Losing Blaze Alexander Is Devastating For The Orioles At The Plate, In The Field And On The Base Paths

One of the great debates to open the second half of a fairly miserable Orioles season has been rendered moot. Any hopes of them really contending for the final Wild Card spot may have as well.

Blaze Alexander, the best player on this baseball team since late April and a top-10 hitter in all of MLB,is out indefinitely with a fracture in his left hand after getting hit by a pitch in the 7th inning of a blowout win over the Royals Sunday. It’s difficult to quantify what Alexander has meant to this team – the fact they are 35-34 when he starts at second base or third base says quite a bit itself – as a team that lacks impact bats (he and Pete Alonso are the only Orioles with an OPS above .800), defensive acumen, versatility and base-running ability has just lost a key contributor in all of the above.

Alexander and Samuel Basallo, a 21-year-old catcher who is making history, were the only real overachievers on the entire roster of position players, a big reason they had such a poor first half as a team. In an offseason filled with typical Mike Elias failures for the most part, landing Alexander was sage.

“Definitely a gut punch,” rookie manager Craig Albernaz said after Sunday’s 8-2 win, their first four-game win streak of the season, in what felt like an understatement.

After already losing regular third baseman Jordan Westburg (a former All Star) for the season, and with no real replacement in AAA, the Coby Mayo experiment will likely be back on, and with Albernaz’s in-game flexibility was hampered massively without a guy who can dabble at eight positions and was clearly the only true option behind Gunnar Henderson at shortstop (Jackson Holliday still can’t play second base).

Sure, he was expected to be a super utility guy and short-term fill in for Holliday, who himself missed the first 50 games with a broken hand. But after a very slow start Alexander became a prime energy source for a team that is often lumbering and lethargic; playing 18 of their next 27 games on the road (where the Orioles stink) without him feels like a recipe to be plastered in last place in the Al East.

At The Plate

Alexander is batting .312 for the season and .355 since April 28. He’s second on the team for the season in OPS. And he’s been an absolute beast in every aspect of hitting since late April.

Alexander entered play Sunday (when he went 2-for-2 and walked and was hit by a pitch) leading MLB in batting average and 10th in OBP (.400) and 14th in OPS and 10th in wRC+ (159!). That is MVP-vote getting category. Yet through it all, and during a month stretch where the Orioles could not score more than three runs a game far too often, Albernaz kept him stuck in the 8 or 9 hole … so he was just 7th on the team in runs scored since April 28th, because he wasn’t as many plate appearances as he should and guys failing at the top of the lineup weren’t driving him in enough when he did help turn the lineup over.

Mike Elias thinks he is smarter than everyone else, so you get stuck with inefficiencies like that.

Here's where he ranked among all Orioles in key categories from April 28 through entering play Sunday:

AVG: Alexander .354 Alonso .277 Basallo .255

OBP: Alexander .400 Alonso .368 Taylor Ward .368

SLG: Alonso .538 Alexander .522 Basallo .429

OPS: Alexander .922 Alonso .906 Basallo .764

wRC+: Alexander 159 Alonso 150 Basallo 110

And for a team that has struggled to move runners and come through in the clutch, Alexnader, since April 28th, leads them across the board in high-leverage situations and it’s not even close: batting average (.412), OBP (.474), SLG (.471) and OPS (.944). That’s impossible.

Yeah, that’s going to leave a mark. And if the top of the order continues to be an issue, the Orioles lost their best leadoff option among guys who haven’t been given a chance to do it.

In The Field

Alexander still had some issues at third, and isn’t used to playing this much, but he was their best option there and it’s not even close. It’s not a fluke that despite Mayo having the best at bats of his career they have limited him to facing lefties and taken his glove out of the equation; Alexander has been at third for 26 of the last 37 games.

He also would be the team’s best defensive replacement at innumerable positions and they even trust him in centerfield, which has been an issue this season. He and Alonso and Rutschman have been their only plus regular defenders.

They lose a late-game option to come on for Holliday and this probably gets Jeremiah Jackson’s glove more involved, which ain’t great.

Intangibles

He brings speed and grit and energy. This guy is a game and he also brings positivity to a team prone to tossing bats in frustration and snapping bats in frustration. He clearly has a presence and impact in a way not me’s any others on this roster seem to,

A club that has been horrible taking the extra base and stealing bases lost a guy who can do it. Alexander is tied with Leody Taveras for the team lead in base running value (+2). He’s a sparkplug and a guy who its easy to rally around, and him reduced to cheering this team on for a month or six weeks or whatever it turns out to be feels like yet another sign that Elias better be ready to sell.

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