The middle of April is not the time to panic.
The O's need to string together some wins, and some more complete performances like last night's victory. However, given the O’s slow start to the new campaign, yesterday afternoon was an appropriate time to run some diagnostics.
That’s what Annie Klaff and I tried to do on this week’s episode of “The Bird’s Nest.” You can find the full episode here: https://masn.me/qd2u9frr.
We won't blame you for hoping that this particular podcast has a short shelf life.
As you may have guessed, here were the main two topics of conversation.
Starting Pitching
The first, and most obvious, issue with the starting rotation is the injury bug. Zach Eflin, Grayson Rodriguez, Albert Suárez, Trevor Rogers and Chayce McDermott were all anticipated to be options to start games in the big leagues, and they are all on the injured list.
Add in the longer-term injuries to Kyle Bradish and Tyler Wells, and you’re left with seven unavailable starting pitchers.
Granted, even if Eflin and Rodriguez were healthy, Dean Kremer and Charlie Morton figured to be getting the ball every fifth day.
Let’s start with Morton, whose issues to start the season are relatively obvious: fastball command and curveball feel.
FanGraphs measures Location+, “a count- and pitch-type adjusted judge of a pitcher’s ability to put pitches in the right place,” on a scale with 100 being the league average. Morton’s fastball location has usually been league average, grading somewhere from 94 to 102 every season since 2022. Except for 2025, where the Location+ for his fastball grades at a 77.
Outside of the veteran’s curveball, Morton’s other offerings have never been elite, and as he noted after his start on Tuesday, they’ve never made him who he is as a pitcher. That’s the job of his curveball.
Morton’s curve has been an elite pitch throughout his career. As recently as 2023, it was the best curveball in baseball. Now, just two years later, it has the worst run value among qualified pitchers, according to Statcast.
There’s a similar story with Kremer’s splitter. While that pitch has far from defined his career, in 2024, it emerged as a solid compliment to his sinker/cutter combination. However, among pitchers that have tossed at least 10 splitters this season, it had the worst run value in baseball entering last night’s game against the Guardians.
His outing last night was, as O's fans hope, a sign of good things to come. Kremer got some early run support from Jackson Holliday and looked solid through five innings of work.
Having the worst rotation ERA in baseball isn’t sustainable for the Orioles to win baseball games. I’m not breaking any news here. Injuries or not, key pieces of the rotation would be the first ones to tell you that they need to put up better numbers.
The Offense
Now here’s a trickier conversation.
Similarly to the pitching, Colton Cowser’s injury is an obvious hindrance to the offense. Cowser could be penciled into the top four of the lineup every day, and was projected to hit 20 to 30 home runs. Missing that piece, a powerful left-handed bat and elite defender, hurts.
Sticking on the injury front, Gunnar Henderson is still working his way back into a rhythm after missing a large chunk of spring training, and Jordan Westburg has been in and out of the lineup as he fights through injury. Those are two important pieces that need to get going.
Even so, this lineup, on paper, is too talented to be as inconsistent as they have been, and there are many theories as to why.
Outside of injuries, probably the most common frustration among fans is the frequent use of platoon bats.
I’d like to preface this conversation by saying that the Orioles are far from the only team to construct their lineup based heavily on more micro statistics, namely players’ averages against certain handed pitching. Numbers do not make the decisions, but they play a big part in constructing the lineups. That methodology isn’t going anywhere around the game.
On the one hand, the Orioles have bats on the bench, primarily right-handers, who have roster spots because of their success against left-handed pitching.
Gary Sánchez is the backup catcher and has to get playing time to keep Adley Rutschman off of his feet. And if you’re going to play Ramón Laureano and Jorge Mateo, mid-April would be the time to do it. The goal is to keep as many pieces in a rhythm as you can.
Laureano brings the versatility to play all three outfield positions, and boasts an OPS close to .800 against lefties in his career. Mateo is a versatile defender as well, and his OPS takes an 80 point jump against left-handers as compared to right-handers.
Laureano’s career-OPS against lefties is better than Heston Kjerstad’s, and Mateo’s career-OPS against lefties is better than Holliday’s. However …
Kjertsad and Holliday don’t have the opportunity to improve their numbers against lefties if they are not frequently starting in those situations. Kjerstad, despite lacking power numbers, is hitting .318 against left-handers. And Holliday, recently the best prospect in baseball, will have to face lefties if he wants to be an everyday player.
It’s a delicate balance, and one that the Orioles need to find sooner rather than later.
But if the O's put together more games like they did last night, this entire dialogue could be a mute point, chalked up to a team finding its rhythm at the beginning of a young season. That, of course, is easier said than done, but performances like that can be a spark.
For more in-depth analysis, be sure to tune into “The Bird’s Nest” every Wednesday at 11 a.m. on MASN Orioles’ Facebook and YouTube pages. We love seeing your comments and answering your questions in real time, so come say hello if you’re able.