O's starters' innings are down, but they are not alone

No doubt the Orioles could use more innings from their starting pitchers. They have gotten just three outings this year in 28 games when the starter pitched six innings or more. They have no outings of seven innings. Right-hander Alex Cobb went 6 2/3 innings against Toronto on Aug. 17 and that is a season high for the club.

But throughout baseball, after a quick three-week ramp-up to start the year, many pitchers were not fully built up to pitch deep into games as of opening day. Add to that the expanded rosters, which give teams larger bullpens, and the heavier reliance on bullpens and you get fewer innings for starters.

No team in the American League averaged six innings or more from their starting pitchers in 2019. In fact, just six teams averaged even five innings or more. Right now, just two AL clubs are averaging even five innings per start. Three clubs are averaging fewer than four innings per outing.

This season, the Orioles have gotten five innings or more from their starter 14 times. But 13 times they have gotten four innings or less. O's starters average 4.27 innings per outing and that is better than four other AL clubs.

Tampa Bay, which uses openers, is actually getting 55.3 percent of its innings from the bullpen. For the last two seasons, Tampa Bay led the majors in bullpen innings, so this is not new for the Rays, who host the Orioles the next three nights.

Orioles starters have thrown 119 2/3 innings to date (47.8 percent) and the bullpen has pitched 130 1/3 innings (52.2 percent). That got skewed a bit further in the bullpen's favor after it had to cover 8 1/3 innings on Sunday.

Here is the AL rundown in average innings per start per team:
5.87 - Cleveland
5.19 - Houston
4.94 - Oakland
4.90 - Seattle
4.86 - Texas
4.79 - Chicago
4.52 - New York
4.49 - Minnesota
4.41 - Los Angeles
4.32 - Kansas City
4.27 - Orioles
4.14 - Toronto
3.95 - Boston
3.94 - Tampa Bay and Detroit

O's executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias is very aware of this breakdown and did not express concern over the weekend when asked about the lack of starter innings for his team. And beyond what might be the unusual 2020 situation for pitching staffs, Elias sees other reasons that starter innings are down around the game.

"You know, it's tough to go three times through an order in today's game," he said." Overall, I think we've been relatively pleased with what this group has been able to do. We've been getting a lot of five-inning starts from these guys. While that is not the same as throwing seven or eight innings, it's a pretty good start in today's game.

"We do have slightly expanded rosters right now and we do have a bullpen that features two long men in (Jorge) López and (Thomas) Eshelman and then some kind of short, long men in (Travis) Lakins and (Shawn) Armstrong that have been very effective. So overall I don't feel the pitching staff has been overly taxed from that standpoint. I think Brandon (Hyde) has done a good job of finding spots for those guys. Don't forget, we're still kind of getting John Means stretched out and normalized from everything that he's gone through with a weird start to the year and a personal tragedy. So I think that that situation will continue to improve once we get him right."

Boston and Tampa Bay have both used 11 different starters already to tie for the most in the majors. The O's have used six. Here is how that group of six fares in innings per start.

5.22 - Cobb
4.80 - Tommy Milone
4.50 - Eshelman
4.47 - Asher Wojciechowski
3.72 - Wade LeBlanc
2.67 - Means

In terms of ERA, O's pitching is improved in 2020 from a season ago. The team ERA is down from 5.59 last year (15th in AL) to 4.86 now (10th). The rotation ERA is down from 5.57 (14th) to 5.42 (12th). The bullpen ERA is much improved from 5.79 (15th) to 4.35 (11th).

There have been times in recent years where it seems the Orioles were making a steady stream of pitching roster moves to get a fresh arm or two in the bullpen. With a 'pen that right now features 10 pitchers, they have not had to do it through 28 games.

So it is fair to be concerned about the lack of starting pitcher innings from Orioles hurlers. But in the unique and shortened 2020 season, they are far from alone in that regard.