Baltimore Orioles: Season splits not what you’d guess
The Baltimore Orioles are hanging around the .500 mark in a tough AL East, currently sitting at 32-33, 6.5 games back of the Yankees and one game back of the second wild card spot. While the O’s have performed well at home, going 21-10, they have struggled on the road at just 11-23.
If you don’t pay attention to the Baltimore Orioles on a somewhat regular basis, there are probably some things that you take for granted. They’ll have a good offense, their starting pitching won’t be great and their bullpen will make up for any shortcomings and make them fairly competitive. This season you’d be right on about one and a half of those at best.
The vaunted offense of Manny Machado, Chris Davis and Mark Trumbo has combined for 34 home runs, 83 RBI and the best OBP of the bunch is a tie between Trumbo and Davis at just .320. Davis is the only one performing above league average, and it’s not by a wide margin.
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With those three underperforming, the offense as a whole has struggled, ranking 21st in runs scored with 288 this season, bookended by the White Sox (295) and Pirates (279). Oddly enough, they haven’t received much of a boost at home, putting up 133 runs and actually dropping in the rankings to 24th. That’s 4.29 runs per game at home. On the road that average bumps up to 4.59 per game for a total of 155, good for eighth in baseball.
On the mound, the Orioles pitching staff ranks 27th in baseball in overall ERA at 4.89, but surprisingly their struggles on the mound have come on the road where they hold a collective 6.14 ERA, last in baseball. That ERA drops to 3.63 when they’re at Camden Yards.
The player that encapsulates their road struggles is Dylan Bundy, who holds a 3-3 record with a 4.25 ERA away from home. That’s also the best mark put up by any pitcher that has started a single game on the road this season. Following the leaderboard downward, you’ll see Wade Miley with a 5.45, Ubaldo Jimenez (5.50), Alec Asher (6.98), Kevin Gausman (9.00) and Chris Tillman (13.91). That kind of production obviously isn’t going to lead to a whole lot of road wins (eleven to be exact).
Each of those pitchers mentioned above has pitched much better at home outside of Jimenez, with just about everyone hovering around league average and a couple, like Miley (2.15) and Bundy (2.38) pitching like Cy Young contenders.
The problem now is that there isn’t really a way to fix road woes outside of just playing better, and I’m sure that if it were that easy Buck Showalter would have tried it before the middle of June. Instead, the focus could be on the struggling offensive superstars that they have upping their game just a little, and getting just an extra out or two out of their starters. While it’s certainly not ideal, it is attainable. Every extra out that the bullpen doesn’t have to record should add to their effectiveness both in the short and long term.
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Again, fixing the road woes isn’t going to be an easy fix, but it could mean the difference between Zach Britton watching the entire playoffs from his couch, or getting some time to watch them from the bullpen, too.