these spring training injuries there are a lot of fans out there who fear the Orioles might take a big step backward in 2025.
That’s possible, of course, because the baseball world is a dangerous place, but –as you probably noticed in the headline of this article – I think it would be wise to avoid pushing that big red button and look instead at the bigger picture.
The first thing you can do to avoid the urge to panic is to look back at my column a couple of weeks ago about the Vegas future odds on the Orioles, because they haven’t changed significantly in spite of the Rodriguez injury, which I admit is a major kick in the groin.
The billion-dollar gambling industry, with its unlimited computing capacity and – no doubt – the most advanced artificial intelligence available, still gives the Orioles the second-best chance of winning the American League pennant and ranks them among the seven top contenders to come home with all the marbles.
The wise guys could be wrong. They did, after all, have the O’s as a 50-1 longshot to win the American League East title in 2023, but the reason they have not bailed on Baltimore this spring is because the competitive landscape hasn’t really changed very much.
Every team has spring training injuries and the regular season is too long to panic about them, though last year’s season-killing shutdowns of Kyle Bradish, John Means and Tyler Wells probably warranted that and the Orioles reached the postseason anyway.
This year, it’s way more important to project where the Orioles’ pitching staff will be in August than it is to worry about where it is right now. The big league roster would have to completely unravel for the club to miss the playoffs and the pitching staff figures to look a lot better in the second half with Bradish, Wells returning and a midseason trade deadline to get more help.
The departures of ace pitcher Corbin Burnes and slugging outfielder Anthony Santander certainly matter, as does the uncertainty surrounding the Rodriguez injury, but this still promises to be an exciting and entertaining season, so even the naysayers might as well come along for the ride.