If the Orioles won two of three games for the next month, they’d be back at .500 at the end of that month.
Hello, friends.
The Orioles…? The team winning a series is so rare this year that it must be savored when it happens. They picked up the victory in Anaheim against the Angels yesterday to take the series. The 7-3 win included a decent start from Zach Eflin as he returned from the injured list and O’s hitters doing enough to get into a bad Angels bullpen, and, crucially, taking advantage of that opportunity. Check out John Beers’s recap of the game for more of the lovely totals.
Dare anyone hope that this will turn out to be the first real sign of sustained life from this year’s Orioles team? They have fooled us before, including the last time they won a series at the end of April. Beating the Yankees two out of three, with the introduction of Ryan O’Hearn’s “SMFB!”, couldn’t do it. Not even when they came out of that series and won the first game of the next series. Rather than do better, they lost five in a row.
The latest attempt at a gimmick that we can latch onto for as long as it lasts is a Jack Sparrow pirate hat that appeared as a home run prop on Saturday night. The prop, a solid replica of the signature look from this century’s Pirates of the Caribbean movies, was said by the MASN broadcast to have been purchased during a Disneyland visit in which Orioles coaches told some hitters to go have some fun.
There’s a local historic connection here, with the British supposedly believing Baltimore to have been “a nest of pirates” during the War of 1812. Now we just need the offense to not pay homage to Sparrow in an entirely different way, leaving us all asking, “But why are the runs gone?”
After Sunday’s win, the Orioles stand at 15-24 for the season. That sucks. That’s on pace for a record where you might as well list the losses rather than wins: a 100-loss season. It’s going to be a long grind even to get back to .500, to say nothing about surging beyond that.
Consider that if the Orioles continued to win at this weekend’s pace, two times out of every three games, they would have to go 18-9 from here just to be .500 at the end of that time. That’s 27 games from now, which, if I’m doing my math right, would happen on June 11. And they are highly unlikely to continue winning two out of three games for the next month. Let’s say we extend the timeline to July 13, the last game before the All-Star break. The O’s must go 33-23 to be 48-47 at the break. It feels like tough math because it is.
Sunday’s win did offer some rays of light. Eflin’s return was one part. So was all of the following guys having multi-hit games, listed in order of appearance in Sunday’s starting lineup: Gunnar Henderson, Ryan Mountcastle, Adley Rutschman, Cedric Mullins. If there is to be a 2025 Orioles resurgence, it’s going to take these guys being among those making good things happen.
The other big thing to get figured out is the starting rotation. It’s premature to claim that Eflin is guaranteed to step in as “the” guy in the rotation, though at least he didn’t get shellacked and destroy any hope. Tomoyuki Sugano has continued to do good things. Dean Kremer is clawing his way back from the depths. If all three of those guys pitch well, that will help good things happen too. Solving one (Kyle Gibson) or two (Cade Povich) problems is a lot easier than solving three or four rotation problems.
Anyway, today is an off day as the team travels back to Baltimore. The Twins, who just swept their butts last week in Minnesota, are coming in to town. If the Orioles want to keep anybody feeling even a little bit better about them, they can show it by reversing their fortunes quickly against those guys.
Orioles stuff you might have missed
Hyde on Orioles start: ‘We’re a better team than that’ (Baltimore Baseball)
This has been one of the regular refrains from people connected with the team during this rocky first six weeks of baseball. They just refuse to do anything for long to prove it.
The Orioles’ injury clouds are clearing. The damage is done. (The Baltimore Banner)
The basic problem is this: Even if it turns out that the players missing due to injury were really what set into effect a cascading failure that led to this stuff, they’re now in a deep hole and it’s going to take a lot to escape from that.
Orioles are ‘pressing’ with RISP. The message? ‘Don’t try to force it.’ (The Baltimore Sun)
Players and coaches both seem to have landed on an entirely plausible-sounding explanation for the problem. But they haven’t fixed the issue yet!
Birthdays and Orioles anniversaries
Today in 2023, Cedric Mullins hit for the cycle as the Orioles beat the Pirates, 6-3. Just seven O’s have ever hit for the cycle, with two of these happening within the last three years. Mullins’s cycle is the most recent.
There are a few former Orioles who were born on this day. They are: 2022-23 infielder Terrin Vavra, 2014 pitcher Evan Meek, 1995 outfielder Kevin Bass, and 1982-85 catcher Joe Nolan. Today is Nolan’s 74th birthday, so an extra happy birthday to him.
Is today your birthday? Happy birthday to you! Your birthday buddies for today include: modern nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale (1820), composer Gabriel Fauré (1845), baseball Hall of Famer Yogi Berra (1925), skateboarder Tony Hawk (1968), and actor Rami Malek (1981).
On this day in history…
In 907, military governor Zhu Wen forced the abdication of China’s Emperor Ai, bringing an end to the Tang dynasty after more than three centuries. Zhu Wen shortly formed his own dynasty, Later Liang, today known only among many short-lived rulers in the “Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms” period of Chinese history.
In 1551, the National University of San Marcos was founded in Lima in modern-day Peru. This is recognized as the oldest university in the Americas.
In 1797, during the War of the First Coalition, Napoleon Bonaparte conquered Venice. When the war ended months later, the Treaty of Campo Formio between France and Austria determined that Austria would seize control of Venice.
In 1932, the Lindbergh baby was found dead a few miles away from the family’s New Jersey home. Charles Lindbergh Jr. had been missing for ten weeks.
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And that’s the way it is in Birdland on May 12. Have a safe Monday.