Baltimore Orioles vs Kansas City Royals: 5 players to watch

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(Photo by Jason O. Watson/Getty Images) /

The Baltimore Orioles are back home this week, but will a change of scenery be enough to stop the bleeding?

Fresh off a winless California road trip, the Baltimore Orioles are back in town to kick off a seven-game home stand against two mediocre teams, the Kansas City Royals and Tampa Bay Rays.

With an AL-worst 8-26 record, the Birds are desperate for a win, but fans should know better than to get their hopes up. From 12th-inning walk-offs to boneheaded errors, Baltimore has been relentlessly creative in finding ways to lose this season, and a return to Camden Yards can only do so much.

At least they match up well against the Royals, who they’ll face in the first three games. Kansas City ranks 14th in the American League in both runs per game and ERA, making them nearly as bad as the Birds. Still, with their 4-2 record in the month of May, there’s no question as to which team has more momentum at the moment.

The Birds have gone just 3-21 since April 12, and there’s no end in sight to their struggles. Manny Machado is having a transcendent season, but he can’t do it alone. Kevin Gausman pitched nine shutout innings last week, yet the Orioles lost in extras. Only six weeks into the season, a fire sale already seems inevitable — it’s just a matter of when.

All of that said, a good performance against the Royals would bring some positive vibes back to Eutaw Street. The first pitch of the series is set for Tuesday at 7:05 p.m. ET — until then, here are five players who could tilt the balance of the series.

(Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images) /

Andrew Cashner, RHP

Cashner didn’t exactly burst out of the gate in his last start, surrendering back-to-back home runs in the first inning to fall behind 4-1. His 4.89 ERA is a far cry from what the Orioles thought they’d be getting when they signed him to anchor the middle of the rotation this past offseason.

But after the rocky beginning to his night, the Texan actually settled down quite nicely, giving up just three more hits over 3.2 scoreless innings. It wasn’t anything earth-shattering, but he did average his highest fastball velocity of the season, providing a small reason for optimism ahead of his Wednesday start against the Royals.

The 31-year-old righty had to have been desperate for a good omen. When the Orioles agreed to pay him a guaranteed $16 million through next season, they thought they were paying for last season’s 4.3-WAR pitcher, not this year’s sub-replacement level model. If Cashner doesn’t turn it around soon, Birds fans will start to call for his head on a platter.

That said, he’s still capable of throwing some handsome pitches when his stuff is working. Check out this sweet changeup:

The Royals have one of the worst offenses in the league, making this week’s series an ideal chance for Cashner to resurrect his season. He won’t be around for the Orioles’ next championship, but a strong run through May would do wonders for his trade stock.

Pedro Alvarez, 3B/DH

The Orioles’ run production this season hasn’t exactly been a team effort. Manny Machado is sitting pretty with a .346/.430/.623 slash line, but of the team’s six other qualified players, five have been below-average at the plate.

Then there’s Alvarez, the former Silver Slugger with a powerful swing and a mixed track record in the major leagues. The Vanderbilt product hasn’t been worth more than a single Win Above Replacement in any year since 2013, but with a .205/.311/.500 line in 2018, he’s one of the Birds’ best options in the middle of the lineup.

That slash line is awfully lopsided, and it’s mostly because Alvarez is the Platonic ideal of an all-or-nothing player. He has collected just 16 hits on the year, but seven of those left the ballpark. The 31-year-old is like an active volcano: harmless most of the time, but prone to massive eruptions.

It’s an entirely different story when he takes the field. Alvarez has been the starting DH in 107 out of his 153 games with Baltimore since the start of 2016, but with the recent return of Mark Trumbo, Buck Showalter has been playing him at the hot corner.

The results have been predictably bad. Just take a look at this woeful play:

Alvarez slashed just .105/.150/.263 over the Birds’ recent road trip, begging an important question: is it worth suffering through his awful defense and limited contact skills for a bit of sporadic power? This week’s home stand could provide some clarity.

Brad Brach, RHP

The 32-year-old Brach was supposed to anchor the bullpen in Zach Britton’s absence, but instead, he’s sporting a 5.40 ERA, including an unfathomable 16.20 mark in high-leverage situations. That last figure will shrink as the sample size grows and his numbers stabilize, but it does speak to just how bad he’s been with the game on the line.

Fortunately, Birds fans have reason to expect better from Brach in the weeks ahead. The righty was rock-solid in Oakland, making back-to-back appearances without surrendering an earned run. That’s par for the course for most relievers of his stature, but in Brach’s case, it hadn’t happened in nearly three weeks.

If the 2016 All-Star is indeed rounding into form, it’s likely because he has stuck with his tried and true approach — Brach seems to be aware that baseball stats usually regress to the mean. Here are some of his postgame remarks from last Friday, per Jon Meoli of the Baltimore Sun:

“I made good pitches…Everything’s finding a hole. But it’s just baseball. Hopefully everything turns around. I’ve got to keep living down in the zone and get back to being the kind of pitcher that I am.”

With Brach’s form improving, the Orioles should seek to further build his confidence by giving him high-leverage work against the Royals, who rank 14th in the American League in runs per game — only Baltimore is worse. The Birds will need more than improved relief pitching to turn their season around, but at 8-26, they’ll take what they can get.

(Photo by Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images) /

Mike Moustakas, 3B

Moustakas was one of many free agents who settled for a meager deal this past offseason — after hitting 38 home runs in 2017, tied for most in the AL Central, he wound up back in Kansas City for just $5.5 million, with only a $15 million mutual option for next year to sweeten the pot.

It hasn’t taken him long to show that the Royals got a tremendous discount. Through 34 games, Moustakas is slashing .291/.326/.545 with eight home runs, putting him on pace for some of the best numbers of his career. Come July, he could be an attractive trade chip for a team that’s gotten little production from the rest of its lineup.

The Orioles will have to pitch him carefully when he visits Camden Yards, but it didn’t have to be this way. Per Roch Kubatko of MASN, the Birds discussed signing Moustakas as a free agent. The front office apparently quarreled over the importance of his .302 career on-base percentage and ultimately dropped out of the running, but with a Baltimore fire sale looming, the two-time All-Star would have been a nice piece at the trade deadline.

Moustakas wouldn’t have turned the Birds into a playoff team, but with Pedro Alvarez and Danny Valencia getting regular at bats, they certainly could have done better at the hot corner. If he rakes this week, the entire organization will be left wondering what could have been.

(Photo by Brian Davidson/Getty Images) /

Jorge Soler, RF

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At just 26 years old, Soler has already had a roller coaster of a professional career. After undergoing a brutal transformation from a can’t-miss prospect to a Quad-A afterthought, the Cuban outfielder has returned to the majors with a vengeance, slashing .308/.425/.510 through 30 games.

His right field defense remains a work in progress, but at 11-2, the hapless Royals can tolerate some growing pains. Soler still has time to master the position, especially after dropping 20 pounds over the offseason.

In fact, after posting an anemic .144/.245/.258 in 35 games last year, Soler spent the entire winter trying to improve. Thanks to his work with Mike Tosar, an international scout for the Dodgers as well as his personal coach, he made some important adjustments to his approach at the plate. Per Maria Torres of the Kansas City Star:

Tosar encouraged Soler to depend on sight. It seemed like a simple message, but Soler had been told countless times already to stay back. He’d still load early and his swing would always be too long. But the way Tosar described the concept — “Use your eyes to stay back, use your eyes to get behind the baseball” — was the clearest explanation Soler had ever received. Now Soler bears down on his back foot more, taking his stance a bit off-center to see the pitch on a level that’s more even with his gaze. His depth perception is better than it’s ever been. Ideally, he’ll have a higher success rate on pitches thrown inside now that his barrel is quicker to the ball.

Little adjustments like these are what send promising prospects into the stratosphere. Soler has yet to show a marked improvement on balls thrown inside, but if he does manage to put it all together, expect his torrid slash line to stay in place.

Soler has logged just 12 career plate appearances against the Birds, but he has a .700 slugging percentage to show for it. If the Orioles pitching staff can shrink those numbers this week, it will go a long toward subduing one of Kansas City’s biggest offensive threats.

Next: The top 5 home run hitters in Orioles history

Will the Birds get back on the right track against the Royals this week? Let us know on social media, and keep it here at Birds Watcher for more updates on the Baltimore Orioles.

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