The Orioles had a bad week and a variety of people deserve some blame for that.
Up until 12 days ago, the Orioles were playing well enough that they, and we, could at least pretend they might remain in the periphery of the AL wild card picture. Losing the last two games before the All-Star break to the Marlins and the first two coming out of the break to the Rays really settled that they were out of that. Nothing matters any more except for the O’s making people feel like the core of this team, which will be remaining into next year, can actually compete better. Lately, they’re doing the opposite.
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. As we all know by now, it’s been much more losing than winning. 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 that looked over the past week:
Game 96
- Result: Orioles lose to Rays, 11-1
- Record: 43-53
- The biggest play: Junior Caminero hits three-run home run off Charlie Morton to give Rays 3-0 first inning lead (-24%)
- The biggest goat: Morton (-.299 WPA)
Morton had been going in a much better direction up until this start, where some of the command problems that plagued him in April seemed to catch back up to him. The Orioles probably should have yanked him sooner than they did, except they didn’t want to trash the bullpen right out of the break, so Morton ended up pitching 5.1 innings in which he allowed seven runs. He gave up runs early, he gave up runs late, and handed garbage time, reliever Grant Wolfram made things worse, but in WPA terms, it barely mattered (-.012).
Had the Orioles offense done much of anything at all, Wolfram’s later meltdown might have been more significant. But, as has happened in too many games this year, they didn’t. The team combined for just five hits all game, and since three of these were hit by Colton Cowser and two by Gunnar Henderson, that meant seven starting players had no hits. It’s a tough way to win a game or even score a run. They only broke up the shutout in the ninth inning, when Henderson scored after his leadoff double thanks to two groundouts. So they didn’t even get a hit with RISP in the game.
Game 97
- Result: Orioles lose to Rays, 4-3
- Record: 43-54
- The biggest play: Two runs score, giving the Rays a 4-2 lead, when Ryan O’Hearn errantly throws home on a bases loaded fielder’s choice in the eighth inning (-19%)
- The biggest goat: Seranthony Domínguez (-.476 WPA)
This one surely has to rank up there as one of the worst Orioles losses of the year, because it’s such a shame to lose when the O’s starting pitcher – in this case Dean Kremer – pitches seven innings while allowing only one run (.318 WPA). More than good enough to win! Except then Domínguez got involved, recording just one out while allowing two hits, issuing two walks, throwing a wild pitch, and probably not helping his poor catcher Jacob Stallings prevent three stolen bases. The Orioles were 70% to win the game when Domínguez entered and 23% to win by the time he left.
For all that, it was Gregory Soto who was on the mound when the decisive blow was struck. Entering with the bases loaded, he induced Jonathan Aranda to hit a ground ball to the drawn-in infield on the first pitch. O’Hearn only needed to make a half-decent throw home, where Stallings simply had to step on home plate rather than tag anybody. The O’s All-Star let them down. You can’t even really blame Soto.
Game 98
- Result: Orioles beat Rays, 5-3
- Record: 44-54
- The biggest play: Félix Bautista strikes out Junior Caminero to end the game (+17%)
- The biggest hero: Trevor Rogers (.164 WPA)
One of the specialties the Orioles have had this season is managing to win a game and you don’t even feel all that good about it afterwards. Bautista made that happen in this one by handing out three free passes while he was trying to close out a three-run save, which he turned into a two-run save with the tying run on second and the winning run on first before he was done. The O’s won, but if the erratic side of Bautista is returning, we all lose. After Wednesday’s game, the team said Bautista is possibly hurt again in some vague way, so maybe we all lose regardless.
Rogers continued a nice run of starts with this outing, allowing two runs on five hits and two walks over six innings. This lost season will be less grim if he can cement himself into next season’s starting rotation – which, with a 1.74 ERA and 0.871 WHIP in seven starts, he is well on his way to doing.
Game 99
- Result: Orioles lose to Guardians, 10-5
- Record: 44-55
- The biggest play: Ramón Laureano his two-run home run off Tanner Bibee to give Orioles 5-3 lead in third inning (+21%)
- The biggest goat: Tomoyuki Sugano (-.251 WPA)
The Orioles pulled out to a 3-0 lead in the top of the first inning and Sugano gave back all of those runs in the bottom of the first before even managing to record a single out. This kind of thing is just an extra kick in the teeth. Sugano ultimately could not even get through the fourth inning and the bottom three guys in the Orioles bullpen all did their part to make things worse, none moreso than Wolfram, who allowed four runs in two innings (-.191 WPA).
Not that the offense really helped out much either. Yes, they scored five runs by the end of the third inning and that’s good, but they only had six hits total in the game and in fact, from the fourth inning on, no Oriole safely reached base. It’s hard to win a game like that, and it’s harder to do it with the worst performers on this pitching staff. If you’ve been thinking that this team bats worse once they’re behind, you’re not wrong: The Orioles are a .222/.288/.374 team when trailing in a game. That’s 30 points of OPS behind the league average.
Game 100
- Result: Orioles lose to Guardians, 6-3
- Record: 44-56
- The biggest play: Jacob Stallings grounds into double play, scoring run but snuffing fifth inning rally (-13%)
- The biggest goat: Stallings (-.220 WPA)
Batting with the bases loaded and nobody out and grounding into a double play is pretty much the worst thing a batter can do. Of course that’s what the fifth-string Orioles catcher managed to do in this game. About all you can say about it is at least it wasn’t a GIDP that erased the runner heading home, This was Stallings’s second GIDP of the game! He also immediately erased a leadoff walk in the third inning by following that up with a GIDP. It’s hard to even get mad when Plan E at the catching position is not producing in key spots.
My beef with the Orioles for this game was more about not challenging starting pitcher Brandon Young (-.125 WPA) to escape the mess he’d made in the fifth inning. Young walked #9 hitter Bo Naylor and later gave up a one-out double. The O’s only trailed by a run at this point, so I get it, but like, the wins and losses don’t matter now.
The GM all but said it’s a sell-off. It’s time to challenge Young to see if he can find what it takes to get some outs the third time through the order. It might have worked out badly, but that’s useful information for 2026 rotation planning either way. The Orioles have optioned Young back to the minors for now, so they’re not finding out anything.
Game 101
- Result: Orioles lose to Guardians, 3-2
- Record: 44-57
- The biggest play: Steven Kwan hits go-ahead single off Colin Selby in the eighth inning (-29%)
- The biggest goat: Selby (-.240 WPA)
Those watching this game may feel, not unreasonably, that the blame for this decisive play really ought to have been cast on Cedric Mullins, for making an errant throw home from not particularly deep in the outfield, on which Kwan was able to score. WPA does not care about these things. It’s not always fair, but it’s not here for subjective blame.
This was yet another stupid and almost inexplicable loss by the 2025 Orioles. They only gave up four hits. They should have won! But they, themselves, only got five hits, because this offense is largely in a bad place over the course of this month. It’s not fun, and presumably it’s not going to get better once people are traded away.
The best Orioles so far
Through the first half of the season, the best Orioles hitter by WPA was Ryan O’Hearn (1.92) and the best pitcher was Félix Bautista (1.86). Here’s how things look after the first week of games coming out of the All-Star break:
- WPA (hitters): O’Hearn (1.90), Gunnar Henderson (1.30), Colton Cowser (1.01)
- WPA (pitchers): Bautista (1.90), Trevor Rogers (1.61), Seranthony Domínguez (0.90)
- fWAR: Henderson leads hitters (2.6), with Dean Kremer (1.8) ahead for pitchers
Henderson also leads in bWAR (2.9), with Ramón Laureano as the only other Oriole at 2+ WAR. Rogers is the top pitcher at 1.9.
The worst Orioles so far
Before the All-Star break, the worst active Orioles hitter by WPA was Tyler O’Neill (-0.71) and the worst pitcher was Charlie Morton (-1.15). Where things stand after the last week of games:
- WPA (hitters): O’Neill (-1.10), Jacob Stallings (-0.43), Jackson Holliday (-0.40)
- WPA (pitchers): Morton (-1.44), Zach Eflin (-0.94), Tomoyuki Sugano (-0.94)
- WPA (not here now): Heston Kjerstad (-1.94), Cade Povich (-1.35), Kyle Gibson (-1.25)
- fWAR: O’Neill trails position players (-0.6), Eflin (-0.2) trails pitchers
In bWAR, the lowest hitter is Coby Mayo (-0.6) and the worst pitcher is Morton (-0.5). Morton had been headed in a good direction until his most recent start. Maybe he’ll flip it back around for the better with his start today.