Orioles flailing toward history
MLB looking at measures to deal with futility
In May, the Baltimore Orioles lost 14 straight games. In June, they won two games over a 16-game stretch. July saw a 1-8 run.
Somehow, the worst was yet to come.
The Orioles have now dropped 19 consecutive games, the longest losing streak in the majors since the Kansas City Royals lost 19 straight in 2005. Baltimore been outscored by 108 runs during this futile stretch and had just a single one-run loss, against the Atlanta Braves on Aug. 21. Among the lowlights: a 131 thrashing at the hands of the New York Yankees, a 162 loss to the Boston Red Sox and a 10-0 blowout delivered by the Tampa Bay Rays, against whom the Orioles are a woeful 1-15 this season.
It has left the Orioles as the first team since the 1935 Boston Braves to suffer multiple losing streaks of at least 14 games in the same season, and they’re closing in on the American League record of 21 straight losses, set by, yes, the Orioles in 1988.
How did it get so bad? Just look at the numbers. Baltimore’s starting rotation is historically weak. Entering Tuesday, its starters had an Mlb-worst 6.22 earned run average, almost a full run worse than the Pittsburgh Pirates, the team directly ahead of them at 5.36. Dean Kremer and Keegan Akin have combined to go 0-15 with a 7.62 ERA and 1.72 WHIP (walks and hits allowed per inning pitched). On average, American League starters have a 4.42 ERA and 1.29 WHIP.
Jorge Lopez has the worst ERA in baseball among starters with at least 100 innings pitched (6.30). The second worst belongs to teammate Matt Harvey (6.27).
If the season ended today, the Orioles’ starters would have the fifth-worst ERA on record since 1901, the start of baseball’s modern era.
Baltimore’s hitting isn’t much better. The Orioles were batting .237 entering Tuesday, which ranks 25th this season, with a .698 onbase-plus-slugging mark (22nd). They’re creating runs at a rate eight per cent below the league average after adjusting for league and park effects. The Orioles don’t draw many walks, either; their walk rate (7.3 per cent of plate appearances end in a bases on balls) is the second-lowest of 2021.
Such futility has become the norm for a once-proud franchise that has not been remotely relevant in decades, barring one stretch from 2012 to 2016 when the Orioles won one AL East crown, made three post-season appearances and won more regular season games than any other AL team. Baltimore is on track to finish last in the AL East for the fourth time in five seasons, the only outlier being last year’s pandemic-abbreviated season (the Orioles finished fourth, one game ahead of the Red Sox). Since 1997, the last time Baltimore won a game in a playoff round later than the division series, the Orioles have finished fourth or fifth in the AL East 17 times, a number that almost certainly will grow to 18 when this season mercifully ends.
It has reached the point where MLB is considering corrective measures to deal with teams such as the Orioles, Detroit Tigers, Pittsburgh Pirates, Seattle Mariners and Florida Marlins, whose perpetual ineptitude have given rise to accusations of tanking. The league’s collective bargaining agreement expires Dec. 1, and in the first face-to-face negotiation with player representatives earlier this month, MLB officials reportedly proposed a $100 million salary minimum for each team, to be paid for by charging big-spending teams more for exceeding the luxury tax.
The Orioles have had one of the league’s lowest four Opening Day payrolls in each of the past three seasons, and their highest-paid player this season (Chris Davis) just retired amid a bloated contract that will continue to pay him even after he has stopped playing. According to The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal, other MLB executives regard the franchise “as an embarrassment, an example of tanking gone haywire.”
Though it’s in short supply at Camden Yards, hope could rest in a fairly stocked minor league system that includes catcher Adley Rutschman (the No. 1 pick of the 2019 amateur draft who’s considered one of the sport’s top prospects), right-hander Grayson Rodriguez (who has an 8-1 minor league record this season) and outfielder Heston Kjerstad (the No. 2 overall pick in 2020 who has yet to play professionally because of myocarditis, a viral infection that causes inflammation of the heart muscle).
But that’s for a different season. In this one, Baltimore is on the fast track to reach at least 100 losses for the third time in four years, with the exception being that shortened 2020 campaign.
There is a slim chance they will lose at least 118, which would be the most in the majors since the Detroit Tigers went 43-119 in 2003.
The Orioles’ trajectory may change at some point, either via forced competitiveness or talent coming of age. But for now, it continues to point down. Just how far down remains to be seen.