The Orioles are entering the regular season with a fair amount of turmoil swirling around the team. As of today, it appears unlikely Hyun Soo Kim, the player they signed from Korea to be their everyday LFer, will make the Opening Day roster. They have parted with Miguel Gonzalez, a pitcher who was arguably their starting pitcher from 2012 until June of 2015. Their most talented starting pitcher, Kevin Gausman, will begin the year on the DL with a shoulder ailment. Matt Wieters, is nursing a bad elbow still and they are going to start two players in the rotation who probably aren’t ML starters, at least on any kind of consistent basis (Mike Wright and Tyler Wilson).
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However, there are also positive spins to that news. We are going to see some young guys get opportunities and maybe they can surprise us. Gausman’s injury doesn’t appear to be too serious and he will join the team in the middle to the end of April. Wieters, who seemed destined to be on the DL a week ago, appears to be on track to start the season on the 25 man roster. And if he does make the roster, he is going to be apart of a team that needs to get of to a good start. This team needs to sort out some issues. How is the corner outfield situation going to play out? How will the back of the rotation perform? These are things that could hurt the club early on and in a division and league, that is very good and extremely balanced, getting behind early could end your season before it really gets started.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at the April schedule and see what this team has in front of them as the season begins.
The Orioles will play 25 games in the month of April, barring any rain-outs. It’s a balanced 25 games, with 12 at home, and 13 on the road. They only have 2 off days for the month. They usually have 1 or 2 more off days for the month. They will start off with a 6 game home stand and, after that, they have a 16 game stretch and only 3 of them are at home and those 3 are against Toronto – the favorites of many to again win the AL East.
The depth of the American League as a whole is not to be dismissed. Baltimore won’t have many breathers, at least not as we see things right now. Obviously, teams will go through injuries, bad performances, etc. and some of the teams will become “easier wins” but for right now, that isn’t in the cards.
They start off vs. an improving Minnesota team, a team that has a lot of very good young talent and a team that surprised many by being in contention last year. It’s very possible that they could take another leap this year if their young talent takes it to another level. They have 6 games against the Tampa Rays, the team that many think has the best rotation in the AL East and a team that PECOTA projected to win over 90 games and win the division. They have a 7 game road trip that takes them to Boston, a team many feel is right there with Toronto as the favorite in the division and after that, they head to Texas. I have seen many say that they think the Rangers could win the West and if not, they will be right there in the wild card haunt again. Baltimore will also be heading to Kansas City for a 3 game series, to face the defending World Series champs (and 2x defending American League champs). The month will end, with the Orioles facing an improving Chicago White Sox team at home.
That is a pretty tough schedule early on and if you are one who believes that the Orioles best starter for 2016 will be Gausman, it appears that he will only make 2 starts for the month, making this month that much harder.
On top of all of that, you had a lot of the remaining starters pitch poorly in the spring. You have your #2 starter, Yovani Gallardo, as a guy who came to camp late. Chris Tillman missed about half of camp and Ubaldo Jimenez was the consistently inconsistent Jimenez.
The good news is that the bats were good this spring. Six guys who appear to be or will be regulars had an OPS over 800 or better. Wieters and Adam Jones weren’t far behind either. Pedro Alvarez struggled but he came in late and got some at bats. You figure he will have a slow start but he should be fine and provide the production the Orioles signed him for.
Outside of Brad Brach and Darren O’Day – two guys that have shown to be very good to elite relievers for the last several years – the bullpen has looked excellent this spring. Mychal Givens appears to be poised to be a big time weapon, Zach Britton dominated and Dylan Bundy looked very solid. Bundy’s performance and health this spring, coupled with the good reports on Hunter Harvey, are easily the best things to come out of spring training this year. If those twoa can get and stay healthy and perform the way we all think they can, this organization has a much different long-term outlook. Of course, those are all big ifs and they have to avoid having this organization screw them up but if they can, the Orioles could be in excellent shape.
Getting back to the schedule, I am hoping for at least 11 wins. If they can be 11-14, which isn’t great by any means, it will allow them to tread water as they get healthier and some of their players get their feet wet and get more acclimated with things. May starts with 14 of 17 at home, before going on a tough 9 game road trip, so if they can keep their heads above water early, they have an opportunity to put themselves right back into the thick of things by mid May.
Now, I know it may sound crazy to place so much importance on the schedule early on but again, with a deep league and deep division, I think it is imperative that this team (or any team) not go through too much “down time” because if you do, you could get buried. We all know that some teams will end up with 75 or less wins and the more you lose early on, the more its likely that you will be on those teams.
The new theme in Baltimore isn’t This is Birdland. The new theme is Tread Water. It may not sound exciting but its something they need to do and if they can do more than that, I think you have to like the chances of this team being able to hang around for a while and at the very least, give themselves and the fans some hope that this team could be better on the field than they appear to be on paper.
Rob has interviewed guests from outlets such as ESPN, Sports Illustrated, NBC Sports, CBS Sports, FOX Sports, Baseball Prospectus, Athlon, Sporting News, MLB Network, Brooks Baseball, Baseball Info Solutions, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, Sports on Earth, Grantland, NFL Network, FanGraphs, Football Outsiders, ProFootballFocus, etc. etc. The Baltimore native lives in Perry Hall with his Wife Lindsay, and two young sons. He has appeared as a guest on 105.7 The Fan, Q1370, and WNST 1570. Co-Host of The Warehouse: https://anchor.fm/the-warehouse Co-Host of Sports Tonight: https://anchor.fm/sports-tonight