Baltimore Orioles Offense – A Position by Position Review

Jul 19, 2014; Oakland, CA, USA; Baltimore Orioles first baseman Chris Davis (19) hit a solo home run during the ninth inning against the Oakland Athletics at O.co Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Bob Stanton-USA TODAY Sports

FIRST BASE (-3 = Massively Worse)

It will surprise nobody that the biggest offensive loss year-to-year is at the first base position for the Baltimore Orioles.

Nobody realistically expected Chris Davis to repeat the historic season of 2013, but I doubt that anyone could be found either who would have predicted quite so precipitous a drop-off as has happened.

Will there be a definitive recovery from what has been a year-long slump? At times there appears to be a bit of light. He has hit a few critical home runs in high-pressured situations, but it cannot make up for the league-leading strikeout numbers and endless ground balls hit into the over-shifts.

It would seem that the way out of the abyss would be to cut down on his swing and hit against the shift until such time as they play him more straight-up. But he seems unwilling to take this approach.

So who knows which way this is going to go? Both extremes are imaginable, as we have seen the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Reflecting on this, Showalter said of what may yet happen off of Davis’ bat for the rest of the year …

"“You never know where a season will lead you, as it has a strange way of finding unlikely heroes.”"