If The Orioles Could Hit Starters Like They Hit Bullpens They Wouldn't Be In Last Place

If the Orioles could hit starting pitching at even a league average rate, perhaps their season wouldn’t have started unraveling in May.

If they could do even a portion of the damage they inflict on bullpens – usually the underbelly of bullpens – on even the worst starting pitchers in MLB (like some of the ones they faced in the Cubs series or the one who subjugated their bats Friday with the Royals in town), perhaps they wouldn’t be last in the American League East. But this isn’t just a 2026 problem, as like most of the core rot of this baseball operation under Mike Elias (horrible fielding and inept base-running and a janky bullpen) it’s seemingly be design and another nasty spillover from a lost 2025 season no matter what gibberish Elias tried to peddle in late April.

(All the more reason to run Elias and his top minions off at the All-Star break ahead of the trade deadline).

Given how long the sample size is of the Orioles chasing launch angle and striking out at a failure rate against starting pitching, and starting games behind and not giving their starting pitchers run support – at the very time the lineup is supposed to be their superpower – suggesting this group, with these overmatched coaches, is going to sort it out in the second half while being behind even the final Wild Card pace is laughable.

It’s clear that just adding two right-handed hitting power bats wasn’t going to cure this primary woe – Elias jacked up the ballpark to render them far more moot than anyone would like – with left field not working for Pete Alonso or Taylor Ward at Camden Yards. And this offense is putting up staggeringly similar production in the first six innings of ballgames as it did a year ago., with its best player, Gunnar Henderson, mired in a yearlong funk.

How Bad Is It?

Let’s start with 2025, when it wasn’t just junk-balling AAAA lefties who stymied the Orioles allegedly potent lineup: it was fringe righties, and openers and guys making their debut. In 2025, through the first six innings of games, they posted a .701 OPS, 23rd in MLB:

Runs: 23rd (452) K-Rate: 28th (23.7) HR: 12th (134)

Avg: 26th (.237) OBP: 25th (.303) SLG: 21st (.398)

In 2026, through the first six innings of games, they have an OPS of .723 (16th):

Runs: 16th (288) K-Rate: 26th (23.7) HR: 12th (81)

Avg. 23rd (.239) OBP: 14th (.317) SLG: 17th (.406)

So what’s changed?

Well, they are walking 10% of the time now, which you see in the league-average OBP (Ward with no power but being a walk-machine in the leadoff spots explains a lot). And, that’s about it.

The swing-and-miss remains a blight, and, worst of all, after digging themselves a big hole in the standings, and probably feeling some of that pressure from THE NOISE, their enabling skipper was so scared of, they have been worse at hitting starters pretty much across the board sine June 1, wasting that 7-3 homestand in late May that naïve followers of this team (and clownish media types who parrot the front office's gaslighting and talking points) suggested might be enough to overcome The Elias Way.

What Have You Done For Me Lately?

So, how’s this working out since June 1.

Well, in the first six innings of games since then, the weather got hotter which should have been a boon for them, but instead they rank 22nd in SLG since then (.410) and 19th in HR and the K-rate went up to 24.5%, while the wake-rate remained robust, which puts them 18th in runs scored in MLB since June 1, despite facing a lot of suspect pitching in that span.

… And Here’s The Gut Punch

The real kick in the midsection in all of this, is that if this Frankenstein roster does have a superpower, it’s late-inning power and production. Again, if they could do anything of note against starters this is probably a .500 team (no great accomplishment in a pathetic AL, but better than this slop).

Consider just some of what the 2026 Orioles are doing in late-inning situations.

They have a .798 OPS in high-leverage situations, 3rd in MLB, with a WRC+ of 123 in those situations (23% better than the norm), which also ranks third. They are seventh in SLG in those situations.

They rank 4th in MLB with a .435 SLG from the 7th through extra innings, and 9th in OPS (.782). With two-outs and RISP from the 7th inning on (including extras) they rank eighth in SLG (.414) and third in homers. They fail repeatedly with two men on base early in games and then try to salvage it late, and often do get big clutch hits off relievers, to make it close but usually lose (7-14 in one-run games with no worthy closer, including the $14M guy who got hurt twice).

So you get puppet skipper Craig Albernaz gushing about “fight” and “refusing to quit,” but it’s really all those early wasted at bats with a poor approach and poor execution (and some bad luck) the first few times through the lineup that they can’t overcome once they are chasing the game.

They still live or die with the longball, and they are still within a game of last year’s horrible pace after 95 games, which ain’t close to good enough no matter how bad the rest of the AL is. And they’ll be sellers again.

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