In September, homers and runs were hard to find

It seems that more so than most teams the Orioles ability to score runs is pretty much directly related to their ability to hit home runs. When they hit them often they score a lot more than when they don't.

August and September provide clear evidence in that regard. The Orioles have averaged just 1.00 homer for every game played in September, easily their worst month of the year for homers. And they averaged just 3.07 runs per game in the month.

They hit homers at a prolific clip in August, averaging 1.97 per game and scoring a robust 6.03 runs per game during the month. They hit about twice as many homers in a per-game average in August and averaged about twice as many runs per game as in September.

Here is another stat that is pretty striking: When the Orioles hit two or more homers in a game this year, they went 43-15, a win percentage of .741. But when they hit one or no homers this year, they are 32-71, a win percentage of .311. They have hit one or no home runs 20 times in the past 22 games and they are 4-18 in those games. The homers dried up and so did the runs and the wins.

As the Orioles embark on the offseason, improving the pitching, especially the starting rotation, is the big key of course, but finding ways to score runs when they don't hit the homers may also be huge for the Orioles.

They only came up with a multi-homer game 36 percent of the time this season. What about the other 64 percent of the games? How do they win more of them without many homers?

This has been an issue for the Orioles for several seasons and it figures to be next year too. After all, most of the everyday players that were in the lineup this year, will likely be there next season.

When the Orioles are rocking the longball their offense is in good shape. But how do they generate more runs with most of the same players next year when the homers are not plentiful?