One thing the Orioles can do to solve their early inning woes

The Baltimore Orioles starting rotation has been the most disappointing part of the roster this season. They don't have a single starter with an ERA under 4.00, and in fact most of their regular starters are sporting ERA's in the fives. The team had been managing to navigate around this weakness to varying degrees of success, but this week the Orioles' starting pitching problem came to a head, and for four games in a row, their starters put the Orioles in a deep hole early in the game that the offense was not able to climb out of.

Here's what the Orioles rotation has done over their past four starts:

Brandon Young: 4 IP, 10 R, 7 ER, 10 H, 2 BB, 2 K, 2 HR
Cade Povich: 4 IP, 5 R, 5 ER, 7 H, 2 BB, 4 K, 2 HR
Kyle Bradish: 4 IP, 5 R, 5 ER, 6 H, 4 BB, 4 K, 2 HR
Trey Gibson: 4.2 IP, 3 R, 3 ER, 4 H, 2 BB, 2 K, 2 HR

To put it simply, that's not great; to put it statistically, that's a 10.80 ERA from your starters over a four-game span. The worst part of these starts is how early the run onslaught came. In Young's start, the Orioles were down 6-0 after two innings. When Povich took the mound, the Orioles were down 5-1 after two. Bradish put the Orioles in a 3-0 hole through three, and Gibson followed that up by creating a 3-1 deficit through three. The opposition scored in the first inning of three of the four games; the Orioles haven't had a lead for one second in any of the past four games.

The Baltimore Orioles need to deploy their best releivers before the starters can put the game out of reach

From the numbers, you can see that nothing has been easy for Orioles starting pitchers, but more than anything, what's killed them has been the top of the order. In most of these games, the top of the order has scored in the first inning and then scored even more the second time through the order, whether that's in the second or third inning.

One possible solution to this would be for the Orioles to deploy their better relievers as openers at the start of the game.

The Orioles have used openers sparingly over the last few seasons, so this is not a foreign concept to them. The idea is to treat facing the opposing team's best hitters for the first time like one of the higher leverage innings of the game. With how the Orioles starters have been getting pounded early in the game, it basically has been.

Once the openers get through the first and maybe the second inning, the starter can come in and face the top of the order for the first time in the third, or, if things are going well, the fourth inning. That way, they're not paying the second time through the order price so early in the game.

The Orioles have a few relievers who would be interesting to see in the opener role. Kittredge did it twice for the Cubs in the postseason last year, Keegan Akin and Dietrich Enns did it for the Orioles last year. However, the two names that would be most interesting to see at the start of the game would be Anthony Nunez and Rico Garcia, who have both been very good to start the year and have the kind of stuff that you can trust against the best hitters in the league.

The Orioles should be deploying regular openers for Povich and Young as long as they're in the bug leagues and should even consider it for Bradish until he starts to look like himself. It's not ideal to have to turn to openers so early in the season, but the Orioles need to do what they have to do to stop this season from slipping away.

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