Some guys have been delivering in big spots. Others, not so much.
Each week this season, I’ve been looking at the games played and which Orioles delivered the most in clutch situations, or failed to deliver the most, as measured by the Wins Probability Added stat. Now that we’re in the All-Star break and the non-mathematical first half of the season is over, these have been the best and worst performances through 95 Orioles games.
Best three games (batters)
- Ryan O’Hearn, May 21 win over Brewers, .486 WPA
- Gunnar Henderson, July 10 win over Mets (Game 1), .482 WPA
- Colton Cowser, June 19 win over Rays, .431 WPA
The Orioles won all of these games, in large part because of the contributions made by these individual players in the games. Henderson’s is notable because this was the game where he delivered it all in the span of one at-bat, pinch-hitting with two men on base and hitting a home run to turn a 1-0 deficit into a 3-1 lead. This could only have racked up more WPA if it had happened in the ninth inning with the Orioles down to their last out.
It’s not a guarantee of the team winning even when one single player swings the game at least 40% towards an Orioles victory. The next one after this top 3 is a May 19 loss to the Brewers where Cedric Mullins added 40.2% towards the Orioles winning by hitting a game-tying three-run homer and they still lost.
Single-game WPA for this section and the next few below searched through Baseball Reference’s Stathead tool.
Worst three games (batters)
- Heston Kjerstad, 4/8 loss to Diamondbacks, -.312 WPA
- Dylan Carlson, 6/24 loss to Rangers (10 innings), -.285 WPA
- Cedric Mullins, 5/16 loss to Nationals, -.268 WPA
These specific performances have a few things in common. The Orioles lost each of these games by one run, making it likely that most at-bats were taken with the score being close. None of these players got a hit in these games. They probably failed to come through with multiple men on base, perhaps in particularly stupid ways. For instance, Kjerstad in the loss to Arizona ended the game with a ground ball double play when the tying run was on first base.
Best three games (pitchers)
- Dean Kremer, 5/2 win over Royals, .424 WPA
- Zach Eflin, 5/30 win over White Sox, .412 WPA
- Trevor Rogers, July 12 loss to Marlins, .392 WPA
Rogers also checks in at 4, 8, and 10, so he’s got four of the ten best “clutch” pitching performances of the season for the Orioles while making just six starts so far. This is a list that mostly favors starting pitchers, as there are only three relief outings in the top 20. For the most part, a starter going deep into a game that the Orioles are winning by a narrow margin is the best way to rack up the WPA, though there are scattered relief outings where a pitcher enters a tough situation and gets out of it without allowing further damage.
Worst three games (pitchers)
- Bryan Baker, 6/22 loss to Yankees, -.642 WPA
- Yennier Cano, 5/14 loss to Twins (Game 2), -.606 WPA
- Bryan Baker, 7/8 loss to Mets (10 innings), -.468 WPA
Maybe the only surprising thing about this list is that the Baker outing against the Mets isn’t the worst one. That was his final outing as an Oriole, where he allowed four runs thanks to giving up two different two-run homers, all while failing to retire a single batter. in the process blowing a 6-2 lead. The Orioles eventually lost the game. as we all remember.
What made that June outing against the Yankees worse is that Baker turned an Orioles lead into an Orioles deficit. I don’t know whether the player the Orioles selected with the #37 pick received for Baker – Oregon high school outfielder Slater de Brun – will ever amount to anything, but there’s a decent chance Baker was “addition by subtraction” just on this basis.
Cano also has two of the bottom ten outings, as does Kyle Gibson, who managed to be irredeemably bad in four games such that the Orioles just had to get rid of him.
The most clutch hitters so far
Season-long WPA data from FanGraphs.
- Ryan O’Hearn, 1.92 WPA
- Gunnar Henderson, 1.33 WPA
- Colton Cowser, 1.16 WPA
There are people who are going to need to re-evaluate their opinions of Cowser if he continues to be a player who comes through in clutch situations. So far this season, he’s batting .290/.333/.677 with RISP, and that’s in only 37 games played overall. It’s O’Hearn taking the top honors, followed by Henderson, which isn’t really that surprising since these are two of the three best Orioles batters by OPS this season.
If O’Hearn ends up being traded before the end of the month, the Orioles are going to need somebody else to step up the rest of the way, or if no one ever does, then they’ll need to get someone who can step up next season.
The least clutch hitters so far
- Heston Kjerstad, -1.94 WPA
- Tyler O’Neill, -0.99 WPA
- Jorge Mateo, -0.82 WPA
Other players in the negatives are Adley Rutschman, Jackson Holliday, Coby Mayo, and Jordan Westburg. These are players from whom the Orioles need better things, or at least in Holliday’s and Westburg’s cases, good things happening at more impactful times.
Kjerstad was brutal and we don’t need to kick him while he’s down. Mateo was bad before getting hurt. It’s not likely we’ll be seeing these players on the Orioles again this year, or maybe ever.
O’Neill is more of a problem, because his stinking it up in 2025 means that the Orioles are stuck with him for two more years. He won’t be opting out. That could mean $16.5 million of essentially dead money in 2026 and 2027. Perhaps worse, a black hole of a roster spot until Mike Elias recognizes his error. O’Neill is not hitting the ball hard and is doing particularly poorly against fastballs, where he was feasting a year ago. Maybe his numbers will turn around if he is able to change that.
The most clutch pitchers so far
- Félix Bautista, 1.86 WPA
- Seranthony Domínguez, 1.46 WPA
- Trevor Rogers, 1.45 WPA
As much as I dumped on Bryan Baker above, to be fair, I will note that he is 4th on this list, with 0.39 WPA for the season. Even with those two mega-meltdowns dragging him down, he’s a positive on the season and ahead of all but these three other Orioles.
Bautista has recently overtaken Domínguez, who got more high-leverage situations earlier on. There weren’t many ninth inning save chances for Bautista when the team was playing poorly through mid-May. Rogers doing amazing was mentioned above and it stands out again here. He’s only pitched in six games, one of which wasn’t all that good, but he’s done so well in the other games that he only needs two more good games to take the top spot.
The least clutch pitchers so far
- Cade Povich, -1.35 WPA
- Kyle Gibson, -1.25 WPA
- Charlie Morton, -1.15 WPA
Will Morton be able to pitch himself back out of the negatives by season’s end? If he does, will it happen in an Orioles uniform? Teams who notice he’s been pretty good since the end of April (3.18 ERA in 13 games) might come sniffing around before the trade deadline.
Orioles starting pitchers have the second-worst ERA among all MLB teams. Their 5.16 trails only the Rockies. O’s starters having huge negatives in WPA is no surprise: If you give up a bunch of runs early and put your team in a big hole, you have put a real damper on your chances of winning the game.
There is a low ceiling on what this team can achieve until that changes. You can at least sort of believe it might change based on how Morton and Dean Kremer have pitched since the start of May, as well as Rogers and his six starts.