Bad starting pitching and lack of hitting against LHP have been the stories in most Orioles losses this year.
As Leo Tolstoy would have written if he had been a baseball fan: All good baseball teams are alike; each bad baseball team is bad in its own way. The 2025 Orioles way of being bad is that their starting pitching is bad and their offense is notoriously bad against left-handed starting pitchers. The O’s have gone 2-4 over the last week of baseball and those are the things that keep doing them in when they lose.
This series looks at each Orioles game, the most crucial play that happened in it and who was involved, and the Oriole who contributed the most positive to a win or negative to a loss. These determinations are made using the Win Probability Added stat, which you can find in game logs on Baseball Reference or FanGraphs.
Here’s how things went over the last week of the Orioles season:
Game 18
- Result: Orioles beat Guardians, 6-2
- Orioles record: 8-10
- The biggest play: Ryan O’Hearn hits three-run home run to give Orioles 4-2 lead in third inning (+33%)
- The biggest hero: O’Hearn (.339 WPA)
There’s never a bad time for an Earl Weaver special and it’s especially good when it flips an Orioles deficit into an Orioles lead. This was particularly nice because the O’s were in the process of squandering a potential rally, notably with Ramón Urías getting picked off third base like a nincompoop (-13%), so O’Hearn delivering the big dinger rescued the O’s from blowing a crucial scoring opportunity.
Another big positive for the Orioles in this game was Gunnar Henderson (.208), who had two hits, including a first inning solo homer to score the game’s first run. Starting pitcher Tomoyuki Sugano pitched seven innings with only two earned runs allowed to add some modest WPA as well (.095).
Game 19
- Result: Orioles lose to Reds, 8-3
- Record: 8-11
- The biggest play: Elly De La Cruz hits three-run homer off Cade Povich in third inning to put Orioles in 3-1 hole (-32%)
- The biggest goat: Povich (-.433 WPA)
Povich gave up seven runs while failing to complete the fourth inning. He gave up six hits, including three homers, and walked five batters. That’s a terrible start, just about as bad a start by WPA that you can possibly get… except, as we’ll see, there’s a worse Orioles start and a worse start by an opposing pitcher coming later on in this article.
The Orioles offense also stunk in this game, adding support to the belief that any lefty starting pitcher can wreck the O’s. The team recording just four hits while collecting one lone walk over the course of the contest. Due to Povich having given up so many runs, though, these were not impactful outs by WPA because there was never a meaningful chance at a comeback.
Game 20
- Result: Orioles beat Reds, 9-5
- Record: 9-11
- The biggest play: Seranthony Domínguez induces 5-4-3 GIDP to end sixth inning (+19%)
- The biggest hero: Ramón Laureano (.286 WPA)
This was the debut start for rookie Brandon Young. His four innings pitched with three runs allowed was not a particularly good outing, nor was his WPA (-.187), but the Orioles offense on this occasion was good enough to make up for it. What makes this team maddening is they seemingly get wrecked by any lefty but then there are games where they can take it to a very good pitcher, in this case Cincinnati’s Hunter Greene (-.437 after 5 ER in 3 IP).
In addition to Domínguez (.153), Bryan Baker (.106) and Gregory Soto (.132) also logged some clutch relief to preserve Orioles leads. Laureano only entered as an injury replacement for Heston Kjerstad and still managed to be the biggest hero by hitting two crucial dingers. Henderson, who had two hits and two walks, also had a nice game (.208).
Game 21
- Result: Orioles lose to Reds, 24-2
- Record: 9-12
- The biggest play: De La Cruz hits solo homer off Charlie Morton to break 1-1 tie in third inning (-12%)
- The biggest goat: Morton (-.443)
Morton has yet to have a good start this season and most of them have been atrocious. This was the worst yet, allowing seven runs in 2.1 innings, which served to give the Reds a strong lead that they only kept piling on as other embarrassing pitchers followed in Morton’s wake. Every Orioles pitcher who appeared in the game (including two position players) had a double digit ERA when it ended.
One other illustration of how bad this game was for the Orioles is that their most positive play on offense, by WPA, was when Urías reached base on a throwing error and Jordan Westburg scored, tying the game at 1-1 at that time. Urías gets +11% for reaching on the error. There are times that WPA is generous and times that it is unfair, and they may not even out in the end for an individual player.
Game 22
- Result: Orioles lose to Nationals, 7-0
- Record: 9-13
- The biggest play: Dean Kremer gives up two-run first inning home run to Nathaniel Lowe (-13%)
- The biggest goat: Kremer (-.240)
An unfortunately all-too-common trend in Orioles games this year is that the starting pitcher puts them in a big hole and they do not prove capable of digging themselves out of it. Kremer took the lumps here, giving up 11 hits and six runs (five earned) in a 5.1 inning start. At least he went for more than five?
By scoring a whopping zero runs in this game, the Orioles didn’t even begin digging out of the hole Kremer put them in. They were absolutely pathetic against Nats lefty Mitchell Parker (.260) who held them to just one hit and two walks over eight innings. It’s bad and they should all feel bad, except for Cedric Mullins, who was on base three times (.064).
Game 23
- Result: Orioles lose to Nationals, 4-3
- Record: 9-14
- The biggest play: Jordan Westburg leads off eighth inning with triple, putting the tying run on third with no one out (+23%)
- The biggest goat: Tyler O’Neill (-.256 WPA)
It’s not always the play where the decisive run scores that ends up having the biggest impact, as we can see with this one where Westburg’s triple (generous, possibly should be double and an error). This helped the Orioles bring in the tying run without having to get a hit – which, you know, was pretty important for the Orioles last night since they kept failing with RISP overall.
Reliever Gregory Soto took the loss and he does get a bad WPA (-.235) if not the worst for any Oriole after allowing the Nationals to score the go-ahead run on a sacrifice fly after he’d given up a hit and a walk. The walk was in a plate appearance where plate umpire CB Bucknor, a notoriously poor umpire, blew a strike three call on a pitch that was well in the strike zone. WPA does not care about this. The walk is a negative (-.092) and so was the crucial sac fly later on.
O’Neill took a big negative for striking out with two men on and one out in the ninth inning (-.139), and piled on several smaller negatives in his other plate appearances, since he struck out three times overall. Even his productive out, a sacrifice fly with the bases loaded and one out, scored as a negative (-.040) since it reduced the Orioles chances of scoring multiple runs in the inning.
The best Orioles so far
This time last week, the best hitter by WPA was Cedric Mullins (0.60) and the best pitcher was Seranthony Domínguez (0.35).
- WPA (hitters): Mullins (0.83), Ryan O’Hearn (0.45), Ramón Urías (0.40)
- WPA (pitchers): Domínguez (0.51), Bryan Baker (0.40), Yennier Cano (0.34)
- fWAR: Mullins (1.4), three others tied at 0.4
bWAR leaders are Mullins (1.1) for hitters and a four-way tie among Tomoyuki Sugano, Domínguez, Cano, and Zach Eflin (0.5) for pitchers.
The worst Orioles so far
Through three weeks of games, the worst hitter by WPA was Jordan Westburg (-0.58) and the worst pitcher was Charlie Morton (-0.94).
- WPA (hitters): Westburg (-0.49), Heston Kjerstad (-0.47), Tyler O’Neill (-0.47)
- WPA (pitchers): Morton (-1.38), Cade Povich (-0.68), Dean Kremer (-0.66)
- fWAR: Jorge Mateo (-0.6), Gary Sánchez (-0.3), Morton (-0.3)
bWAR negatives are led by Mateo (-0.5) for hitters and Morton (-1.0) for pitchers.