Dillon Atkinson: Backsliding bats have been costly to Birds

At the end of June, everything was going right in Birdland. The Orioles were 47-31, holding a five-game lead atop the American League East. The Red Sox and Blue Jays started climbing back in the division, but heading into the All-Star break, the Birds still held a two-game lead over both Boston and Toronto. Heading into tonight's contest against the Red Sox, the Orioles are now 82-69, third place in the AL East. They are trailing Boston by five games and Toronto by one game.

What in the world happened?

After a scorching hot 19-9 June, the O's had records below .500 in July and August, going 12-14 and 13-16, respectively. The club turned it around to start off September, winning its first four series of the month before evenly splitting a four-game set with the Rays last weekend. Now they've lost their last two games against Boston, and hopes for an AL East title this season look nearly dead.

Heading into this season, fans assumed five things: The Orioles will mash a lot of homers, they will strike out a ton, the starting pitching will be thin, the bullpen will be stacked and the infield defense will be on-point as always. We kind of knew the offense would be inconsistent at times with the boom-or-bust mentality, but the second half has been atrocious for the hitters.

Heading into the All-Star break, Mark Trumbo was slashing .288/.341/.582 with a 143 wRC+. Since the break, he has been a very long slump, posting a .185/.261/.423 slash line with a 78 wRC+. Here are some other notable Orioles hitters who have taken a turn for the worse in the second half this season:

* Manny Machado's first half: .318/.375/.569 with a 146 wRC+. Machado's second half: .277/.319/.526 with a 120 wRC+.
* Chris Davis' first half: .237/.348/.497 with a 122 wRC+. Davis' second half: .197/.310/.447 with a 102 wRC+.
* Jonathan Schoop's first half: .304/.338/.509 with a 124 wRC+. Schoop's second half: .223/.249/.397 with a 66 wRC+.
* Matt Wieters' first half: .258/.310/.418 with a 92 wRC+. Wieters' second half: .207/.276/.354 with a 65 wRC+.
* Hyun Soo Kim's first half: .329/.410/.454 with a 137 wRC+. Kim's second half: .285/.352/.369 with a 96 wRC+.

The only key hitters who have increased their performance from the first to second half are designated hitter Pedro Alvarez and shortstop J.J. Hardy, who jumped from 105 to 132 wRC+ and 81 to 103 wRC+, respectively (learn about wRC+ here).

For a team that is so reliant on hitting its way to the playoffs to make up for the thin pitching, the offense hasn't shown much in the second half. As a team, the O's slashed .272/.333/.467 with a 111 wRC+ prior to the All-Star break, but have batted .236/.296/.419 with an 88 wRC+ since. Their line drive percentage has dropped from 19.9 to 18.1 percent, and their hard-hit ball rate has dropped from 33.4 to 31.4 percent. They're striking out less and they're walking a bit more than they did in the first half, but they aren't hitting the ball quite as hard as they before the break.

The Orioles are currently clinging on to a 1.5-game lead over the Detroit Tigers for the second wild card spot in the AL. With 11 games to go, they're going to need the offense to step up more than it has of late, as the Orioles have scored just two runs in each of the last four games. Hopes to clinch the division faded by losing the first two games against Boston in this current four-game set, but the Orioles still have a very real chance at taking a wild card spot. If they not only want to do that, but also further advance in the postseason, the club will need to pick its bats up. They don't need to be as great as they were in the first half, but getting the Orioles back to an above-average mark will help them in a big way.

Dillon Atkinson blogs about the Orioles for Orioles Uncensored. Follow him on Twitter: @DAtkinsonOU. His thoughts on the O's appear here as part of MASNsports.com's continuing commitment to welcome guest bloggers to our little corner of cyberspace. All opinions expressed are those of the guest bloggers, who are not employed by MASNsports.com but are just as passionate about their baseball as our roster of writers.