Will the Real Baltimore Orioles Please Stand Up
Is the real Baltimore Orioles team of 2016 the one that started the season with seven wins, or the one that lost three of the past four games?
The answer is “yes.” They are both.
The Orioles are clearly a team that is going to live and die by the home run ball. On Friday evening they got nine runs on five homers, whereas on Saturday it was only three runs on three homers. The latter was frustrating, but generally three home runs in a game is going to be a good thing.
The O’s began the season with some good starting pitching, but since then it has not been as great. Honestly, Gallardo and Tillman have deserved bit better fates than they have received, but this is not going to be a league-leading rotation. Some days they will be good, other times they will be awful.
The Orioles have one of the best managers in baseball, but there is little to be said to defend the decision to send Gallardo out in the seventh inning on Saturday evening. But he believed in his guy and believed he could get a couple more outs and save one extra reliever being used. It didn’t work. Sometimes a risk makes you look like an idiot, whereas other times you appear to be a genius. Remember, Robert E. Lee had a bad judgment call on the third day at Gettysburg. Sometimes it just happens.
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In the early games the O’s hitters demonstrated unusual patience and pitch selection. It appeared that a concentrated effort was paying off in a big way. Lately, not so much. Hopefully the Orioles hitters saw the fruits of their judgment and will need to continue to work on making the pitchers come to them.
The Birds added a dozen strikeouts to the seasonal number on Saturday night. That is four innings worth of not making the defense make any play at all. Adding in the home runs and strikeouts, here is our prorated pace of each for the season …
| MLB All-Time HRs | O’s All-Time HRs | O’s 2016 Pace |
| 264 (Seattle- ‘97) | 257 (‘96) | 339 |
| MLB All-Time K’s | O’s All-time K’s | O’s 2016 Pace |
| 1553 (Hous.- ‘13) | 1331 (‘15) | 1355 |
The Orioles have the most home runs in the American League, and their strikeout total is about the fifth or sixth most (considering games played). But here is the most interesting stat: Baltimore has the best on-base percentage at .354! How can that be? I thought the Orioles are known to be awful in this category.
All in all, it remains a good start on the season. Winning eight of 11 games is rare air. That equates to a pace of winning 118 for the year. We could be pleased with that, though some might still find a way to complain about all that is going wrong.