Baltimore Orioles: Did Poor Starting Pitching Ruin the First Half?

Jun 5, 2015; Cleveland, OH, USA; Baltimore Orioles starting pitcher Chris Tillman (30) pitches during the fifth inning against the Cleveland Indians at Progressive Field. Mandatory Credit: Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports

There is no doubt that the Baltimore Orioles had hopes for the starting rotation to be a lot better than they have been as a group in 2015. And this was a reasonable hope, given the terrific final two-thirds of the 2014 season. They were so good that the big question in spring training was how the Orioles were going to deal with six starters for five slots.

The presumptive team “ace” or top-of-the-rotation starter Chris Tillman has been a particular disappointment, pitching to an ERA of 5.40 and WHIP of 1.556. That is really bad. And even worse was Bud Norris, who after going 15-8 in 2014 was expected to be better than putting up an ERA of 6.86 and record already of 2-9.

Miguel Gonzalez has been more inconsistent that last year, especially of late. So has Kevin Gausman, though I would not lay all the blame at his feet. Fortunately Wei-Yin Chen has been as good or even better than last year, and Ubaldo Jimenez has been excellent in most starts.

But just how bad and how deadly have been the poor starts of Tillman, Norris, and Gonzalez? In fact, half of the Orioles’ 44 losses have come in the games started by these three pitchers.

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But to analyze it further, let’s consider the three pitches by the categories as defined here:

Category 1 – A good, quality start that led to a win for the Orioles

Category 2 – A good, quality start that was wasted by a lack of run support

Category 3 – A mediocre or poor start that nonetheless resulted in a win

Category 4 – A deadly, poor start that was the leading contributory factor in a loss

Team = The final column is the record of the Orioles in the games started by that pitcher.

Pitcher	Starts	Cat. 1	Cat. 2	Cat. 3	Cat. 4	Team
Tillman	17	6	2	3	6	9-8
Norris	11	2	3	2	4	4-7
Gonzalez	16	6	2	3	5	9-7

So what does this tell us? First, these three pitchers have started exactly one-half of the Orioles’ 44 games. They have pitched well enough to have positioned the team to win 21 of those games, whereas the team won 22 of them.

In any event, it is a mediocre performance at best. So it is no wonder the Orioles are a .500 outfit at this point. This is not a combined effort that is good enough to put a team into position to win a divisional title. The rotation has to do better, especially Tillman and, to a lesser extent, Gonzalez. Of course, Norris has now been replaced in the rotation by Gausman.

Will they improve sufficiently?

Next: The chances of a better second half for the Orioles ...

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