Purple Hays

 

I think the best way you can describe the Orioles this year is that they are the team that can be beaten by the Mariners 10-0, and then turn around and beat the Mariners 9-2. They are capable of good things, but said good things are maddeningly inconsistent.

Like, the Orioles can bring up Adley Rutschman, who people have been waiting years to see in the majors, and the second he gets there, Rutschman will only be able to hit .179 with 7 hits in 44 at-bats. The savior has arrived and it's gonna take him another year to learn how to hit major league pitching. Even worse, Grayson Rodriguez is gonna be even further away from the majors due to a lat injury. And you'd think that some of the newer call-ups, like Kyle Bradish, Rylan Bannon and Denyi Reyes would help, but they haven't. The team is so mediocre that new blood can't drag it out themselves.

What this team does have, that I'm sure they're glad they have, is a strong core, made up of Cedric Mullins, Anthony Santander, Austin Hays and Trey Mancini, and have some genuinely good defenders like Jorge Mateo and Ramon Urias helping the cause. This is a 5th place team, but for a last place team there's a lot going on, and there's still 5 people who have 20+ RBIs. To have competent starters like Tyler Wells and Jordan Zimmermann, even when Means is out, is more of an assurance than they've had in a while. 

But the fact that the Sox are getting hot, the Jays are streaking, the Rays are building themselves back up and the Yankees aren't being moved still leaves this O's team in last, as they usually are. They might lose 100 games again this year, and a lot of it won't be their fault. They're winning tough matches against other divisions and other teams. The issue is that they're not better than their 4 division rivals, and a lot of divisional matchups will be a wash this year, which will leave them higher in the loss category.

So even if this is a better O's team than usual, and even if people like Hays, Mateo, Wells and Urias are giving this team more versatility than usual, I don't think they'll ultimately get anything done. Which kind of blows, but...that's the game. 

However, I do wonder what this team will look like once Adley Rutschman can comfortably be the center of it.

Coming Tomorrow- The NL ideal.