The Biggest Mistake The Orioles Can't Repeat In The Second Half of the Season

The Orioles cannot be pushovers on the road. Not any longer.

If they are going to salvage their season and not have it end up as lost as last year’s, they need to make immediate corrections in how they play the game away from home. Now. They need to change their approach and execution on the road.

Immediately.

Baltimore faces one of the most daunting schedules in MLB after the All-Star break, and it’s not just who they are playing but where they are playing them. Of their next 27 games, 18 of them are on the road (the O’s are 18-26 away from Camden Yards). They have three legitimate road trips over the next seven weeks, which would probably be enough to derail them if they were a quality ballclub, let alone this version of Orioles baseball.

In the next month they go to Houston and Boston, host the Braves, go to Detroit, host the Phillies and Angels and then go to the Rangers, Twins and Rays. It’s a lot of pure travel, all of those teams except the Angels have something very real to play for (even the Twins are in the mix) and many of them will have front offices far more motivated than Baltimore’s to go add real talent despite how Mike Elias loves to gaslight his fanbase.

There isn’t anything they do nearly as well on the road as they do at home (except find ways to lose games and fail to string wins together). They have managed to win three in a row twice on the road all season and once was at the White Sox in April. We’re talking improvement across the board, ASAP.

Seems a tall task but here is what they are up against:

At The Plate

This offense lives and dies with the longball, with the front office being launch-angle disciples, but it’s not happening for them on the road and it has much to do with their struggles there.

The Orioles are in the top six in homers at home and 23rd on the road. And lately, when they have gotten anything going on the scoreboard, it’s because of homers. They are homering once every 31 at bats on the road and once every 25 at Camden Yards – that had best change given the way the schedule sets up.

They don’t make nearly enough contact on the road, either, ranking 27th with a .227 batting average and 22nd in OBP (.305). An OPS of .685 on the road for the rest of year, if that continues, is not going to cut it and get them into any playoff position. Only two Orioles have a road OPS above .750 - Pete Alonso and Taylor Ward.

So if you are going to chase outside the zone and build a team reliant on homers, and you are going to be bottom eight in actually hitting them on the road, and you aren’t putting the ball in play and aren’t walking in the process ... you are cooked.

No team strikes out more on the road than the Orioles with a stupefying 26% K rate. That’s a recipe for a second half as poor as the first. The O’s have been held to four runs or less in eight of their last 14 road games.

On The Mound

The lack of a true closer tends to be more of an issue on the road and, when the offense can’t stake you to a lead and doesn’t really hit starting pitching, and they strikeout with people on base rather than put the ball in play, it’s going to foist a lot of pressure on the arms.

We’ve seen that script be more acute away from Camden Yards.

The Orioles bullpen has a bottom 10 walk rate in MLB on the road, and when you couple that with a lack of swing-and-miss stuff you get that 18-26 record. Call it bad luck, not knowing the stadium as well, not getting last at bats, whatever, the pen in particular has struggled to do the job.

The Oriole’s pen has the worst left-on-base percentage in MLB on the road. They have the sixth-worst bullpen ERA on the road (4.94). Some of this could certainly be exacerbated by an overmatched rookie manager whose primary job description was fealty to the front office, but in the 8th and 9th inning the Orioles road ERA soars to 5.74 (4th worst) and they also have the fifth-highest HR rate allowed in those innings away from home.

This roster was constructed with ample warts and faults and they are even more devastating on the road. And this team will need its suitcase more than ever the rest of this summer. And Elias will be selling off talent along the way.

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