The Orioles must take advantage of their soft early 2024 schedule

Baltimore needs to keep their foot on the gas early in 2024 as their schedule gets a lot tougher as the weather warms up.

Eric Cole

Boston Red Sox v Baltimore Orioles / Brandon Sloter/GettyImages

The Baltimore Orioles have done exactly what they were supposed to do to start their 2024 season. They are 3-1 through their first four games thanks to more than solid performances from Corbin Burnes and Grayson Rodriguez on the mound and the lineup cooking from top to bottom. Other than the lone hiccup against the Angels on Sunday, everything has gone according to plan.

Baltimore needs to keep it up, because while the early portion of their 2024 schedule is pretty soft (albeit with some potential landmines), things escalate pretty quickly once the end of April comes.

Orioles' April schedule is a real opportunity before brutal May slate arrives

Starting the season off against the Angels was a nice way to ease into the season. Other than Mike Trout, that is not a team that is particularly scary. While the Royals are an improved baseball team this season, the Orioles' current opponents are still not ready to compete against the quality and depth the O's have at their disposal.

After the Royals series, though, things get a little trickier. While the Pirates would normally be a soft spot on any team's schedule, they are currently 5-0 after beating up on the Marlins and Nationals. They have been feasting on bad teams, sure, but they do have some dangerous hitters in that lineup. After that comes series against the Red Sox, Brewers, and Twins before rematches with the Royals and Angels. Again, all very manageable matchups.

The end of the month of April brings what should be a free series against a truly terrible Athletics team, but that is where the good times end. The Yankees come to Baltimore on April 29th for four games and then it is the Reds on the road, a two-game breather against the Nationals, and then home series against the Diamondbacks, Blue Jays, and Mariners ,who all could be in the playoff hunt in 2024. At least they're at Camden Yards.

In short, the Orioles are doing exactly what they need to right now. However, they can't really afford to let this early season schedule pass them by without banking a bunch of wins, because wins are set to become a lot tougher to come by in a month or so.

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Eric Cole

I started my career writing about baseball covering the Atlanta Braves for SB Nation's Talking Chop back in 2015 which has since been renamed Battery Power. After years of writing for those fine folks, I made the decision to take over as Site Expert at House That Hank Built before becoming a full-time MLB Staff Writer for FanSided in 2023. Along the way, I have been a guest on multiple ESPN radio affiliates as well as 680 The Fan and 92.9 The Game to discuss Braves baseball and especially Braves prospects and was a long-time host on the Battery Power podcast. These days, I continue to write about the Braves as well as covering the Astros, Padres, and Angels with particular expertise with minor league coverage, the MLB Draft, and bashing Anthony Rendon when possible. When I am not writing about or talking about baseball (which is seldom), I am an avid baseball card collector (Maddux and Soroka being my primary personal collections) and I also collect shark teeth. All other sports are mostly dead to me as my Bills have broken my heart too many times.