Orioles unearned arrogance costs them yet another winnable game and series

After winning a series against the Dodgers on Sunday, the Baltimore Orioles were feeling themselves. In the post-game interviews following their blowout Father's Day win, there were multiple quotes along the lines of "this is what we can do" and "we can play with anyone". Well, for the Orioles, their next "anyone" was the lowly last-place Los Angeles Angels. If the Orioles series against the Dodgers proved that they could beat anyone, then their series against the Angels proved they could lose to anyone.

After the Orioles won game one easily and the Angels' game two starter was revealed to be a rookie with a 12.83 ERA, it seemed like the Orioles were well on their way to getting that much-needed sweep. Instead, they got dominated by young Ryan Johnson, and it was clear watching the Orioles be absolutely bamboozled by a soft-tossing righty who only had two more strikeouts than home runs allowed this season, it was clear they had not adequately prepared.

The Orioles took the Angels lightly and paid the price

Game three was where things got really ugly for the Orioles. The Angels jumped out to a quick lead, but the Orioles answered back strongly, scoring five unanswered runs thanks to a pair of Samuel Basallo home runs in back-to-back innings. They managed to chase Angels starter Jose Soriano after just three innings.

After the Orioles took the lead, their starter, Trey Gibson, who had looked shaky to start the game, locked in and pitched back-to-back shut-down innings. The fourth inning was Gibson's best yet; he struck out two and got a quick grounder to end the inning. When he walked off the mound in the fourth, it looked like he was going to cruise through at least the fifth inning, if not also the sixth, and put the Orioles in a great position to win.

That's when the Orioles did something arrogant. At just 66 pitches, they pulled Gibson from the game after four innings and turned the game into a competition of bullpens. The reason for this was not so much that the Orioles were worried about Gibson going deep into the game; it was that most of the Orioles' bullpen had not pitched in three or four days, and with the off day today, they wanted to get their pen some work.

For a lot of teams, turning to a fresh bullpen early in the game with a three-run lead would be a good strategic move, but the Orioles are not most teams. For the past two months, the Orioles have had one of the worst bullpens in baseball. They've demonstrated over and over again during that stretch that they cannot be trusted to protect a three-run lead for one inning, let alone five innings. The idea that you would proactively put the game in the Orioles bullpen's hands when you didn't have to is ludicrous.

The Orioles were basically saying, "even though our starter is pitching well and our bullpen is terrible, we're going to treat this game like a spring training game where our main priority is to make sure everyone gets a chance to throw. We think you stink so bad that even though our bullpen loves to walk guys and give up homers, we think a three-run lead is insurmountable for you."

Of course, this attitude came back and bit them. They brought in Rico Garcia to pitch in the eighth inning of a three-run game even though his ERA in the month of June was 6.43 and he'd given up runs in four of his eight appearances, and he was predictably terrible. The Orioles had already burned their most consistent relievers at this point and were left with just Andrew Kittredge and Ryan Helsley, who have been terrible for the last few weeks, and Keegan Akin, who's been bad all year.

They went to Kittredge in need of one out to get out of the inning, which he got after he walked a batter and gave up the game-tying RBI single. The consequences of the Orioles early bullpen trigger finger culminated when the only arm left in the bullpen to pitch in extras was Akin, and the Angels walked it off.

In the end, the Orioles took the Angels lightly, and the Angels made them pay. This Orioles pitching staff is not deep enough to just assume they can empty the pen and protect a three-run lead. Their offense is not consistent enough to just assume they are going to tack on much-needed insurance runs late in games. The margin for error with this team is very thin, and the moment they forget that and start assuming they can just roll over teams because they took two out of three from the Dodgers, they're going to lose, they're going to lose every time.

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