Was the offense just in a run of bad luck on this road trip?

[Moose Milligan]

I get the desire to poo-poo analytics and advanced data, etc.  It does get obnoxious hearing about statcast pages in red when guys aren't hitting well.  

But more obnoxious are cries of "the old eye test" and "old school" and the other various "yelling at cloud" types of arguments.  If everyone was stuck with the way things were done back in the day, we'd never progress and never advance in any area of life or society.  That includes how we look at and discuss baseball.

[gtman55]

6 minutes ago, BRobinsonfan said:

If the above is true, how do you get a team to deliver timely hits, stop pressing, and quite expecting to lose?  

There just seems to be some sort of disconnect between upper management, coaching and the players right now. Do I know that for sure? Obviously no. But with the dropoff we've seen in offensive production something is off here. They literally have been mediocre since the All Star break. And the only big loss on the offensive side is Westburg. 

[BRobinsonfan]

6 minutes ago, gtman55 said:

There just seems to be some sort of disconnect between upper management, coaching and the players right now. Do I know that for sure? Obviously no. But with the dropoff we've seen in offensive production something is off here. They literally have been mediocre since the All Star break. And the only big loss on the offensive side is Westburg. 

I would add that Mountcastle and Urias were also losses to the offense.  Throw in a couple of slumps to our other regulars, creating 4-5 weak spots in the offense, and that's a lot to overcome.  I don't discount the mental part of hitting, but I do think most of our problems are directly linked to the rash of injuries we've suffered.  

[Since1984]

The Orioles need to hit a flare base hit every now and then. Said this the other day during the game thread. Jeter was the master of wearing flare during his career

[Three Run Homer]

4 hours ago, Too Tall said:

Interesting but It doesn't make me feel any better. It's like saying hospitalization was because of a fluke accident rather than a serious illness. Still need intensive care.

It doesn't make me feel any better about going 2-4 on the road trip.  But it does make me feel better going forward.  Bad luck tends to change, while underlying ability does not.  

[SilverRocket]

The offense looked bad the day we almost got no-hit. It honestly looked okay yesterday. Adley smashed the ball leading off the 2nd into a lineout (Cowser doubled later in the inning). Santander smashed into a lineout in the 8th before Adley's HR. The Tigers basically out-homered us but we were getting baserunners on and taking better at-bats overall.

The complaints about the lack of situational hitting/smallball are misguided IMO. A homer-heavy lineup can get the job done if the homers are hit. There are some slumps and some holes in the lineup (injury replacements for Westburg, Mountcastle, and Urias) who can't make up for the slumping players like they did early in the year.

[Too Tall]

49 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I get the desire to poo-poo analytics and advanced data, etc.  It does get obnoxious hearing about statcast pages in red when guys aren't hitting well.  

But more obnoxious are cries of "the old eye test" and "old school" and the other various "yelling at cloud" types of arguments.  If everyone was stuck with the way things were done back in the day, we'd never progress and never advance in any area of life or society.  That includes how we look at and discuss baseball.

  I am "old school" and I don't disagree, but it also doesn't have to be either/or in my opinion. I would substitue the word "tiring" for "obnoxious" above.  I admittedly don't understand all the data and look at some of it in bewilderment. You can teach old dogs new tricks but it takes longer. I'm trying to learn and follow but still hang on to what I know best. (My smart phone ain't real smart either!!!!!) I suspect I may not be alone in the realm of Oriole fandom. 

[Tony-OH]

Here's something else to consider. Do the Orioles have a lot of players who have a tendency to hit the ball to the same parts of the field?

Seems to me that the other team's advanced scouts do a good job of positioning their fielders against the Orioles more often than not. Now maybe it's just bad luck. Or maybe, teams have figured out how to pitch and defend against the Orioles hitters? 

I'm not saying they do or not, but I do know this team has been absolutely pathetic hitting with RISP late;ly and having productive at bats. Seems the Orioles hitting philosophy is hit the ball as hard as possible at all times and let "luck" decide the results.

 

[gtman55]

30 minutes ago, Too Tall said:

  I am "old school" and I don't disagree, but it also doesn't have to be either/or in my opinion. I would substitue the word "tiring" for "obnoxious" above.  I admittedly don't understand all the data and look at some of it in bewilderment. You can teach old dogs new tricks but it takes longer. I'm trying to learn and follow but still hang on to what I know best. (My smart phone ain't real smart either!!!!!) I suspect I may not be alone in the realm of Oriole fandom. 

Yeah. I mean analytics obviously is huge in baseball these days. Still people like myself who have been watching the 0's since the early 1960's still are entitled to view and comment on things from the eye and between the ears test. 

I don't get upset when people speak about deep stats and numbers...

Moose saying opinions are obnoxious because people comment about  things from an old perspective is not only kind of dismissive, it's kind of rude too.

We all have opinions.

 

[ledzepp8]

4 hours ago, ChosenOne21 said:

So if Gunnar comes up with the bases loaded and two outs, smashes an 100 MPH line drive right at the second baseman who catches it, was that some sort of failing on Gunnar's part? Would you call that a "lack of timely hitting?"

The "data schmata" shows that the Orioles had a lot of well struck balls that turned into outs, much more than their opponents, yet somehow this is a failing on their part?

Look, there's plenty not to like about the Orioles hitting of late, but how does whether or not they're "pressing" or "expecting to lose" have anything to do with batted ball data? If "pressing" is hitting the ball harder than your opponents and striking out less, sign me up for more of it.

Exactly right. He was literally robbed of a game tying 3 run homerun against, I believe it was the Rays.  

For all the swing and miss in Cowser's game, he does make a lot of hard contact without positive results.

[LookitsPuck]

Think the issue is less about them making contact and have a high xwOBA relative to results, and it's more about what they're doing when runners are actually on base. 

There have been far too many poorly hit balls directly at infielders, popups or strikeouts in key situations. 

Basically, when they're under pressure, they crater. 

This says it all:

High leverage: .230/.294/.394 - .687 OPS

To put in perspective, last year, they hit 293 and had an 852 OPS.

This is with 1 out (2024):

This is with 1 out (2023):

This team just buckles under pressure. 

[Orioles0615]

Just reminds me of my favorite Moneyball quote

 

"if he's a good hitter than why doesn't he hit good"

[JR Oriole]

It is hard to quantify the mental element of the game, but it does feel like these guys collectively have a really hard time with situations where they need to come through. It is almost like the normal pressure that a pitcher should start to feel with runners on base never transfers when Oriole hitters are up.  It makes me wonder, how can these guys ever come through in a playoff game with real pressure if they get this nervous with a runner on 2nd and nobody out in Detroit in mid-September.  

It was said in other threads this weekend, but it really does feel like the hitters are guessing on everything.  What is even more interesting is how often they seem to guess incorrectly.  Friday night was a clinic, as I don't know how they missed so many 91 mph fastballs directly down the middle.  And if they aren't looking at them or swinging right through them, they are somehow fouling them off.  I get swinging through 97+.  But those Tiger pitchers on Friday through an entire assortment of meatballs at them and they missed almost every one.

Makes me wonder how messed up these guys are in the head.  Maybe the three headed hitting strategists and fear of failure is creating major traffic jams up there. 

[StottyByNature]

5 hours ago, JR Oriole said:

I am very admittedly old school, so the xBA, exit velocities, barrels, and all of those other stats make my eyes water. I really only care about actual base hits and actual success rather than predictors of success. The 2014 Royals spent the entire ALCS dinking and dunking us to death, making productive outs, and running all over us. It started with that broken bat bloop Alex Gordon double that somehow cleared the bases and then they spent the rest of that series mosquito biting us to death.  

So in this past week when Rafaela for Boston and Torkelson for Detroit were able to poke run scoring singles to the right side with what had to be really low exit velocities to drive in runs with 2 outs, it made me think.....why can't we do this?  What is so bad about a bloop single, or a bunt with the third baseman a mile back, or hitting balls where they are pitched without trying to square up or hammer every pitch?  

I am sure there is merit to trying to hit the ball really hard all the time.  But it doesn't seem to work that well for us since if we don't homer, we have real trouble scoring runs. Maybe we should just watch Arizona and try to do what they do.  They seem to have no problem scoring runs.

You generally can't intentionally bloop a ball.  The right approach is to consistently try to hit it hard where it is pitched.  The OP's data definitely lines up with what I thought for a few of those games.  We had a good luck season last year, things are evening out this year.  

[Spy Fox]

7 minutes ago, StottyByNature said:

You generally can't intentionally bloop a ball.  The right approach is to consistently try to hit it hard where it is pitched.  The OP's data definitely lines up with what I thought for a few of those games.  We had a good luck season last year, things are evening out this year.  

There's gotta be an Intentional Blooping Clinic out there we can send our guys to this offseason!