The Orioles are 3-3 over the last week, which makes this one of the best weeks of the season to date.
Last week’s edition of this article had the Orioles five games into what ended up being a season-long six-game winning streak. That was fun. Not quite as fun this week, with the O’s having gone 3-3 since this time last week. It is an improvement on most of the other weeks they’ve had this season, though treading water at .500 isn’t going to pull off anybody’s longshot playoff dreams or stave off a potential end of July period of trading away soon-to-be free agents.
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 61
- Result: Orioles beat Mariners, 4-3
- Orioles record: 25-36
- The biggest play: Adley Rutschman hits two-run home run to tie game at 3-3 in sixth inning (+25%)
- The biggest hero: Rutschman (.259 WPA)
An entirely different two-run home run turned the game away from the Orioles, as MLB home run leader Cal “Big Dumper” Raleigh broke a 1-1 tie in the fifth inning with a two run dinger that swung the game 25% away from the O’s. Rutschman, who had three hits in the game, swung it back towards the O’s with his big homer, and Gunnar Henderson making it back-to-back (+18%) put the O’s ahead for good.
Credit also to the bullpen in this game, where three guys you might not have clocked as a 7-8-9 combo delivered scoreless innings: Keegan Akin (.102 WPA), Andrew Kittredge (.131), and Bryan Baker (.180) closing it out for his second save. This was the sixth win of the Orioles winning streak and with the Athletics looming, even a pessimist could be tempted into believing things might have improved. Then, you know…
Game 62
- Result: Orioles lose to Athletics, 5-4
- Record: 25-37
- The biggest play: Dylan Carlson hits two-run home run to give Orioles 2-0 second inning lead (+19%)
- The biggest goat: Dean Kremer (-.362 WPA)
The winning streak ended as soon as the stretch of quality starting pitching ended. Go figure. Kremer gave up five runs in 5.1 innings, neatly blowing a 3-0 lead the O’s had given him through their half of the third inning. Then, after the O’s tied it back up at 4-4 in the fifth, Kremer gave up one more. It was a bad outing, of which he has had several.
Despite the problems Kremer had in the game, the bullpen came in and didn’t allow any further Athletics runs, giving the Orioles opportunities to come back. In the seventh inning, Jackson Holliday led off with a single, but was immediately erased as Adley Rutschman hit into a double play (-14%). In the eighth, the O’s loaded the bases with one out, leading the A’s to summon last year’s mega-closer, Mason Miller, for a five-out save.
Miller absolutely embarrassed pinch hitter Heston Kjerstad (-17%) and struck out Holliday as well (-18%) to escape the jam. He notched a massive .509 WPA for this one game. That’s the biggest number I’ve seen in any game the Orioles were involved in all season.
Game 63
- Result: Orioles beat Athletics, 7-4
- Record: 26-37
- The biggest play: Colton Cowser puts Orioles ahead 5-4 with solo home run in sixth inning (+18%)
- The biggest hero: Gunnar Henderson (.236 WPA)
This was a quality, team-wide effort to get the Orioles right back into the win column, with six of the nine hitters in the starting lineup posting positive WPA numbers, as well as the six pitchers who followed after starting pitcher Charlie Morton (-.337 WPA). One reason they have a bad record is that wins like this, coming from behind, are rare. The O’s have batted poorly in late innings generally, and also poorly when trailing this season.
Ramón Laureano (.113 WPA) had three hits and drove in three of the Orioles runs. This included a two-run dinger that pulled the Orioles back within a run. Henderson had three hits as well. Special shoutout to Matt Bowman (.122) for coming in and stopping the bleeding with 2.1 innings of scoreless work. He had to know he was going to get designated for assignment the next day when Scott Blewett arrived. He still got the job done.
Game 64
- Result: Orioles lose to Athletics, 5-1
- Record: 26-38
- The biggest play: Jhonny Pereda hits RBI double off Tomoyuki Sugano to give Athletics 2-1 lead in second inning (-12%)
- The biggest goat: Sugano (-.282 WPA)
Another game in Sacramento, another poor outing by the Orioles starting pitcher, and in this case the O’s could not pull off the comeback. The reason that they could not pull off the comeback is that they were almost entirely shut down by two random lefties, Jacob Lopez and Sean Newcomb, who combined for seven innings with just one unearned run allowed. This is another ongoing problem for the Orioles, who are hitting (lefty batting splits)
The Orioles had eight hits. They also had eight at-bats with runners in scoring position, and picked up exactly zero of those eight hits with RISP. The previous night’s solid performer, Laureano, was not able to pull off another Revenge Game against his former team. Batting out of the cleanup spot, Laureano took an 0-4 for a -.125 WPA, more than erasing what he’d done the previous day.
Game 65
- Result: Orioles lose to Tigers, 5-3
- Record: 26-39
- The biggest play: Cade Povich gives up two-run home run to Spencer Torkelson to give Tigers 5-1 fifth inning lead (-15%)
- The biggest goat: Povich (-.319 WPA)
The whole world has to answer right now, just to tell you once again: Who’s bad? I’m not talking about Michael Jackson here. I’m talking about the Orioles starting rotation. Povich’s bad start here was the latest bad one for the group. He remains a puzzle. His strikeout rate and walk rate are that of a solid pitcher, and his home run rate is of an acceptably mediocre one.
Yet Povich’s results stink. Batters are hitting .291/.348/.488 off of him, better than any qualified O’s batter except for O’Hearn. He is particularly bad when facing batters the third time in a game, allowing a whopping 1.116 OPS. Essentially, once Povich hits the fifth inning all batters become Aaron Judge. If he doesn’t prove he belongs in MLB by season’s end, the team can’t count on him as a 2026 option.
Detroit tried to draft on the “Orioles can’t hit lefties” thing here by using their bullpen lefty, Brant Hurter, as an opener ahead of fresh off Tommy John guy Sawyer Gipson-Long (not a lefty). The O’s scored a run off Hurter, then didn’t score again until the eighth when they got one against Gipson-Long. A ninth inning leadoff home run by Jordan Westburg in his first game back from the IL was fun but did not spark anything else. The next three batters were retired in order and the game ended.
Game 66
- Result: Orioles beat Tigers, 10-1
- Record: 27-39
- The biggest play: Colt Keith hits double off Zach Eflin to cut Orioles lead to 2-1 in seventh inning (-23%)
- The biggest hero: Eflin (.193 WPA)
Eflin’s excellent start was on the verge of falling apart as he tried to get through the seventh inning. Three straight hits by the Tigers brought in their first run, had the tying run on third base, and the go-ahead run on second base, with only one out. The Orioles held the line, with Ramón Urías delivering a good throw home to get an out at the plate on a contact play (+17%), and then reliever Keegan Akin striking out pinch hitter and former Oriole Jahmai Jones to close out the threat. No Tiger got on base for the rest of the game.
Akin faced just the one batter, and his one batter swung the game 10% towards an Orioles victory. There’s a related stat to WPA/win expectancy that’s called average leverage index (aLI), which uses a 1 as average pressure, with lower numbers meaning lower pressure and higher numbers meaning increasingly higher pressure. Gregory Soto pitched the ninth and had a 0.00 aLI. Akin’s one batter was a 3.56 aLI. That was the moment and he held on, and the O’s went on to make things much more awesome from that point.
Urías’s two-run home run in the third inning gave the Orioles all the offense they would end up needing for the game (.136 WPA). Since the O’s were already 94% to win as they entered the bottom of the eighth, none of the individual parts of that seven-run explosion were worth all that much in win probability terms. The outburst was cathartic for fans who’ve been waiting two months to see a blowout.
The best Orioles so far
This time last week, the best Orioles hitter by WPA was Ryan O’Hearn (2.31) and the best pitcher was Seranthony Domínguez (0.85). Updated numbers through this week:
- WPA (hitters): O’Hearn (1.86), Cedric Mullins (0.57), Gunnar Henderson (0.41)
- WPA (pitchers): Domínguez (0.99), Bryan Baker (0.92), Félix Bautista (0.68)
- fWAR: O’Hearn (1.7), Henderson (1.6), Mullins/Jackson Holliday (1.1)
O’Hearn batted just .143 with no extra base hits over the last seven days and it shows in the decline of his WPA. It’s good to see that some other O’s are starting to step up. Last week’s update had Dylan Carlson in third place here with a paltry 0.12. Henderson will hopefully continue to ascend.
On the team bWAR leaderboard, Henderson is at the top with 2.2, followed by Tomoyuki Sugano (1.7) and O’Hearn (1.5).
The worst Orioles so far
In last week’s update, the worst hitter by WPA was Heston Kjerstad (-1.72) and the worst pitcher was Charlie Morton (-1.39). Here’s how things stand now:
- WPA (hitters): Kjerstad (-1.94), Jorge Mateo (-0.82), Adley Rutschman (-0.62)
- WPA (pitchers): Morton (-1.72), Cade Povich (-1.36), Yennier Cano (-0.60)
- fWAR: Kjerstad (-1.1), Maverick Handley (-0.5), three Orioles tied with -0.4
In bWAR, Kjerstad also sits at the bottom with -1.4. The worst pitcher at -1.1 is Kyle Gibson, who’s been gone for a while. fWAR both doesn’t like Orioles pitchers (Sugano at 0.5 compared to his 1.7 bWAR) and likes them too much (Cade Povich goes from -0.4 bWAR to 0.6 fWAR). Kjerstad going back to the minors removes a real drag on the lineup, though of course we’ll see if the players who now play instead of him end up doing any better.