Baltimore Orioles and Runners in Scoring Position

The Baltimore Orioles busted out of a team-wide slump with runners in scoring position on Sunday, en route to a 9-3 victory over the Detroit Tigers. The victory pulled them back above .500, and kept them four games behind the New York Yankees in the AL East.

Going into Sunday’s game, the Orioles were the fourth-best team in baseball, and second in the American League with a .288 average with runners in scoring position.

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On Sunday, the team got to Justin Verlander in a big way in the fourth inning, scoring seven runs and sending Verlander to the showers. The O’s would tack on two more runs later, en route to an easy victory. On Sunday, the team went 6-for-10 with runners in scoring position, a sign that maybe their luck is changing.

Earlier this week, the O’s were 8 for their last 95 with runners in scoring position. That is not a misprint. For those wondering, that works out to an .084 percentage.

Maybe it was just bad luck. The team has obviously been putting runners on base, either via walks or getting hits. They just couldn’t bring them home.

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Out of the Oriole regulars, Matt Wieters is 2-for-18 (.111) with runners in scoring position. Chris Parmelee, who in my opinion will be off the roster come Wednesday, is 4-for-19 (.211). Adam Jones and Chris Davis are both hitting .250. Everyone else is higher than that.

That includes Jonathan Schoop, who in limited time is 5-for-12 (.417) and Jimmy Paredes, who has been near the league lead in average with runners in scoring position all year.  His percentage is 21-for-57 (.368).

So you can look at it as maybe the Orioles have turned a page. This team is getting fairly consistent pitching, but has struggled to hit in the month of July.

If that is changing, the Orioles are primed to move up the standings in the American League.