Things Are Looking Grim in Baltimore
The Orioles are still yet to win a series in 2025, falling to 5-8 with their ace Zach Eflin now on the 10-day IL
A seemingly normal start to an MLB season for the Baltimore Orioles has now turned into an imperfect first few weeks. After beginning its season 2-1 and 3-2, Baltimore lost two in a row to Boston just before it welcomed a road trip with Kansas City and Arizona, many fans and analysts hoping the team could split in the six-game stretch. Instead, Baltimore was only able to muster two wins, and looked like a well-below-average team in their four losses. Now at 5-8, the Orioles are already digging themselves into a large hole in one of the toughest divisions in baseball.
As if things couldn’t get any worse for a team with World Series aspirations, their ace and only proven elite pitcher at the moment—with Grayson Rodriguez and Kyle Bradish on the 60-day IL—Zach Eflin is now joining his fellow star arms on the injured list with a lat strain.
Gunnar is Off to a Slow Start
If we evaluated every six game stretch from every star in the MLB, hitting slumps are going to be apparent. It’s a long season, and even the game’s best will have their worst moments. Unfortunately for the Orioles and their perennial MVP-candidate shortstop, Gunnar Henderson’s has come in the opening games of his 2025 campaign.
Henderson suffered a right intercostal strain during Spring Training, causing him to open the season on the 10-day injured list while rehabbing at the Triple-AAA level with the Norfolk Tides. In that time, Gunnar looked great, and showed promising signs about his abilities post-injury when he would return.
However, things aren’t looking great to open 2025 for Baltimore’s phenom, who finished with the 4th highest WAR rating in the MLB a year ago. He collected just four hits in 25 at-bats (.160), only scored twice, and still is yet to hit his first long ball of the season after accumulating 37 dingers in 2024. He’s also struck out ten times and has walked just once, perhaps a timing and mechanical issue that could be solved by more playing time, or perhaps be the start of a bad trend for an overwhelming exceptional power hitter in previous seasons. Thus far, Henderson has an OPS+ of 16, and is yet to find his groove in the lineup.
Consistently in the leadoff spot and returning from a serious injury, the Orioles will and should have patience and flexibility with Gunnar. Six games don’t tell the full story. However, they will monitor his progress over the next couple of weeks to see if these early-season trends continue.
The Time in the Sun for Cionel Perez Might Have Just Set
Like they have for the past few seasons, Orioles fans have scratched their heads wondering if their left-handed reliever, one of their only valuable left-handed arms in the pen in 2025, will return to a form anywhere near where he was in 2022. In that season, he put up a 1.40 ERA and 278 ERA+ season in 57.2 innings in his first season with Baltimore. And yet every year since, fans have seemingly gotten the same answer: no, he’s not that same player anymore.
Yet, in his previous two years following his ‘22 breakout campaign, he was a respectable reliever for this ball club. A dependable lefty out of the pen with a slider among the best in the sport, Perez produced at an above-average rate in his past two seasons, though his start to his 2025 year leaves a lot to be desired.
In five innings on the mound, Perez has allowed nine runs, eight walks and accumulated just three strikeouts, numbers that equate to a 16.20 ERA and a 26 ERA+. Through five games, he also has a negative pitching run value per Baseball Savant, a total that has him in the 2nd percentile among all current pitchers. His clear regression in 2025 came to a halting understanding in game one against Kansas City last Friday night, when he allowed five earned runs in one inning of work as the Royals put the icing on the cake on what was a one-run lead going into the 9th inning.
Again, with it being April 12th, no changes are going to be made off of recency-bias, though he doesn’t have the same leeway as other struggling stars in Charm City.
Unpredictability of Lineup Is Killing the O’s
In sports, usually, inconsistency correlates with lack of success. For the Baltimore Orioles, this has become apparent. After an opening series against Toronto where the Orioles scored 21 runs combined in two wins and three combined in two losses, the thought of an inconsistent lineup made up of young talents but yet with little MLB experience seemed like a realistic outcome. And it has been.
It has been a common trend for Baltimore in 2025. Excluding the opening series of the season against Toronto (four games; Baltimore split), the Orioles have lost every single one of its series thus far this season, and in every single one, their total in the two losses has been 60% or lower of the total they scored in their lone win. An inexplicably terrific explanation of what has gone wrong in a 5-8 start for the O’s.
In fact, the Orioles unpredictability as a team has been its worst nightmare. This season, they’ve shown signs of being the World Series contender they’ve been thought of as for the best two-to-three years. With five performances scoring 5+ runs, the potential of this incredibly talented group becomes clear. With six games scoring two or less, their faults and reasons for concerns become overwhelmingly obvious.
They’ve won four games this season by 4+ runs, only the nine-win Chicago Cubs with more. However, they’ve also accumulated four losses by four or more, only the Milwaukee Brewers accounting for more. Consistency is clearly the factor that contributes to winning in Major League Baseball, not playing at the highest level for individual games. This theory has snuck up on Baltimore, and quickly.
Now, there is more to the O’s lackluster start. Even in games where the lineup has disappointed, the pitching staff has been so far form a contending level that offensive productivity wouldn’t have even led to wins. However, in a season where Baltimore is just patiently waiting day-by-day to get its starters healthy to add to a supposedly ‘elite’ lineup, the O’s bats have to start to hold up to their end of the bargain.
Pitching Staff has Entered a Pickle with No Eflin
When Orioles fans saw their miserable offseason conclude and watch Corbin Burnes sign elsewhere and find Grayson Rodriguez and Kyle Bradish on the 60-day injured list, fans at least had one reason to stay positive: ‘we have Zach Eflin.’ Well, at least for the foreseeable future, not anymore.
Baltimore’s trade deadline acquisition last summer has been vital to the success of its rotation since his arrival. A Cy Young contender in 2023, Eflin has returned to elite status, and with the loss of Burnes, was without question the Opening Day starter. In three outings in 2025, he’s played solid baseball, compiling a quality start in each performance, and his ability to go 6+ innings has been tremendous for the bullpen. Now with a lat strain however, Baltimore’s worst nightmare has come true: everyone’s hurt.
Rodriguez, Bradish, Tyler Wells, Trevor Rogers, Chase McDermott and Albert Suarez are all dealing with injuries alongside Eflin, and all would have been candidates to replace his presence in the short-term. Now, good news for the O’s is that so far, he’s just on the 10-day IL. And if he is able to return in a timetable expected for a player on the 10-day injured list, Baltimore could roll with a bullpen game in the one performance they can’t run one of its other four starters. There a few different options in that scenario, though after a delay on Friday night there is a scenario where Baltimore could run its four starters and no one else until Eflin returns.
However, if he’s out long-term, Baltimore has entered a tricky position. Charlie Morton might not even be able to play himself out of a rotation he wouldn’t be in on most squads with the quantity of injuries, Dean Kremer is off to a very lackluster start, and Cade Povich is still showing signs of growing pains. If Triple-AAA master Brandon Young, veteran last-minute-offseason-pickup Kyle Gibson or somebody else needs to fill a long-term position however, things could get ugly in Charm City.
Baltimore is back at it against Toronto at 4:05 pm eastern.
Chase Coburn
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