The Orioles got off to a great start and then came crashing back down to Earth with a disgusting thud. Like a sack of wet laundry hitting the basement floor the Orioles are looking up at the rest of the division, once again, going into May.
Now, in all fairness, they are in last place largely by default (only one game separates them and third place and they are only two games out of second place). The team has shown some signs of life on the last homestand and even the offense had registered a thready pulse against the Red Sox before being shut down by Jon Lester yet again last night. But troubles still remain.
Vlad is starting to show a bit of his power in the last couple of weeks, batting .311 with a double; three homers and seven RBI. Luke Scott seems to be coming back from a slight groin strain with some amount of strength – at least you hope that is something that would be heralded by the monstrous homerun he hit of Josh Beckett Tuesday night. Derrek Lee’s bat seems to be heating up a little bit as well. Over the last week Lee has hit well to the tune of a .364 average but with little to no real power. And, most importantly NO ONE IS WALKING!
The Orioles currently have the worst OBP in the AL sitting at an astounding .289! Why so low? Because the entire Oriole team has only walked 55 times so far this year. By comparison, the Boston Red Sox have almost twice as many walks as a team that the Orioles do. No one on the Orioles has more than nine walks so far this year. And that is simply mind-boggling. Its not as if the Orioles are striking out either, they have the fourth-fewest strike outs in the league right now, but they are hacking and don’t have a lot to show for it.
The Orioles team BABIP is sitting at .261 almost 20 points below the league average so they have been hitting into some bad luck, they aren’t finding grass. Combine this with the complete lack of walks it means that the Orioles are not getting hits with people on base as often as the rest of the league. Meaning fewer RBI and, ta da – fewer wins. When looking at their batting ratios as compared to the rest of the league the only things that strike any alarm are the BB%, XBH% and the AB/RBI. In all three of these categories the Orioles are well below the league average. And the low walk and XBH percentage is resulting in the Orioles getting an RBI every nine AB as opposed to the league average of eight AB per RBI. It may not sound like much at first blush but those missed opportunities add up over time and will definitely continue to cost the team wins if they do not improve.
Nick Markakis has had the worst luck of any Orioles starter right now. Markakis’ BABIP is still sitting in the low 2’s (.213). So far the season Markakis has put the ball in play in over 80% of his PA yet he has absolutely nothing to show for it as of yet. Markakis hasn’t had a month of sub .600 OPS since his forst month in the league as a rookie. If he keeps hitting the ball his average will start to creep up and maybe the walks begin to follow that, but it is something to watch for as May approaches.
The Orioles will open a series in Chicago, another team with high expectations that has sputtered out of the gate. Like the Orioles the White Sox are not getting on base, walking nor hitting the ball for a reliable average. The starting pitching has been shaky and it all equals a very underwhelming 10-16 start to the season. They have lost 12 of their last 15 games and five of their last seven. Much like the series against the Twins the Orioles should look to get right off a vulnerable team in a similar situation at the start of a road trip through the midwest with a stop in against the surprising Kansas City Royals next week, who are also fading fast losing nine of their last 11 since their hot start.
The Red Sox series showed us that this team has some life and some fire. If you squint hard enough you can see the first crocuses of an offense beginning to peak through the soil. Things need to continue to get better and a couple struggling central teams sounds like just the prescription.
