The Orioles are rapidly approaching the point where they need to go on a stretch of solid baseball to re-establish themselves as real contenders for the wild card. Between now and the All-Star break is the time where they are going to need to do it. Inching along at 5-4 might drag it out for longer. Worse comes close to putting them out of the picture entirely.
With this in front of them, they are in Cincinnati to match up for three games with the Reds over Independence Day weekend. The Reds had themselves
an excellent April and have been on a bad run since, dropping a 10-17 May before a 9-17 June, with one game played and lost so far in July. It’s not too hard to figure out their problem. They’re a bad hitting team, mustering just a .228/.309/.389 batting line for the season. This quartet is carrying the offense: Elly Da La Cruz, Sal Stewart, JJ Bleday, and Nathaniel Lowe. The rest of the guys are in “slightly worse than Leody Taveras” territory.
Add to that a pitching staff that’s bottom 10 for both starter and reliever ERA and that’s a tough way to be a contender. The rotation is bad in spite of 23-year-old righty Chase Burns showing as a genuine Cy Young contender so far this season. Burns entered Thursday with a 2.36 ERA in 14 starts. Unless something weird happens, Burns won’t face the Orioles in this series because he pitched against the Brewers on Thursday. Three guys in the Reds rotation have an ERA over 5 and their notional closer has an ERA over 6. That’s a tough recipe for contention.
The Orioles have to actually play better than the Reds for any of this stuff to matter. We’ve seen quite recently as they faced the otherwise-woeful Angels that they can blow it against an obviously bad team. The Reds bring a comparable record to the Orioles into this series, so it’s not like the O’s are even “supposed” to be better than these guys. They’re in the same muck, just in different leagues. A three-game series means one of these teams is guaranteed to exit it feeling a little better about themselves. If it’s not the Orioles, the available path back to contention will have shrunk yet again.
Here’s how they’re matching up in each game of the series.
Friday: 7:10pm Eastern
- BAL starter: Trevor Rogers – 4.99 ERA, 3.99 FIP, 1.311 WHIP in 15 games
- CIN starter: Brady Singer – 5.12 ERA, 5.82 FIP, 1.539 WHIP in 16 games
Rogers is fresh off a month of June where, across five starts, he pitched like it was last year again. Opponents hit to just a .510 OPS off of him in those games and he had a 2.05 ERA. Yeah, that will play. However, though the Reds have a disappointing offense, they are much better against lefties than righties, with a .758 OPS against southpaws. It seems that their righty batters are actually hitting lefties. Some guys on the Orioles should try out that concept.
Singer pitched 169.2 innings a season ago and allowed 19 home runs. He’s already allowed 19 homers so far this season in not even half as many innings. It’s not only homers that are his problem. Batters are hitting .294 against Singer. He is also coming off of an improved June, though, so like Rogers, the overall season number isn’t impressive but there’s a trajectory of improvement. Also, Singers has a 3.25 ERA at home, so that tilts in his favor.
Saturday: 7:10pm Eastern
- BAL starter: Brandon Young – 3.11 ERA, 3.95 FIP, 1.300 WHIP in 13 games
- CIN starter: Hunter Greene (season debut after spring training surgery for bone chips in elbow)
Elsewhere on the site, I’ve noted within recent days that the only thing standing between the Orioles and complete disaster this season has been Young. The team is 10-3 in his starts and the way he’s pitched has had a lot to do with that being the case. It’s quite a stark contrast to the results he got in his first introduction to the majors last year. We have to hope that maybe Trey Gibson can find something like this after a similarly-unimpressive set of debut starts. They are going to need Young to keep pitching well.
Greene was one of the game’s great young starting pitchers in each of the past two seasons. He hasn’t had the opportunity to show whether he can continue that yet this year due to that spring training arthroscopic surgery. He destroyed Triple-A batters over his rehab outings, finishing with a 6.1 inning start that saw him throw 82 pitches. Maybe the Reds won’t push him too hard towards 100 pitches, and if so, maybe the Orioles hitters can work some counts and take advantage of this to get into that bullpen.
Sunday: 1:05pm Eastern
- BAL starter: Kyle Bradish – 3.77 ERA, 4.13 FIP, 1.452 WHIP in 17 games
- CIN starter: Nick Lodolo – 5.05 ERA, 5.30 FIP, 1.471 WHIP in 10 games
Note: This game will be televised only on Peacock. If you do not have access to Peacock, you will not have access to the video broadcast.
In the final game of this series, the Orioles batters will finally have to face a left-handed starting pitcher. Believe it or not, the O’s have rebounded from their horrible early record against lefty pitchers, and currently sit with a 10-15 record when facing a southpaw. That’s still bad, it’s just better than it was; they’ve gone better than .500 against lefties after losing the first several.
Lodolo has not been a good lefty this year, but as we know, that doesn’t matter for the Orioles offense. They will stink against anyone, any time, anywhere. They will make sure that you never doubt their ability to do this.
Is Bradish back or not? He’s been see-sawing between pre-surgery great results and rough ones, including his most recent start where he walked five guys in only four innings against the Nationals. Three of Bradish’s five June starts saw him pitch just four innings, and he gave up a total of 14 runs in those three starts. He was also great in two other starts, allowing just one run in 15.2 innings. Which will show against the Reds on Sunday? Your guess is as good as mine.
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What do you think? Can the Orioles look like a good team in this series or not? Stay cool, wherever you are!
