Orioles All-or-Nothing Offense Cause for Early Alarm?

Apr 6, 2015; St. Petersburg, FL, USA; Baltimore Orioles left fielder

Alejandro De Aza

(12) hits a 2-run home run during the fifth inning against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

The Baltimore Orioles have been known for the last few years under Buck Showalter as a very aggressive offense. Buck, and Dan Duquette can preach good on-base percentage all they want. However, that usually isn’t the case.

Last year, the team walked 401 times, but struck out 1285 times. That is the third worst number of walks in the American League.

Last year’s team leader in walks was Nick Markakis with 62. He is gone, as is the man who was third, Nelson Cruz, with 55.

Only Chris Davis (60) and Steve Pearce (40) walked more than 30 times last year for the Orioles.

Jonathan Schoop and Adam Jones hardly ever walk. In fact, both were in the triple digits in strike outs, and teens in walks.

For whatever reason, the team has a new hitting coach in 2015. Scott Coolbaugh came from the Rangers saying that he wasn’t going to fix the approach of some of the teams’ best hitters. At this point, I would say that rings true.

Only one person on the team has more than three walks so far, Travis Snider. Snider stands to help the Orioles improve in being selective on his own. While the team has only walked 9 times, it has struck out 29 times. Which as of 8 p.m. Thursday night, was the most in AL.

Part of this is due to the Rays pitchers. Jake Odorizzi, Chris Archer, Brad Boxberger are going to get a lot of strikeouts. But part of it is a lack of selection at the plate.

In the first game of the 2015 season, the Orioles’ offense was able to score runs in five different innings, with four of those runs coming off of home runs.

In game two against Nathan Karns, the team scored all six runs in the first 2 innings, with two of the runs coming off a Steve Pearce home run.