With 31 games left to go in the season, the Orioles are in a weird spot. After the Guardians win last night, Baltimore finds itself 2.5 games back of the final AL Wild Card spot with just over a month of baseball left to play. It’s far from an insurmountable deficit; the O’s have nine games left against the Guardians and Blue Jays—two teams they’re competing with for the third Wild Card berth—as well as six upcoming games against the bottom-dwelling A’s and Rockies.
The problem the Orioles have faced
all year is consistency. Despite going 24-20 since the beginning of July, the O’s have only actually occupied the last Wild Card spot for a couple of days after their recent series in Tropicana Field. And even though that last playoff spot is currently occupied by a team that’s only .500, common sense says someone will eventually get to 81+ wins and claim a berth in October. If the O’s want to do that, they’ll need to get back to .500 for the first time since they were 15-15 on April 30th.
To find some level of consistency, the O’s will need some more offense from players not named Pete Alonso. Since July 1st, Baltimore has the 7th-best ERA in baseball (3.71), just behind fellow playoff contenders, the Guardians. The bats have often been Baltimore’s biggest problem, with the O’s ranking 20th in the majors at 4.23 runs/game since the beginning of July. You only have to watch one Shane Baz start to know that this sometimes-potent offense has a bad tendency of disappearing.
So if the Orioles are going to go through an offensive revival over the last 31 games of the season, they’ll need some of their previously hot bats to reignite. With that in mind, here are three players who the Orioles need to wake up if they’re going to make the postseason
Jackson Holliday
Holliday was a revelation for the Orioles’ offense in July. The 22-year-old was an on-base machine for Baltimore last month, posting an OBP of .500 to go along with a .368 average and a .421 slugging. It finally felt like the former No. 1 overall was putting it all together and becoming the type of hitter at the majors that we saw all throughout the minors.
Once the calendar turned to August, though, Holliday has seemingly turtled up and stopped being the offensive force the Orioles were relying on. In 21 games this month, the 2B is slashing .165/.221/.266 with more strikeouts (19) than base hits (13). It’s no coincidence that while the infielder was on a hot streak, the O’s went 15-8 in July. Since his downturn, Baltimore has fallen to 9-12 in August.
That regression could just be the latest episode in the mercurial career of Holliday, or it could be the 22-year-old struggling to adjust to a more prominent role in the lineup. Since August 7th, Holliday has hit 3rd or higher in the lineup and has been the Orioles’ leadoff hitter each of their last six games. His July clearly earned Craig Albernaz’s trust and you’d expect he’ll continue to hit in the leadoff spot for the rest of the season. If the offense is going to get back on track, its leadoff hitter needs to lead by example.
Christian Encarnacion-Strand
CES joined the Orioles thanks to the injury to Blaze Alexander and at first looked like an unlikely shot in the arm for an offense that had lost its second-best player. In his first nine games after joining the Orioles on July 18th, Encarnacion-Strand went 11-for-34 (.324) with three homers and 11 RBIs. That hot start to his Orioles’ career had many willing to hand him the starting 3B job for the rest of the stretch run.
Since then, the former Red has come back down to earth. His August triple slash is a measly .177/.224/.355 while posting 21 strikeouts in 62 ABs (33.9%). CES has consistently been a lefty masher, with a .286 average and 1.016 OPS against southpaws this season. However, against right-handers, the 26-year-0ld only has a .197 average and .563 OPS. Those are the same drastic splits we see with Coby Mayo, except Mayo is actually producing in August, with an OPS this month that is nearly 300 points higher than Encarnacion-Strand’s number.
With Mayo hitting, Samuel Basallo back in the fold and Alexander’s return supposedly on the horizon, CES has a lot of pressure on him. He has the pressure of not only trying to play his part in the playoff run, but also the pressure of keeping his roster spot.
Tyler O’Neill or Leody Taveras
Colton Cowser and Dylan Beavers have cemented themselves as the offensive leaders of this Orioles outfield—Cowser via his all-around good play and Beavers through his clutch hits. Albernaz has three other outfielders to complete the trio (O’Neill, Taveras or Christian Franklin), but if someone is going to break out, you’d expect it to be TON or Taveras.
We’ve seen O’Neill more recently prove what he can provide this offense. Last month, TON looked like the best version we’ve seen in black and orange (albeit in only 42 ABs). The oft-injured outfielder delivered five home runs while posting a 1.009 OPS. This month, O’Neill has continued to get more playing time and has given us a handful of web gems, but a diminished offensive output. The biggest drop is in his slugging percentage, which has gone from .691 in July to .404 this month.
Taveras offers almost an opposite profile to O’Neill; a player who mixes some small ball with a balanced approach that contrasts with O’Neill’s power-heavy game. After struggling mightily in June and July, we’ve seen Taveras turn it around a little in this month, with a .674 OPS in 63 ABs. If Taveras can become a secondary table setter at the bottom of the Orioles lineup, he can give Baltimore the offensive depth it needs to stay in the playoff race until the end.
