Inside The Orioles

Glaring Offensive Flaws Emerge in Baltimore Orioles' Recent Slump

The Baltimore Orioles' offense has gone MIA.

Tyler Maher

The Baltimore Orioles' offense is off to a disappointing start.
The Baltimore Orioles' offense is off to a disappointing start. / Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports
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The Baltimore Orioles fell to 5-4 after losing two out of three to the Pittsburgh Pirates at PNC Park over the weekend.

It was an enormously frustrating series for the Orioles, who easily could have swept the three games with some timelier hitting. Instead, they suffered back-to-back one-run losses, losing in extra innings on Saturday and in the ninth inning on Sunday.

Since dominating its first two games of the season against the Los Angeles Angels, Baltimore has gone just 3-4 against the Angels, Pirates and Kansas City Royals -- three of the worst teams in baseball last year. The offense, which started out like gangbusters, is largely to blame.

It's hard to find fault with the pitching staff, which has yet to allow more than four runs in a nine-inning game. The Orioles' hurlers have yet to allow more than five runs, keeping the team in every game.

The same can not be said for the bats, however, which have managed just 23 runs over the past seven games (3.3 runs per game). A couple of concerning trends have emerged as well,

Over its past six games, Baltimore batted just .199 despite facing relatively weak pitching staffs. The Orioles were even worse with runners in scoring position, batting .170 in such situations.

Their hitters have also been getting off to slow starts, struggling to score in the early innings. Over its last seven games, Baltimore has scored only four runs in the first three innings and five runs in the middle three innings, averaging just 1.3 runs before the seventh inning.

Accordingly, the Orioles haven't been giving their starting pitchers enough run support and have been falling behind early, putting more pressure on the team to rally late. This clearly hasn't been a winning strategy.

If Baltimore wants to get back on track (and lower its fans' blood pressure), it needs to hit better with men on base and start scoring earlier. Otherwise, winnable games will keep slipping away.

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Tyler Maher

TYLER MAHER

Tyler grew up in Massachusetts and is a huge Boston sports fan, especially the Red Sox. He went to Tufts University and played club baseball for the Jumbos. Since graduating, he has worked for MLB.com, The Game Day, FanDuel and Forbes. When he's not writing about baseball, he enjoys running, traveling, and playing fetch with his golden retriever.