Orioles’ offence goes silent in slide
Baltimore has fallen out of wild-card race with 12 losses in 14 games
BALTIMORE— The Baltimore Orioles were right in the middle of the AL playoff race until plummeting into an inexplicable nosedive that negated everything they accomplished over the first four months of the season.
Baltimore was 62-57 and trailed Los Angeles by a half-game for the second wild-card spot on Aug. 19. Since then, the defending AL East champions have dropped 12 of 14 to fall behind five teams in the hunt of the final playoff spot.
“You go through stretches like that in baseball,” centre fielder Adam Jones said. “It’s just not good to get into them in August leading into September.”
The last time the Orioles played this poorly was in 2011, when they were closing out a run of 14 straight losing seasons.
Manager Buck Showalter subsequently lifted the franchise out of that dark era and brought about a baseball revival in Baltimore. After reaching the AL Championship Series in 2014, the Orioles appeared headed for their third post-season appearance in four years before this unfathomable skid.
There have been close losses, routs, blown leads and embarrassingly early insurmountable deficits.
“It’s tough when the pitching and offence don’t show up at the same time,” catcher Matt Wieters said. “Some of those games, we pitched pretty well and just didn’t score any runs. And then the games we did put some runs across, we weren’t able to hold the other team.”
The downturn started with a 15-2 home loss to Minnesota. Three straight one-run losses to the Twins followed, launching the Orioles into a free-fall that increased their deficit in the division from five games to 12.
In most cases, the blame lies with an offence that has gone dormant. The Orioles had three runs or fewer in each of those 12 losses. They also struck out135 times over the14-game stretch. In pressing to win, the Orioles achieved the opposite result.
“There’s a difference between losing ballgames and beating yourself,” first baseman Chris Davis said. “There have been times when we’ve really beat ourselves, making mis- takes we don’t normally make.”
“How do you get of it? That’s the beauty of this game,” Jones said. “The way you do it is you collectively come together and go out there and beat the crap out of somebody else instead of getting your tails handed to you.”
The Orioles insist they won’t quit on a season that had so much promise just two weeks ago.
“We feel like we’re still in this,” Wieters insisted. “If we can get hot and make a run, all you’ve got to do is get in the playoffs and it’s a shot in the dark to win it all.”