When will we ever have starting pitching?

[Orioles0615]

I though Chris Holt was supposed to be the chosen one, pitchers are just getting worse, they aren’t even serviceable 

[spiritof66]

The Orioles have compiled the highest ERA in both leagues, 5.64, and the worst WHIP in MLB, 1.49. It's been a team effort: among Orioles starters, only Means and Watkins (just 9.1 IP) have ERAs under 5.00. The next best is Zimmerman at 5.07.

No team over the last ten years (I couldn't bear to go back any farther) has had a season-long ERA as high as 5.64, though the Tigers last year (at 5.63, when the Orioles were a shocking 16th best at 4.51) and the Orioles in 2019 (at 5.59) were real close. The Orioles had MLB's worst ERA in 2017 and 2018, and they will be hard to top this season. The Birds' 5.64 ERA so far is an impressive .25 runs per nine innings higher than MLB's second worst ERA (Arizona), and it's .47 runs per nine higher than the second worst in the AL (Kansas City). The Orioles are allowing almost half an  earned run a game more than the team with the second worst ERA in the American League. (Arizona, with the fifth most errors in both leagues, has allowed more total runs.) 

A few things I find more depressing even than this putrid performance itself is the outlook for the rest of this season and 2021. The young guys -- and some of them aren't that young -- who were, and I guess still are, supposed to provide rotation depth have to learn to pitch at the highest level, and it's not surprising that many of them have gotten knocked around during that learning process. But none of them is showing significant improvement from that education. To the outside observer who knows little about the mechanics of pitching, they don't seem to be learning a damn thing other than maybe how much repeated failure does or doesn't hurt. There seems little hope for significant improvement in the starting pitching until GrayRod and Wells arrive, whenever that is, and there's no assurance about their success, especially right out of the chute, or their resistance to breakage. 

And yet Elias' approach to the sinking ship he's running is to keep exchanging the same old deck chairs; Matt Harvey gets his starts because  . .  . well, you tell me why. Does anyone think he's about to turn things around or become a trade prospect for even the most desperate contender? I think we need to try some new deck chairs, whether they come from crumbs in the remote corners of the team's MiL cupboard or from guys who are available cheap because they aren't succeeding with other teams but have some promise. Don't John Angelos, the team's Chairman and CEO, and Elias, its general manager, care even a little bit about having the worst pitching in MLB? Care enough to do something, even something small and cheap, to try something different to improve that situation, at least enough so that I can stand to watch a game past the fourth inning? 

When a pitching staff is this bad, isn't someone is to blame? Maybe it's an owner who won't authorize any expenditures. Or the GM might rather see failure, either because he's fine with having MLB's worst pitching if it's accompanied by one of MLB's worst records or because he prefers the "Be patient" mantra to taking on the challenge of trying to improve the pitching and possibly falling on his face. Maybe the manager isn't good at deploying the crappy pitching resources available to him. It's possible that the pitching coach and instructors have been ineffective into turning pitching potential into pitching performance. Instead it's treated like having crap pitching is part of the plan with a touch of bad luck, a phase that a rebuilding team needs to go through, or reflects the failure of the pitchers themselves to perform up to even low expectations. Can someone -- anyone? -- step up and take or assign  even a tiny piece of the blame? Hearing that we just need to be patient for an indeterminate time, the range of which isn't discussed, is, for me, wearing real thin.

 

[Three Run Homer]

The scariest thing might be that Keegan Akin is probably not even the guy on the bubble when Means returns.  Means will probably bump Eshelman.  Akin's spot is probably safe until Zimmerman comes back, and even then Harvey would also be a strong candidate for demotion.  

Then there's Jorge Lopez.  Ordinarily a guy with a 2-12 record and an ERA near 6 would be a prime candidate for demotion, but on this team he's almost guaranteed to stay in the rotation the rest of the season if he's healthy.  He could be the first guy since Brian Kingman to get to 20 losses.  

[Can_of_corn]

4 hours ago, andrewochs615 said:

I though Chris Holt was supposed to be the chosen one, pitchers are just getting worse, they aren’t even serviceable 

I think he was captured by the Unseelie Court when he went on the Leave of Absence and was replaced by a Changling.

It's the only rational explanation. 

[wildcard]

4 hours ago, andrewochs615 said:

I though Chris Holt was supposed to be the chosen one, pitchers are just getting worse, they aren’t even serviceable 

Your post makes it sound like there is some conclusion to be reached when really its just the beginning.

[Can_of_corn]

5 minutes ago, wildcard said:

Your post makes it sound like there is some conclusion to be reached when really its just the beginning.

So you are telling us to beware of SSS results?

[wildcard]

Just now, Can_of_corn said:

So you are telling us to beware of SSS results?

No, I am saying Holt is just at the beginning of his run as O's pitching coach and there are many young pitchers that will come up over the next few years.

[Three Run Homer]

2 hours ago, wildcard said:

No, I am saying Holt is just at the beginning of his run as O's pitching coach and there are many young pitchers that will come up over the next few years.

If the O's don't start seeing improved results from their pitchers soon, Holt is not going to have a very long run.

[NCRaven]

On 7/17/2021 at 4:24 PM, Can_of_corn said:

I think he was captured by the Unseelie Court...

That cost me 15 minutes on Wiki...damn you! 

 

[Can_of_corn]

6 minutes ago, NCRaven said:

That cost me 15 minutes on Wiki...damn you! 

 

I can't control what you don't know. 

[Aglets]

To answer the OP.   Check out the official MLB Youtube page tomorrow night!  

 

What does good starting pitching Means to you?