A lot of things are controversial and difficult to talk about these days, and—sticking to the realm of baseball—a losing team often breeds discontent.
Not these Orioles. Another disappointing showing last night against the Yankees saw the Orioles utterly outclassed in a 7-0 loss. Against Max Fried, the offense notched three lousy singles while striking out thirteen times. Injuries have plagued this team all season, but that wasn’t really the story here. It was a reminder: We are far from being a competitive
team.
The press seems to agree, because recently, several articles are coming out saying, “Yes, injuries hurt, but this Orioles team was also just bad.”
Start with FanGraphs, which helpfully performed a tally of how many wins every team had lost due to injury. The “winner” was Houston, especially with Yordan Alvarez down for the count. But the Orioles came in second, at an estimated 17.0 WAR. Dan Symborski wrote:
This is good evidence that poor health should be considered at least a mitigating factor in their disappointing season. That said, it’s also not a get-out-of-jail-free card; the Orioles quite obviously knew going into last offseason that Kyle Bradish and Félix Bautista would miss huge chunks of 2025, and that Grayson Rodriguez was shut down for the last two months of 2024 due to injury. Barring a miracle, Baltimore will finish this season below .500, and injuries are far from the only explanation for the team’s underperformance.
I think this is pretty good evidence, actually, that the Orioles got really unlucky. This team with 17 more wins would be playoffs-bound. When you look at their current Top 12 in WAR, fully six of them are injured or not with the team anymore. So, personnel mattered.
I mean, sure—anyone with eyes can see it. The rotation was decimated. Grayson Rodriguez didn’t pitch an inning this year. Trevor Rogers, an ace in waiting whom nobody knew about, missed two months with a subluxated knee. Kyle Bradish didn’t appear until August 26, Tyler Wells until September 2. Opening Day starter Zach Eflin made three stints on the injured list before finally reporting for back surgery in July. Albert Suárez, a rock in the bullpen last year, will end the 2025 season having played a total of five games. All-Star closer Félix Bautista, after recovering from elbow surgery, appeared in 35 games and got put right back on the IL with a sore shoulder.
It wasn’t just pitchers, either: Adley Rutschman struggled intermittently with injury, Colton Cowser missed a month with a broken thumb, Ryan Mountcastle had hamstring trouble, Gary Sánchez has had a couple of things. At one point, quipped the Baltimore Sun’s Matt Weyrich, half of all catchers on the IL across the league were employed by the Orioles. Not to mention that All-Star Jordan Westburg “has an injury report resembling the game board of Operation” and new signing Tyler O’Neill “was nicknamed ‘General Soreness’ on social media for his various setbacks.”
This has put the Orioles on the brink of an unfortunate record: the most players used in a season all time, 70, set by the Marlins last year. Left-hander José Castillo, claimed off waivers Monday, became the 69th when he made his team debut for Baltimore last night.
The Baltimore Banner interviewed former manager Brandon Hyde, who said there were “a lot of reasons behind” the terrible start to the year.
But that doesn’t fully excuse the underwhelming results, since the Astros got hit even harder and have just taken the division lead with a week and a half left to play. Matt Weyrich came up with a list of moments the Orioles’ playoff hopes plausibly evaporated, and several of them felt like a simple lack of effort:
- April 20 – The day they suffered a 24-2 loss to Cincinnati, their worst since 2007.
- May 17 – The day they fired Brandon Hyde.
- May 24 – The day they dropped to a season-worst 16-34.
- June 18 – The day they led 8-0 against Tampa Bay and lost 12-8.
- July 31 – The fire sale that saw seven players leave in trades.
Ultimately, Weyrich concludes, “The rotation needed more punch at the top to account for the losses of Bradish and the departed Corbin Burnes. What appeared to be a blossoming young core of hitters hit a snag in its development, with some taking a step in the wrong direction. The disastrous start under Hyde, his fault or not, proved insurmountable.”
I think Weyrich is totally right. Maybe a totally-healthy Orioles team is a Wild Card contender in 2025. But to believe the team was really “going for it,” which is what the front office should have done after the team won 101 games in ’23 and got to the playoffs in ’24 (getting swept both times), they needed to go all in on pitching, not color around the margins with “quirky” signings like Charlie Morton, Andrew Kittredge, and Tomoyuki Sugano.
And it is fair to hold the team accountable for the offensive regression we’ve seen from Gunnar Henderson, Adley Rutschman (pre-injury), Colton Cowser, and, perhaps, a failure to launch from Coby Mayo and Jackson Holliday. The Orioles are a bottom-ten offense, and their injury toll (unlike on the pitching side) was not enough to justify this. Whether it’s coaching or scouting, someone else will have to decide. But it appears a system-wide problem to do with approach.
Anyway, one other things pundits seem to agree on is hope for next season. The rotation should look like a real rotation again, and the young core remains intact, and (gosh let’s hope) will be more productive. All we know is, it’ll be a pivotal offseason, and if the results don’t change next year, it’ll be fair to ask demand some accountability.
