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

[interloper]

9 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

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

Would feel better about Tate if he actually threw well in AA first, but yes.

[oriole]

If they play .500 ball the rest of the way they’ll be at about 86 wins. This got TB in the playoffs last year. This team wasn’t built to win the division so it’s probably best not get ahead of ourselves. 
 

Either way, they’ve done what they needed to do. But I don’t expect them to continue with this success. SP isn’t great, BP seems to be playing over their heads, hitting can be great but there’s also quite a bit of lackluster spots. Plus, Elias has made a habit of avoiding doing anything bold, so it’s sink or swim for the guys we got. Means can provide a boost down the road hopefully. 

Overall, if 86 wins is where they’re at…I’d have signed up for that with no issues at the start of the season. 

[interloper]

This series really had me thinking about John Means. It's dangerous to hope he can be some kind of pitching savior this year, but a guy can dream.

We need somebody to be another adult in the room.

[Sports Guy]

The run differential tells us they aren’t as good as their record.

Entering today, their pythag theorem had them at 17-13.  

They have the second best record in the AL but only the 5th best run differential. 

[cnmilton]

The SP, outside of Kyle Gibson, has been putrid. Even Rodriquez has looked shaky at best. Even though it's only been a handful of starts, he looks like Chris Tillman 2.0. Even when he gets ahead of batters, he has no out pitch, ad the batters foul off pitch after pitch. 

[SteveA]

41 minutes ago, Brooks The Great said:

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.

If going 17-5 outside the AL East and winning all non-ALE series is "playing down to the competition", sign me up for more.

[JR Oriole]

47 minutes 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?

Kevin Pillar, over the course of 91 games against the Os, has hit .321 with an OPS of .868.  His 47 career RBI against us is 15 more than he has against anyone else.  Absurd.  

I live here in Atlanta and I will be at the game tomorrow night.  

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

We're getting near the time where Elias needs to package some of this excess positional player talent in the farm system to land a TOR starting pitcher or at the very least a solid #3 starter. 

Make a trade and get Means back (even if not at full strength) will help bolster the pitching staff.

[Orioles0615]

30 minutes ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

We're getting near the time where Elias needs to package some of this excess positional player talent in the farm system to land a TOR starting pitcher or at the very least a solid #3 starter. 

Make a trade and get Means back (even if not at full strength) will help bolster the pitching staff.

No one is trading anyone in May. We will have to limp to July and hope we are still above .500 before anything happens

[Bemorewins]

37 minutes ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

We're getting near the time where Elias needs to package some of this excess positional player talent in the farm system to land a TOR starting pitcher or at the very least a solid #3 starter. 

Make a trade and get Means back (even if not at full strength) will help bolster the pitching staff.

A #3 starter does nothing for increasing raising the ceiling for potential post season success. 

I’m not sure why we wouldn’t be hunting for a #1 like Cease or if he’s unavailable a guy like Eduardo Rodriguez who is pitching out of his mind and so far having a career year?

We are the most prospect rich team in the game. I know somebody a few posts back posed a scenario where we bring up Westburg, Cowser, and Ortiz. But there is simple no place to play them all without either platooning them (which I believe would be horrible utilization for assets such as them) or the more sensible option which is to trade from you excess?

As things sit now, our offense is pretty good and will be excellent if/when Gunnar and Santander start hitting (like today). But the problem with this team is our starting pitching has been really bad. I believe it was like 25th in MLB going into today’s game. Success is not sustainable when you starters are so bad that no matter who is on the mound, no lead is safe.

The next few weeks are definitely going to be a litmus test. If we continue to see poor pitching performance after poor pitching performance, we may need to acquire 2 starters in addition to Means return at some point. This pitching has been terrible.

[Emory Eagle]

1 hour ago, Beysbol said:

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). 

I generally am a fan of Atlanta (used to live there), but oddly enough that is the one place in all of the cities I’ve been to see a ballgame where I had a somewhat unpleasant experience wearing an Os cap to another team’s stadium. And that must’ve been back around 2011 or so before they had their mini renaissance.

[Bemorewins]

15 minutes ago, Orioles0615 said:

No one is trading anyone in May. We will have to limp to July and hope we are still above .500 before anything happens

I agree that we are going to have to wait awhile. But if you listened to Hyde’s interview on MLB radio before today’s game and read between the lines of “our guys are just young and inexperienced”. I got the sense that they know that they need someone to anchor the rotation at the top if they want to contend in the post season.

[bpilktree]

On the plus side Acuna left the game today after fouling a ball off his knee and is listed as day to day.  At the very least it could keep him from stealing some bases in the series.  

[Frobby]

2 hours ago, oriole said:

If they play .500 ball the rest of the way they’ll be at about 86 wins. This got TB in the playoffs last year. This team wasn’t built to win the division so it’s probably best not get ahead of ourselves. 
 

Either way, they’ve done what they needed to do. But I don’t expect them to continue with this success. SP isn’t great, BP seems to be playing over their heads, hitting can be great but there’s also quite a bit of lackluster spots. Plus, Elias has made a habit of avoiding doing anything bold, so it’s sink or swim for the guys we got. Means can provide a boost down the road hopefully. 

Overall, if 86 wins is where they’re at…I’d have signed up for that with no issues at the start of the season. 

86 won’t be enough.  Book it.  Tampa clinched a playoff spot with five games to go and then lost their last five games. If they’d been must-win, they would have won a couple I’d bet.  Also, with the more balanced schedule, the AL East teams are going to win more games this year.  That handwriting is already on the wall with how the East has done against the other divisions.  I’ll put the over/under for the 6th seed at 90 wins.  

[Brooks The Great]

5 hours ago, SteveA said:

If going 17-5 outside the AL East and winning all non-ALE series is "playing down to the competition", sign me up for more.

The team's run differential doesn't really equate to the great record. They play close games, just like last season. It's a talented team and they've beaten the teams they needed to beat. My point is that the schedule has made it much easier for the team to win games, and a tough stretch is coming up. 

I'll sign up for more of that as well, but just as OP pointed out, the poor starting pitching isn't going to be conducive to winning baseball games with the quality of teams coming up on the schedule. But also part of my point - the team seems to step up it's play (or at least it did last year) when the schedule gets harder as well. Hope to see that continue and that improved starting pitching is part of it.