3 trends the Orioles need to change if they want want to be a contender again

The Baltimore Orioles dropped the final game of their doubleheader against the Houston Astros to fall to 15-16 on the season heading into the month of May. They ended April just a game under .500, but it was an up-and-down ride to get there. There were days when it looked like the Orioles' magic of their 2023 had returned, and there were days when they looked like the 2025 team that fans would like to forget. Those kinds of games were often back-to-back, including yesterday's doubleheader, which saw the Orioles win by seven and lose by six in the span of a couple of hours.

There is a scientific word for teams that are inconsistent, around .500, and appear to pose no real threat to actual contenders. The word is mid. So far, this Orioles team has been spectacularly mid. Just look at how their season has played out.

First home stand: 3-3
First road trip: 3-3
Second home stand: 3-3
Second road trip: 3-4
Third home stand: 3-3

Almost perfectly balanced if not for the four-game series in Cleveland. Their longest winning streak and longest losing streak are both three games. They've been within two games of .500 since April 6th.

Hovering around .500 is not the worst thing that a team can do. Especially since the implementation of the expanded wild card round, hovering around .500 and just trying to outlast the other teams in your league has become a somewhat viable strategy for making the playoffs. With how the AL is shaping up, if the Orioles had swept their doubleheader on Thursday, they would have had the fourth-best record in their league.

So the Orioles' midness has not put them in a bad spot per se, but by strength of schedule, April was supposed to be the easiest month of their season, so the fact that they were not able to stack wins against several of the worst teams in baseball is concerning.

More concerning than their record, though, is the way that they have played. Several aspects of this Orioles team have been disappointing. Here is what the Orioles need to change if they want to escape the shackles of mid:

1. They need Gunnar Henderson and Pete Alonso to be their two best offensive players

Alonso and Henderson have been constants in the lineup for the Orioles this season, and although Henderson leads the team in homers by a lot and Alonso has been maybe the team's best defender, they have not been the complete dynamic duo that they were expected to be.

The world has passed batting average by, but it's the most appropriate stat for looking at what's wrong with Henderson and Alonso. Henderson is hitting .214, and Alonso is hitting .198. Last year, both of them hit over .270. If the Orioles were to get kind of production from Henderson and Alonso at the top of their lineup this season, they'd look like a very different offense. Both Henderson and Alonso have strong track records and will surely not finish the season with such paltry slash lines, but the Orioles need them to heat up sooner rather than later.

2. The Orioles need their starters to not force them to play from behind

This one is smack-you-in-the-face obvious, and the team has said as much. After Chris Bassitt's latest start, which was very good, he said that the pitchers had a come-to-Jesus meeting about the way they were approaching their starts. Since that meeting, Bassitt and Baz looked great, and Brandon Young had the worst start of his career, so who's to say if it's working.

3. The Orioles need to stop setting their pitchers up to fail with sloppy defense

Brandon Young got hit around in his start against the Astros, but his defense did him no favors. Jeremiah Jackson made several sterling defensive plays in the day's first game, so it's hard to really get after him, but by himself, he had three defensive gaffes in the first three innings of Young's start that contributed to the 10 runs scored in those innings. Those mistakes, along with a rare Alonso missed scoop and a pair of not-so-rare sloppy plays from Tyler O'Neill in the outfield, really put Young in a bad spot on a day when he already didn't have his best stuff.

This isn't the first time this has happened, as bad defense played a role in the Orioles recent 17-1 loss to the Red Sox, which also killed a two-game winning streak and sunk the team's run differential into the negatives.

These fixes are all easier said than done, but they can be done. The Orioles' weaknesses this season can be fixed with fine-tuning rather than a sledgehammer.

3. The Orioles must play better defense

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow