Captain Obvious: the O’s won’t beat good teams pitching like this

[Frobby]

OK, the party’s over for now.  The O’s were presented with a slate of bad teams to play, and they did what they needed to do. Good for them.  I would have been thrilled if you told me on Opening Day that the O’s would be 21-10 at this point on their schedule.

That said, this week was not at all encouraging in terms of how the O’s will do playing against the better teams.  Playing the two worst-hitting teams in the AL, we made the Tigers and Royals look like the ‘27 Yankees and the Big Red Machine.  Our starters were presented with huge leads in several games and couldn’t spare the bullpen.   

I’m also concerned with Bautista. His command hasn’t been good lately and his splitter hasn’t been behaving as it usually does.  

The offense has been solid but has a taken advantage of very poor bullpens and occasionally some very bad defense by the opponents, especially today.  I think the runs will be harder to come by in the coming weeks.   Are we going to win many 4-3 or 3-2 games against the better hitting teams?  Right now, I’d say our chances of holding good teams under 4-5 runs a game are not good at all.

So, I’m bracing myself for a rough stretch and praying that I’m wrong.  


 

[sportsfan8703]

Well we’re about to find out. 

[baltfan]

Tigers are 5-0 in series vs non-AL East teams.  

[Beysbol]

I was thinking the exact same thing. I live in Atlanta, but won't be going to the games because of my terrible social anxiety. It sucks, but I'll just have to watch it on TV (of course the Atlanta network since MASN will be blacked out). 

[DirtyBird]

I think the pitchers should start pitching better

[Fiver6565]

1 minute ago, DirtyBird said:

I think the pitchers should start pitching better

And they are capable of that, recent evidence notwithstanding. 
 

just need to tread water these next couple weeks. .500 in May would be a good result. 
 

also those allegedly punchless Tigers just swept the Mets. Those two series wins, esp the 3/4 in Detroit, are underrated on this board a bit. 

[RarityFlaherty]

Baltimore teams have had a tendency to play up or down to their competition, so I’m not that concerned yet. 

[sportsfan8703]

We’re in season. Grayson is up. Not much more that we can do. I give Hyde credit, he’s managing the bullpen better than anyone. 

[RZNJ]

We have a tough stretch of 22 games.  If we can go 11-11 we’ll be in good shape.  We all know this isn’t a 110 win team.   Kremer and Bradish.  Time to step up.  

[Oriole1940]

Orioles are 1 game on Win Side worse than Atlanta.  Atlanta is playing at home this weekend.  There are so many things lined up against the Orioles, including being on the road, that I do not see how they will do anything but Win.     

[RZNJ]

Also, it will be nice to get Givens and Tate back.  Forget the matchups.  Bye bye to Akin and Cionel.   

[Moshagge3]

I was scared of Atlanta before, then I looked at their box score from today and saw they have Kevin Pillar. Now I'm petrified. How many years has that dude been torturing us?

[interloper]

0.45 ERA tomorrow. 

With Kremer on the mound and his 6+ ERA.

It's either an obvious loss and a classic "offense goes cold right after putting up 13 runs" game, OR

A certified reverse lock. 

[Brooks The Great]

1 minute ago, Moshagge3 said:

I was scared of Atlanta before, then I looked at their box score from today and saw they have Kevin Pillar. Now I'm petrified. How many years has that dude been torturing us?

Braves easily have the best offense in baseball from a pure talent perspective. I'm not hopeful about this series or really even most of the rest of the month of May, especially since the roster isn't optimized. It's time to cut bait with McKenna and O'Hearn, and Westburg needs to be brought up to play regularly. Cowser shouldn't be far behind either, and I'd rather see Ortiz playing 2B instead of Frazier on both sides of the ball.

But this team does tend to play up or down to its competition, including last season.

[baltfan]

11 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

We’re in season. Grayson is up. Not much more that we can do. I give Hyde credit, he’s managing the bullpen better than anyone. 

Could call up DL and he can throw 95 pitches in 5 innings like he did again today.