In just a handful of days since key players returned from injury, the Orioles offense and the bullpen look totally different.
Teams that clinch a playoff spot often look sluggish their next game, but don’t tell that to these Orioles. On Wednesday night, a night after clinching a wild card slot, they swarmed Yankees pitching with nine runs on 17 hits to clinch a series win in the in the Bronx. O’s hitters began the game with a franchise-record six consecutive singles, and by the end, every starter had a hit. Gunnar Henderson and Cedric Mullins had three, and Jordan Westburg, Anthony Santander, Colton Cowser and James McCann each had two.
“It feels like we got our guys back,” said Westburg on Wednesday night. “This is the team we were playing with in the first half.”
That’s exactly right, and Westburg should know. He lost nearly two months to a fractured hand, was reactivated just four days ago, and has been a critical part of the Orioles’ offensive reawakening this week, with four hits, including a double, two walks, and two RBIs. Brandon Hyde loves to use the phrase “keep the line moving,” meaning consecutive hitters taking good at-bats, and when Westburg is in the lineup, the at-bats are competitive.
Same with Ramón Urías, who hit .341/.463/.477/.940 over 18 games in July, emerging out of a bench role he’d been filling earlier this year before losing most of September to an ankle sprain. The right-handed third baseman was also reactivated this week, and he has a hit in each of his three games back, including a home run.
Ryan Mountcastle missed a month with a wrist sprain, and in just two games back, his timing looks really good, as he’s stinging the ball out there.
The Orioles tried to replace all of this lost production in the infield (plus the glove of Jorge Mateo), but it’s now clear those solutions were just a patch. Eloy Jiménez, once a hot-hitting power bat, had a hot start when he joined the team in August but hit just .042 (!!) in September and has been optioned. The 22-year-old Coby Mayo couldn’t get his average over .100 in 17 games. Jackson Holliday, not even old enough to drink, is showing plenty of potential, but he’s posted another sub-Mendoza line average in the second half (.195). Ryan O’Hearn is hitting just .219 in September, and Liván Soto is not the answer.
Here was the Orioles lineup on September 17, a dreadful game that they lost 10-0 to San Francisco at home:
1. Austin Slater LF
2. Adley Rutschman C
3. Gunnar Henderson SS
4. Anthony Santander RF
5. Eloy Jiménez DH
6. Emmanuel Rivera 3B
7. Cedric Mullins CF
8. Coby Mayo 1B
9. Liván Soto 2B
With apologies to Slater and Rivera, who have shown some good things with Baltimore, five out of nine hitters in this lineup should not be starting Orioles games in 2024, and will not be, come the playoffs.
To turn now to the bullpen, the fact that on Wednesday night the Orioles had to outlast a scary late-innings Yankee rally, courtesy of a shaky Matt Bowman (who, as Mark Brown points out, probably won’t be on the playoff roster) shouldn’t obscure what’s been a huge upturn in the relief corps, too. Over the last two weeks, the team has gotten back relievers Jacob Webb and Danny Coulombe while seeing an upturn in Gregory Soto’s play and cutting ties with the ineffective Craig Kimbrel, who had six blown saves and five losses.
This are not inconsequential upgrades. On Wednesday, Jacob Webb got the last out in the fifth for a wobbly Zach Eflin, and threw a scoreless sixth for the win. In five games since coming back, he’s got a decent 3.86 ERA, and he’s pitched the ninth several times, giving important flexibility to a team that doesn’t quite have a real closer (we’ll see what happens with Seranthony Domínguez, but he keeps unhelpfully serving up ninth-inning home runs).
Danny Coulombe is perhaps an even more welcome sight. Since joining the Orioles in March ‘23, he’s been one of their highest-leverage relievers, the guy the skipper can insert in a crisis—a playoff necessity, in other words. He’s just warming up, with only three games back since returning from bone spur surgery in June, but in this stretch he’s struck out four, allowed two hits, no runs and walked just one. The team needs him.
For what it’s worth, too, Gregory Soto, a massively talented but iffy late-innings flamethrower, is looking much better lately. He hasn’t allowed a run in his last five outings, including a ridiculous eighth inning Wednesday night in the Bronx where he retired the side on eight pitches, seven for strikes.
It’s a short stretch of play, but seeing the Orioles come to life against the first-place Yankees has been a big confidence boost—they could easily have gotten swept and failed to even secure a wild card. Instead, they’ve won the three-game series already and are one game away from clinching the top WC spot. The baseball season is a long one, and if this team clicks at the right time, with good situational hitting and solid relief—things they were conspicuously lacking during the slump—the playoffs could look a little bit fun.