
On Tuesday night, after the Orioles stole a win in Boston in eleven innings to complete a two-game mini-sweep, longtime sportswriter and Red Sox fan Bill Simmons, who has 5.4 million followers on X, posted, “The Orioles can F*** off.”
Ah, that’s the good stuff.
That night it was Samuel Basallo, pinch-hitting in the nine spot, who knocked in the game-winning run on a little swinging bunt. But that’s far from all the noise coming lately from the bottom of the order. On Aug. 13, facing tough Mariners
righty Logan Gilbert, Jeremiah Jackson hit a go-ahead RBI triple. Last night, Dylan Beavers gave the Camden crowd something to cheer about with a home run in his home debut.
These guys can hit!
What a huge difference a couple weeks makes. Recall that on July 31, in an effort to get some return on a lost season, the Orioles traded away four position players: Ramón Urías (HOU), Cedric Mullins (NYM), Ramón Laureano (SDP) and Ryan O’Hearn (SDP). Three of the four ranked in the team’s Top 10 in WAR. Those were some large shoes to fill.
Between July 31 and August 16, when Beavers’ contract was selected (Basallo’s call-up came the next day), the Orioles had one of the worst offenses in the game. They hit a puny .206, struck out 24% of the time and walked just 7.4%, and had a sad .272 on-base, worse than everybody but Tampa Bay. Fangraphs ranks them flat-out MLB’s worst offense in that time.
These were lineups featuring Greg Allen, who finished 0-for-14 in seven games, Jordyn Adams (0-for-5) and Ryan Noda, a first baseman by trade, in the outfield. It was bleak, people. Especially before Ryan Mountcastle was reactivated for duty on August 8.
Now, granted, it’s not been a long stretch but a huge turnaround can be seen since the date of Beavers’ activation (and remember, this has come against three playoff contenders). In that time, the Orioles are averaging .276, have cut their strikeouts to 19%, hiked their walk rate to an MLB third-best 11.8% walk rate, and are posting an OBP of .375, better than all teams by Philly and the two clubs out of New York.
The only thing missing is power, where they rank just around the bottom third of teams. Yet considering the situation, it’s hard to be too mad.
Take 21-year-old Samuel Basallo, the No. 7 or 8 prospect in all of baseball, who’s hitting .300 with five RBI and three hits, including one double, in 11 plate appearances since making his MLB debut this week. A .357 slugging is not eye-popping, not for a kid who led the International League, or close to it, in home runs, OPS, and so forth… But rest assured, the power will come. Basallo’s already got crazy bat speed (78 mph, well above a league-average 72 mph), and he’d already have his first career round-tripper if not for highway robbery by Houston’s Jesús Sánchez. With Adley Rutschman on the injured list again, Basallo will be thrust into an everyday role, and his bat, at least, should be equal to the task.
A similar story is Ryan Mountcastle, who’s averaging .357 in his last week, despite having hit no homers. But Mountcastle’s Statcast numbers are great right now, with high scores in sweet spot, bat speed, barrel percentage and expected batting average. Mountcastle should experience a positive regression on power, too.
Another bat pacing the lineup is Jeremiah Jackson, called up on July 31 to replace the O’s who’d left. The former second-rounder had languished in the Angels’ farm system for five and a half years (sounds like a terrible place to languish), and was signed by the O’s to a minor league deal last November. So far, Jackson has found the secret sauce in Baltimore: he’s hitting .320 with a .420 slugging and .753 OPS, and despite his likewise pedestrian power numbers (one double, no home runs, and two hustle triples in 16 games), his career MiLB suggest he has pop for a second baseman: he hit 22 home runs across two teams in 2023, and 110 in 571 MiLB games total.
Coby Mayo, too, seems to be benefitting from the knowledge that “You sucked today, you’re going to be playing tomorrow.” The 23-year-old has been with the big-league team since May 31, but only getting regular AB’s since the trade deadline. He’s definitely not hitting for average, with a .205/.277/.354/.631 slashline, but as Roch Kubatko wrote recently, “The ball makes a different sound coming off Mayo’s bat.” Mayo’s bat speed ranks in the top quintile of hitters, and he’s been barreling up balls to match. His outcomes may evolve to match that, but he does need to up his contact and cut down on K’s (right now, an unacceptable 40%).
Finally, Dylan Beavers is having a start so good it’s hard to believe. Remember how much Jackson Holliday, Adley Rutschman, Colton Cowser and Gunnar Henderson struggled in their first few weeks in the bigs? Beavers, by contrast, is hitting .294 with five walks, two extra-base hits, and three RBIs in his first 17 AB’s. He’s showing an impressive mix of contact skills and power, not to mention playing nice defense at the corners.
There are other, less junior Orioles catalyzing the offense right now, too: two are Dylan Carlson is slugging .750 in his last week and Jordan Westburg, who was averaging .455 with a 234 wRC+ over his last week before a sore ankle took him out of the lineup. Gunnar Henderson, whose power went missing earlier in the year, is slugging .571 in this stretch, too.
Anyway, with their third straight series win this week against a potential playoff team (in Seattle, Houston and Boston), the Orioles actually moved from 10 to 8 ½ games out of the final Wild Card spot! I don’t think any of us are thinking it’ll really happen. But since a dreadful 16-34 start, this team is a nice 43-33. If nothing else, it’s a nice dress rehearsal for 2026. The Orioles are finally playing winning, watchable, baseball—next season stands to be a lot more fun.