Matthew Taylor: Revolving rotation usually doesn't end well

How many starting pitchers did the Baltimore Orioles use during the 2012 season? That's the question that came to mind for me this week when I learned that the Los Angeles Dodgers are on course to make the playoffs for a second consecutive season while using 15 or more starters. This year's Dodgers would join last year's Dodgers and the 1989 San Francisco Giants as the only teams ever to use that many different starters and still qualify for the postseason.

The Orioles have come to know a thing or two ... or a dozen ... about rotating rotations under Buck Showalter. A dozen is how many different starters the 2012 team ran out to the mound that season while earning a wild card berth. It's the most starters the O's have ever used during a season in which they made the playoffs.

Now, how many of the 12 starters from the 2012 team can you name? Here's a hint: Four of the starters have pitched for the O's this season, but only one has done so as a starter. Take a moment to write down your guesses, and we'll return to discussing that successful team later. For now, let's talk about the more common outcome for this type of arrangement, and that's losing.

Continuously shuffling starters is about as appealing an approach for winning baseball games as continuously shuffling cards is for winning money at the blackjack table. The two major league teams to have shuffled starters most often in a season each lost more than 100 games.

The 1915 Philadelphia Athletics used 24 starters, the most of any ball club in history based on my research using the Baseball Reference Play Index. The A's finished with a 43-109 record and, not surprisingly, ended up in last place in the eight-team American League.

The National League record for starters used in a season belongs to the 1967 New York Mets with 20. Two years prior to shocking the heavily favored Orioles and the world by winning the series, the Mets finished last in the 10-team National League with a 61-101 record.

The 1955 Orioles, who went 57-97, are tied for the third-most starters ever used in a season with 19. Other O's outfits to have used several starters include the 1956 team (69-85) with 16 and the 1988 team (54-107) with 15. The 1988 O's used six of those 15 different starters during their season opening 21-game losing streak, and they actually got some respectable outings along the way. Mike Morgan pitched nine innings of shutout ball on April 16 only to see the team lose 1-0 to the Cleveland Indians in 11 innings and run its record to 0-11.

As you get below 15 starters used, things start to look, well, simply mediocre for the Orioles. For example, three O's teams used 14 starters: the 2013 team that finished 85-77, the 1998 team that went 79-83, and the 1967 team that was 76-85. Coincidentally, each of those efforts followed a successful season the year before.

That brings us back to the 2012 Orioles, who as I previously mentioned are the O's team to have used the most starters and still made the postseason. (Granted, they benefited from the wild card system or the answer to this trivia item would be different.) Here are the dozen pitchers who took the mound as starters for the O's in 2012 with their respective number of starts in parentheses.

How'd you do? I was good for about seven without the benefit of a hint.

Matthew Taylor blogs about the Orioles at Roar from 34. Follow him on Twitter: @RoarFrom34. His ruminations about the Birds appear as part of MASNsports.com's season-long initiative of welcoming guest bloggers to our site. 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.