The lone silver lining for Orioles' awful (but improving) starting rotation

Pitching has long been a weakness for the Baltimore Orioles, and after their rotation was the primary culprit for their slow start and subsequent last-place finish in the division in 2025, it seemed like a forgone conclusion that they would be one of the most aggressive teams this offseason, pursuing starting pitching either via trade or in the free agent market. That was not to be, as the Orioles ran back a very similar strategy to the season prior, bringing in a couple of veteran arms on 1-year deals and hoping their offense would be enough to carry a middle-of-the-road rotation. Unfortunately, they haven't had a middle-of-the-road rotation; they've had one of the worst in baseball, and their 28-32 record reflects this.

Fortunately for the Orioles, the rest of the American League, with a few exceptions, has struggled to stack wins, and despite being four games under .500, the Orioles find themselves just a single game out of a playoff spot.

The Orioles can look their neighbors in the standings in the eyes

After a disastrous start to the season, their rotation has put together about a week and a half of solid results, posting a 2.55 ERA over their recent 10-game home stand. Your rotation is never as good as their best 10-game stretch, so over the course of the season, it's to be expected that the Orioles rotation will balance out somewhere in between the mess they were for the first eight weeks of the season and the well-oiled machine they were at Camden Yards the past week.

Looking at the names currently in the rotation, it doesn't look like a squad that is going to carry the Orioles to the playoffs, but that's where the Orioles are also fortunate. The teams standing between them and the playoffs, whether due to injury or front-office neglect, also have poor rotations.

At this point in the season, the Orioles are basically eliminated from winning their division. One of the Yankees or Rays will have that honor, and with how both those teams have played, the other will likely grab the top wild-card spot. That leaves the Orioles competing for one of the final two wild-card spots.

Here are the teams they are currently looking up at in the standings. The Chicago White Sox, The Toronto Blue Jays, The [Redacted} Athletics, and the Texas Rangers. Those for teams, along with the Orioles, are all either currently in the playoffs or just one game out.

You don't want to be looking up in the standings at teams that have much better rotations. A team with a great rotation and a couple of games lead for a playoff spot is going to be almost impossible to track down, just because their starters are going to give them a chance to win every day. That is not the case for the teams the Orioles are pursuing. There is plenty of reason to believe even the Orioles rotation could match what those teams are putting on the mound right now.

The White Sox are a great story this year, and their ace Davis Martin deserves to be an all-star, but there's just no way he's going to pitch to a 2.00 ERA for the rest of the season. After him, the White Sox's pitching depth gets very thin.

It's hard to believe this is true, but the Blue Jays rotation is in shambles right now. They could field one of the better rotations in the AL with just the starters they have on the IL. Currently, they're having to do two bullpen games every time through the rotation, and their bullpen is being worked to death. Nothing about what they are doing right now can be sustained for long.

The Athletics got off to a nice start, but their lack of pitching depth is already biting them as they've lost veterans Luis Severino and Aaron Civale. The arms they've replaced them with have been getting shelled. They're going to continue to sink to the bottom of the standings.

The Rangers are the one team ahead of the Orioles whose rotation is much better than anything the Orioles could dream of fielding. However, the Rangers' offense has been dreadful for years now, to the point where their rotation cannot be counted on to bail them out. Serves them right for bludgeoning the Orioles on their way to the World Series in 2023.

All in all, the Orioles are not in a bad spot considering how poorly they started the year. They'll need their rotation to keep up the momentum they built during their last homestand, and they'll need some good fortune, but they can still turn this season around.

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