Three Simple Ways Orioles Can Help Themselves In Crucial Reds Series

The Orioles have been an insipid baseball team all season, but especially on the road.

Since sweeping the White Sox in Chicago in early April it’s been all downhill (and the Whtie Sox came to Baltimore this week and outclassed Baltimore in a big way). And they play six on the road before closing out this miserable first half of baseball and heading to the All Star break.

The Orioles, when last we saw them away from home, conspired to have an epic meltdown in Anaheim to end their 10-day West Coast trip, and they tend to hit, field and pitch worse away from home than at Camden Yards. The Orioles are 16-25 on the road and 10-14 vs the National League.

There are three things they could do to help their cause with their season slipping away:

Go-Go O’s

The station-to-station baseball has to stop. The Orioles being 22n in stolen base attempts and 25th in stolen base percentage is a joke. Leody Taveras leading them with 10 steals is a joke. Gunnar Henderson having six stolen bases in July is a joke. They are among MLB's worst taking the extra base in every form.

I know Mike Elias will be showing them flowcharts with how much damage launch angle can do in this tiny ballpark, but there is more to baseball than that. You’d think that failed baseball executive would know by now. The Reds almost beg you to win on them.

Their regular catcher, Tyler Stephenson, has throw out just 10 runners on 52 attempts. He enters this series tied to Nick Fortes (Tampa) as the most run-on catcher in MLB. The guys behind him he thrown out four of the 25 attempts on them all season.

The time to shake up a stagnant offensive approach is right now.

Can’t Let Bottom Of Order Beat You

The Orioles have a tendency to let up against the bottom of the order and get mashed by back-up catchers and No. 9 hitters. Cannot happen this weekend.

The Reds have four hitters who bat regularly in the top five spots who destroy the ball at home – JJ Bleday (1.014 OPS), Elly de la Cruz (.985), Nathaniel Lowe (.920) and Sal Stewart (.811). All except for Stewart have some fairly extreme home/road splits and they love hitting in this bandbox.

This lineup falls off a cliff after this cluster. If they let the guys at the bottom get on base with walks or hits, it’s going to be a problem.

Make Greene Work

Hunter Greene was developing into one of the best young starters in MLB prior to getting hurt a year ago. He was commanding his dominant fastball wherever he wanted and getting ahead and racking up strikeouts despite not having a deep arsenal. He will make his season debut on Saturday and the Orioles cannot let him get into a groove and get off to a fast start.

The more long at bats to start this game the better. The Orioles can hit velo and this is a velo merchant and the O’s launched three homers off him in three innings wen they faced him last year prior to his injury.

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