Baltimore Orioles: A Solid First Half of 2016

The Baltimore Orioles finished the first half of the 2016 season with a solid 4-2 win over the Angels, securing first place at the break.

But even with a 51-36 record and American League East lead of two games over the Blue Jays and Red Sox, Orioles fans have an ongoing sense of hanging by a thread. It is the terribly unreliable starting rotation that feeds this feeling, even as the O’s have proven there is more than one way to winning baseball games.

Much about the Sunday game was a microcosm of the first half. Chris Tillman’s start will look a lot better on paper than it did in person (and I was at the game on this occasion). Though he held the damage to only a single run in the first inning, there were five walks and a lot of hard-hit balls and deep flyouts. It isn’t always pretty, but somehow the job gets done and the victories outnumber the losses.

The Orioles scored three of their four runs on home runs, another prominent trend of the 2016 season. Chris Davis brought the O’s back from an early 1-0 deficit with an opposite field home run, while J.J. Hardy gave them a valuable insurance run in the eighth inning with a screaming liner to left field.  He also had a previous clutch RBI hit for the Birds’ third run. Hitting out of the ninth hole is, in my estimation, the place for Hardy in the lineup. There he can so some serious damage in driving in runs while also turning over the batting order.

Fellow All-Star relievers Brad Brach and Zach Britton did their final two-inning, one-two punch. But they had some balls squared up on them a bit and have not seemed as dominating in recent outings. Showalter said of Tillman that he was glad the pitcher was not going to the All-Star game. I would wish that for all the O’s players. Other than helping to gain a possible World Series home field advantage, there is little to gain and a lot to lose. The break would do them much good. And Mark Trumbo will be swinging for the fences, while we hope this does not mess up his swing as it had with others in the past.

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Not many baseball writers would have predicted the Orioles to be in first place at this point of the season. And they still don’t speak of them even now as serious contenders very often even now. So it is hard to fault a team with 51 wins, on pace for a 95-win season.

The power has been impressive, as hoped for though certainly not guaranteed. Baltimore is on pace for a 255-home run season. That is close to record-breaking …

So the Orioles are clearly ahead of their own franchise pace strikeouts, though they will be short of any all-time record.

But all in all, this is a first place team whether we think they can stay there on not. We would have all jumped with joy in March if we knew that the Baltimore Orioles would be 51-36 at this juncture of the season.