Zach Wilt: Looking at the O's offensive struggles since the All-Star break

For the first time since June 4, the Baltimore Orioles find themselves out of first place in the American League East. Looking up in the standings is something this club hasn't been used to this year. In 2016, the O's have spent 91 days atop their division and saw their lead reach a season-high 5 1/2 games on June 29, but after the Birds got shut out in the Bronx last night, the Red Sox took a half-game lead in the East when they defeated the Giants 11-7.

The second half hasn't been kind to Baltimore. After the break, the Orioles have gone 2-4 and scored just 10 runs against the Rays and Yankees. They were shut out last night after scoring a run in each of their prior two games. No team scored more runs than the O's did in June (185), averaging 6.6 per game. However, in July the O's offense ranks 27th in runs scored (49) and is failing to score more than 3.5 every nine innings.

While the rest of the AL East seems to be heating up, the Orioles have dropped four straight. This afternoon, they hope to avoid their first four-game sweep in the Bronx since 2005. They're also looking to end a losing streak that could match their season-high five games, and hope to even up the season-series against the Yankees. The Birds have the best record against their division, but are 4-5 against New York in 2016.

It's a long season and cold streaks are bound to happen to every club. From April 24-26, the Orioles were held to two total runs over three games at Kansas City and Tampa Bay. They matched that stretch last night and went 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position. Mark Trumbo, who slashed .288/.341/.582 in the first half, is hitting .211/.250/.211 after the All-Star break. The major league home run leader hasn't gone deep since July 9 against the Angels.

This problem isn't exclusive to Trumbo though. As a team, the Orioles have the 28th-ranked batting average in the majors since the All-Star break (.187). They've hit just five homers (20th), have a .240 on-base percentage (29th) and 36 hits (25th) in the second half. The Birds ranked in the top third of the major leagues in all of those offensive categories before the break.

They've been plagued by the flu bug and some injuries; in last night's contest, they were without All-Stars Manny Machado and Matt Wieters, as well as slugger Chris Davis. That bug even bit manager Buck Showalter, who missed his first game since May 17, 2014, when he attended his daughter's graduation from law school.

The Orioles also have a .211 batting average on balls in play in the second half. That's going to level off at some point. They've hit fly balls an astounding 50 percent of the time in the second half and their hard contact rate is down from 33.4 percent before the break to 28.9 percent after. If you're wondering where the homers have gone, that's a pretty good indicator as to why the ball isn't leaving the park.

Despite this difficult stretch and those five losses between June 30 and July 4, the Orioles have won seven consecutive games three times this season. With 53 wins after 93 games, they're also on pace to finish the 2016 season with a 92-70 record. This is still a very good club, they're just going through a cold streak.

These things balance out though. The Orioles aren't the .679 team they played like in June and they aren't the .400 team they're playing like this month. The truth about a ballclub always lies somewhere in the middle of this marathon season.

Zach Wilt blogs about the Orioles at Baltimore Sports Report. Follow him on Twitter: @zach_wilt. His views appear here as part of MASNsports.com's season-long initiative of welcoming guest bloggers to our pages. 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.