O's Magic: Well That Was a Weird Series!
Quick Hits from Baltimore's series win but in a wild way against Kansas City!
Welcome back to another edition of ‘O’s Magic’, a Cool Sports Newsletter series made by a die hard Orioles fan! The Baltimore Orioles took two of three in their road series against Kansas City, wrapping up their season-series against one of the better teams in the majors thus far. But Baltimore didn’t have its most amazing series. Offensively, Baltimore continues to thrive with pieces all over their offense. But their pitching has not been great, especially out of the bullpen and it showed in this series. Here are my quick hits!
Things That Were Intriguing
Westy Westburg
In this series, Orioles third baseman Jordan Westburg went 5-12 with a triple, a home run and 4 RBI’s. But yet this has turned into a normal three-game outing for Westburg, who a year ago I may add was still playing AAA baseball. Westburg’s .333 average is 11th in the MLB, along with five homers (17th), 18 RBI’s (11th), .639 slugging (4th), 1.031 OPS (6th) and 1.3 WAR (9th). In fact, his OPS+ is 203, the highest of any qualifying hitter in the Majors so far. His wRC+ of 200 is also a top five rate in the MLB. We thought of Westburg going into this season as an above average, reliable hitter with decent fielding. Now, he is playing like one of the best hitters in baseball and the Orioles are not complaining about it!
Cole Irvin Is Proving Himself
The Orioles pitching rotation has not looked great, and you’ll hear more about it. But Cole Irvin has been making a case to be put as a permanent piece in this rotation once everyone becomes healthy. Irvin had a tough start to the season with 4+ earned runs allowed in his first two outings. In his last two though, Irvin has gone 4.2 and 6.2 innings respectively with just two earned runs allowed, two walks, six strikeouts and an above average strike rate combined in the two games. The two performances may have been his two best as an Oriole. He could be doing a better job at throwing strikes on the first pitch, which has lowered his strikeout rate despite a top-30 strike thrown percentage in the MLB by Fan Graphs. However Irvin is showing why he should stay a starter, and with more performances like his last one, Brandon Hyde won’t think twice about it.
Areas That Need Work
The Bullpen
I’m keeping it broad. But the bullpen is not playing well…at all. Remember that amazing Keegan Akin start to the season? Well, with more three earned runs allowed outings in .1 innings it will be out of my memory! Baltimore’s bullpen almost cost them the series, as it was a key reason why Baltimore couldn’t get back in to game one and a huge reason why they also lost with nine runs in game two. Even more consistent guys in the rotation like Dillon Tate and Yennier Cano are even struggling to collect outs. Craig Kimbrel, Jacob Webb and Danny Coulombe have been consistent, but the rest of the bullpen needs to step up, or Baltimore's record will pay the price.
Flukey Pitching
To start the season, the Orioles pitching rotation was playing like one of the best in baseball. Now, and it’s safe to say things have changed. They haven’t been horrible, but definitely not World Series-caliber. They’re about middle of the pack in hits and earned runs allowed, but the Orioles are below average in strikeout rate and OBP. They have also only walked 52 batters, the second worst rate in the MLB. Something I am concerned with is that teams are making good contact very often against the Orioles. According to Baseball Savant, Baltimore’s 43% Hard Hit percentage allowed and 89.6 Exit Velocity allowed are both in the bottom 3% of the MLB.
So Baltimore is allowing good contact at a very high rate, something to be concerned about as the season goes on. Once Kyle Bradish and John Means recover a ton of these problems will be solved, but I feel Baltimore’s decent pitching start has been very flukey so far.
But if I’m Baltimore, I wouldn’t be worried as a team. The offense has stepped up, the bullpen has been fatigued from the starters lack of length, and a shortened starting pitching rotation for the O’s is still finding the strike zone often. As a team, the Orioles SRS rating (which is a stat that describes how good a team is based on how bad they beat teams and the teams they beat) is second to only Milwaukee in the entire league. The O’s are doing something right, and they’re finding ways to consistently win games against good baseball teams. Some things to work on for sure, but the O’s are looking more than fine as they continue to push the limits on what they define as ‘possible’!
Chase Coburn
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