The Baltimore Orioles expected to be playing past today. That goes without saying. However the 2024 season has now ended. In a few months hope will spring eternal again.
The overall story of the season will probably be that it was riddled with injuries. The ironic part of that is that at the tail end of the regular season they got people back in the field (and at the plate), and the pitching staff remained decimated by injuries. Three guys having had Tommy John’s and all…
…yet you’d be hard-pressed to say that Oriole pitching let them down in the playoffs, the bats on the other hand…there’s almost an element of not making any sense in that. Especially given that Oriole bats were strong as soon as they started getting people back. New York and Minnesota would attest to that.
I don’t think anyone outside of that clubhouse is qualified to say what happened or why. Teams go through peaks and valleys throughout the season, and the Orioles saw both over the course of the regular season. Remember that folks – BOTH. While the valleys always ring lower than the peaks seem to reach, there were plenty of games where this offense battered pitching staffs. Including both the first and final series’ of the regular season.
It’s unfair to speculate on what, if anything, changes in the off season. This regarding the coaching staff or anything else. Obviously there needs to be some sort of urgency in the sense that Corbin Burnes and Anthony Santander will be free agents. Most of the time teams don’t sign guys during the playoffs, but you never know.
And on that note we don’t know how the current ownership will do things. This is the first off season they’ve been at the helm. So it’s pointless to say that historical data says both players are elsewhere next year – because there is no historical data in a sense. David Rubenstein’s group took over stewardship of the franchise the day before Opening Day. The roster was already set.
But there’s time to look at that aspect of things. Needless to say, the O’s can ill afford to lose either. End of the day, the O’s need to figure out what went wrong, fix it, and move onward into 2025. Easier said than done.
Birdland Crush 