The Orioles have two different offenses and one of them is really bad

The Baltimore Orioles have been bad at hitting left-handed pitching for years. As their struggles have gotten worse and worse, the Orioles have leaned even heavier into platoons. When a lefty starter is on the bump, the Orioles now roll out a lineup of almost exclusively right-handed hitters that they have acquired over the last few years to try to fix this problem. It's not working.

This year, against left-handed pitching, the Orioles offense combines to put up a wRC+ of 88, which ranks 24th. Against right-handed pitching, the Orioles have a team wRC+ of 107, which makes them the seventh best offense in baseball against righties. There are more right-handed pitchers than left-handed pitchers, so this balances out to 102 wRC+ on the season.

Left-handed pitchers have torn the Orioles up all year

It's good to have an above-average offense, but the problem is that whenever the Orioles run into a left-handed starter, even a bad one, that offense gets stopped cold in its tracks. This past series against the Reds was a perfect example of this. The Orioles faced right-handed pitcher Hunter Greene, a former All-Star and Cy Young candidate. The Orioles hung eight runs on his head. The next day they faced left-handed pitcher Nick Lodolo, who had really struggled this year, coming into the game with an ERA of 5.05 and a FIP of 5.30. Those are undeniably bad numbers, and yet against the Orioles he was dominant, throwing six innings of one-run ball.

Basically, against a righty, the Orioles have a good chance to win, and against a lefty, it's a near-automatic loss. It's hard to stack wins when any lefty with a pulse turns into prime Clayton Kershaw against you. Facing prime Clayton Kershaw 25 times in 90 games is how you end up seven games under .500.

So what can the Orioles do to stop getting mowed down by left-handed pitching? The answer is pretty simple: they need to stop committing so hard to the platoon. Looking at the splits for the Orioles players, there are two actual left-handed specialists on the team: Coby Mayo and Taylor Ward. Mayo has a wRC+ of 184, and Ward's sits at 147. Those two should be in the lineup vs. left-handed pitchers every time. Outside of that, the Orioles should just try to put the best possible defensive lineup on the field behind their pitchers.

There are a few reasons for this. One is that if the lineup is just straight righties, it makes it very easy for the starting pitcher to lock in on their pitches and get comfortable. Most pitchers these days have different pitches they throw against lefties and righties. A balanced lineup makes the pitcher have to throw all his pitches, so he can't get nearly as comfortable.

The other reason is that the Orioles' young hitters need to learn to face left-handed pitchers. The Orioles have tried to buy right-handed bats in free agency over and over again, and it really hasn't worked. At this point, their best bet for hitting lefties in the future is that guys like Jackson Holliday, Dylan Beavers, and Samuel Basallo need to get better at it, and the only way they can do that is if they get to face them.

The Orioles' current strategy of emptying their veteran bench of right-handed batters against lefties isn't working; they might as well let their young left-handed hitters get experience and see if any of them make a developmental leap.

The good news is that the Orioles may be turning a corner on this. Today's lineup features four left-handed hitters despite the fact that there is a lefty on the mound.

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