3 biggest takeaways from the Orioles’ opening series against Toronto

The Baltimore Orioles opened the season splitting a four game series in Toronto. It was a back and forth affair between the AL East rivals that brought excitement and despair, but not many surprises. It is obviously a small sample size but in that time the O’s confirmed several suspicions.

The Orioles offense is lethal

The Orioles offense blasted into the season with a franchise record-setting six home run performance on Opening Day. The bats powered the O’s to a 12-2 victory in game one led by Adley Rutschman and Cedric Mullins, who hit two homers each. Tyler O’Neill introduced himself to Birds fans by extending his own Opening Day home run record and Jordan Westburg capped off the day with his first home run of the season.

Game three saw more of the same as the Orioles scored nine more runs. Colton Cowser led off with a home run against future hall of famer Max Scherzer. Westburg also homered in the first inning and again in the seventh for the team’s third multi-homer performance in as many games. 

Adding in Jackson Holliday’s game two home run gave the Birds another franchise record with 10 home runs in the first three games. They only mustered three total runs in games two and four but they did have nine hits in game four. And remember that all this happened without Gunnar Henderson. 

The pitching is shaky

After being unable to re-sign Corbin Burnes, the Orioles elected to try and replace him by signing multiple pitchers instead of another true ace. It was a questionable decision, though there is plenty of justification. The loss of Grayson Rodriguez to injury made things worse for the starting rotation and the bullpen had its own question marks. 

Zach Eflin got the season started on the right foot with a brilliant Opening Day. He made just one mistake to Andrés Giménez that went out of the yard but was otherwise great. Charlie Morton and Dean Kremer both got roughed up in their starts. Tomoyuki Sugano got over some first inning jitters to put together a solid showing until he was forced to leave with hand cramps. 

Likewise, the bullpen had some quality outings but some troublesome as well. The long awaited return of Felix Bautista went well as he recorded three strikeouts with a double and a walk mixed in in true Bautista fashion. 

The standout in the bullpen was Bryan Baker. A surprise addition to the Opening Day roster, Baker looked great in his two appearances striking out five over 2.2 innings while only allowing two hits and walking none. On the other hand Cionel Perez was concerning. He surrendered three runs in 1.2 innings with only one strikeout and two walks. Perez also allowed a home run for the first time in his last 105 appearances. 

The injury bug is still biting

The Orioles entered the season with plenty of known injuries, but the injuries have continued to pile up. Henderson looks as though he’ll be returning shortly but the IL is quickly filling up. The O’s have already put two more people on the IL since the regular season began. 

Albert Suárez was placed on the IL after making his first appearance this season with right shoulder inflammation. Joining him on the IL is Colton Cowser who will miss the next 6-8 weeks after breaking his thumb on a head first slide into first base. A move that Ben McDonald cautioned against even before we knew Cowser was injured. Fortunately the roster is deep and the Orioles should be able to get through this stretch while hopefully not losing anyone else.