There are two types of issues that have led the Orioles to begin the season circling last. There are the unpredictable issues, and there are the self-inflicted issues. And I'm not really sure which has damaged this team more.
The unpredictable accounts for a lot of why the O's are where they are. The rotation, ideally, should consist of Kyle Bradish, Grayson Rodriguez, Zach Eflin, Dean Kremer and Tomoyuki Sugano. The first three are all currently injured, as are Tyler Wells and Trevor Rogers. Kremer is struggling, as he tends to starting out. Sugano has a 3.43 ERA, but he was never intended to carry the rotation. And so with the rotation snakebitten, then the team has to go with people like Cade Povich and Brandon Young, who haven't been too impressive in early starts. Only Colton Cowser on the hitting end has been hurt, not counting Gunnar Henderson's IL stint to start the season. Then there's just some slumps, like Adley Rutschman, Jordan Westburg and Jackson Holliday. The rest are hitting well, but not overwhelmingly well. Henderson's hitting .213 right now. Tyler O'Neill's only had 1 more homer since the Opening Day one. It's just a quieter, lower key team.
And then there's the self-inflicted issue. Mike Elias had an entire offseason to recover from a second straight postseason failure, and the ideas he came up with were singing Charlie Morton, who any Braves fan could tell you was over the hill, taking on Tyler O'Neill and Ramon Laureano as depth outfielders, hoping Andrew Kittredge would stay healthy [he hasn't] and...that's it. They thought that would work. Also keep in mind that while several other teams handed out extensions this offseason, the Orioles, even with Rubenstein money, did none of that. Mullins and Eflin, two of the biggest contracted pieces, are free agents at the end of the season, and the young stars are still on preliminary deals.
And they're asking how this went wrong. You did nothing. This is your fault.
Charlie Morton, through 5 starts, is 0-5 with a 10.89 ERA, leading the league in earned runs with 25. The novelty is over. This was your idea of retooling, or buttressing, the rotation and it's actively making things worse. They did grab Kyle Gibson as well, and he's stretching out in Norfolk at the moment, but we really shouldn't be in the position where we're waiting for Kyle Gibson to save the rotation. If they'd have signed a workhorse, or a Spencer Turnbull depth starter type, we wouldn't be here. Or maybe we would, because they went and got Cody Poteet and then he immediately got injured. Again, it's very hard to tell if the team is cursed or if Elias is just making all the wrong decisions. But either way, they shouldn't be here.
The hope is that the Orioles are just getting all of this out of their system early before they start going on a tear, but if not...this is a really bad look for a team that looked like they were about to make a run. It has to be better than this.
Coming Tonight- Ironically, a starter nearby in a rotation block that may be the main thing that is working.
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