The Orioles took three of four in a rematch with their 2023 playoff nemesis, the Texas Rangers, then hit the road to take two of three from the American League West-leading Seattle Mariners.
Here are five things we learned from a solid bounce-back week.
Craig Kimbrel is a worthy All-Star
The Orioles sent their closer to the mound with a 2-0 lead in a pitcher-friendly park against one of the worst offenses in baseball. Not the absolute easiest save chance but close.
Kimbrel proceeded to brush No. 3 hitter Luke Raley’s left thigh with a knuckle curve. Five pitches later, cleanup hitter Cal Raleigh crushed a 93 mph fastball down the right-field line for a possible game-tying home run, only to watch it hook 10 feet foul. Kimbrel struck him out on the next pitch. But then he clipped No. 5 hitter Jorge Polanco with another errant curve. Just like that, the Seattle Mariners, with two hits to show for their Tuesday night, brought the potential winning run to the plate.
Kimbrel is a heart attack personified. We never know which of his two pitches he might lose command of in a given inning. In Seattle, it was the curve.
So, what’s the takeaway? Do we focus on the panic he created or the fact that Kimbrel, as he has hundreds of times in a probable Hall of Fame career, cleaned up his mess by inducing a ground out and blowing 94 mph gas past 23-year-old Julio Rodríguez?
Orioles fans have struggled with this conundrum since the club signed Kimbrel to stand in for injured closer Félix Bautista. When he went haywire over a five-appearance stretch in late April and early May, plenty were ready to call him a failure and ship out a frontline prospect for Oakland’s Mason Miller or some other young gun.
Since he gave up two earned runs to the Washington Nationals on May 8, Kimbrel has pitched 20 times. He has allowed one earned run while striking out 27, walking five and surrendering one home run. He also went 10 straight appearances without allowing a run in April.
So you look past that one rotten leaf of lettuce in the middle of the sandwich and you have what? A heck of a season that has Kimbrel in the mix for his 10th career All-Star appearance at age 36. He’s striking out more hitters, letting fewer on base and keeping more balls in the park than he did last year for the Philadelphia Phillies. He’s not Miller or Cleveland’s Emmanuel Clase, but he has been one of the 20 most valuable relievers in the sport, per FanGraphs’ wins above replacement.
That doesn’t mean high-leverage relievers should be off the Orioles’ pre-deadline shopping list. Danny Coulombe is out until September. Yennier Cano’s walk and home run rates have more than doubled from last season. Even if Kimbrel goes the rest of the season without another hell week — and that seems unlikely — this bullpen needs fortifying.
But this is a time to appreciate what the veteran closer has accomplished, both in his career and for the Orioles. You might want to keep your beta-blockers handy when Kimbrel takes the mound, but his pitches still spin, hop and hum enough to produce strikeouts when he needs to extricate himself. He’s a problem-solver, even if many of those problems are of his own creation.
The Orioles are going to have to keep tinkering with their rotation until help arrives
Cole Irvin thought he was close to the desirable side of that fine line between working on the edge of the strike zone and simply lacking command. But his fourth straight poor line — 3 2/3 innings, nine base runners, five earned runs in an 11-2 loss to the Rangers — sent him to the bullpen despite his heroics in April and May.
He made way for Dean Kremer, who didn’t inspire much confidence in three rehabilitation starts as he worked back from a triceps strain but struck out eight Mariners in five scoreless innings, working up with his riding fastball and down with his splitter on Wednesday. If healthy, Kremer is the closest the Orioles have to a lock behind Corbin Burnes and Grayson Rodriguez.
Albert Suárez had seemed to be in just as tenuous a position as Irvin before he mastered Texas with his fastball over six shutout innings.
Then there’s Chayce McDermott coming off his best start of the season — three hits, one earned run and 12 strikeouts in seven innings — for Triple-A Norfolk. McDermott’s walk rate — he issued five free passes in each of his first three starts — is concerning, but he has gotten a handle on it lately. His 13.1 strikeouts per nine innings, with an above-average changeup and cutter complementing a 95 mph four-seam fastball, are impressive by any reckoning.
The point isn’t that any of these guys are leagues better than the others. It’s that manager Brandon Hyde will keep turning to the hot hand, hoping to find the next starter who might get him through a few spins of the rotation. All eyes will be on the Orioles’ quest to trade for a pitcher whom they’d confidently start in Game 3 of a playoff series. Until it happens, they’re in survival mode.
This week, that means Kremer, Suárez and Cade Povich. In two weeks, who knows?
The Orioles are right to ride out Colton Cowser’s down spells
After he created a dairy-forward phenomenon at Camden Yards with his magnificent April, Cowser fell into quite the hitting funk through May and most of June.
He batted .185 over those two months, slugging an anemic .275 in May. Where had you gone, Mr. Moo?
Given his plethora of outfield options, Hyde could have stopped giving Cowser regular chances. Fans started calling for the rookie to be sent back to Triple-A Norfolk, where Heston Kjerstad and Kyle Stowers were making strong cases for big league at-bats.
Instead, Cowser remained a fixture, and there are good reasons why.
First, the Orioles can afford to let one of their top prospects work through growing pains at the plate because they already have the league’s best offense. Yes, they’re trying to win now, but they’re also trying to develop the young players who will keep them on this trajectory for years to come. It’s not one or the other.
Second, Cowser helps the club even when he’s slumping.
He’s already one of the league’s best outfielders, with exceptional range and a powerful arm, according to Statcast metrics. Tuesday night in Seattle, he galloped into the left-field corner to erase a would-be double, a play that’s no longer surprising because he does it every few games. Dynamite as he is in a corner, he could be the Orioles’ center fielder of the future, though 2023 first-round draft pick Enrique Bradfield Jr. will have something to say about that if he hits enough.
Cowser swings and misses too much, but when he makes contact, it’s hard, with his bat speed, exit velocity and hard-hit percentage all above the 80th percentile, per Statcast. That’s why almost half of his hits have gone for extra bases. His walk rate is above average. He’s an excellent base runner. His secondary skills — a favorite Bill James talking point at the dawn of the sabermetric revolution — transcend his batting average.
So we’re talking about a 24-year-old who was the fifth pick in the 2021 draft and already does everything well other than make contact. That’s a guy you want on your team, not relegated to Triple-A for shortsighted reasons.
We’re finally getting an honest glimpse of what Heston Kjerstad can do
Speaking of outfielders who need big league at-bats to develop, Kjerstad started six of his first eight games after he returned from Norfolk last week and paid off the investment with three multi-hit efforts and a grand slam that was the most important blow in a 6-5 win over the Rangers on Saturday.
Power is Kjerstad’s calling card. We see it in batting practice, where no Oriole launches more awesome bombs toward Eutaw Street. And we finally saw it in live action against Texas. Neither of his home runs looked gone for sure off the bat. On the first, center fielder Leody Taveras reacted as if he had a play only to watch the ball sail and sail some more, 415 feet over the wall. Pitcher Jon Gray stared perplexedly as Kjerstad circled the bases. The next night, on the grand slam, Kjerstad tugged an inside cutter toward right-center, where two Texas outfielders converged only to watch helplessly as the ball carried well past their reach. Both big-boy home runs from a guy who doesn’t need to catch all of a pitch or pull it down the line to do maximum damage.
Just as impressive was Kjerstad’s first game back against the Cleveland in which he jumped on two first-pitch strikes from Guardians ace Tanner Bibee for a single and a double, then worked a 13-pitch at-bat against overpowering reliever Hunter Gaddis with a man on in the bottom of the eighth. He just got under Gaddis’ last fastball, but that display of perseverance after his selective aggression earlier in the game spoke to Kjerstad’s potential.
“I definitely felt good, controlled the zone,” he said afterward.
The trick now will be to keep finding him at-bats and to do the same for Coby Mayo and Jackson Holliday when they find their way to Baltimore later this summer. We knew this dynamic would be a subplot all season, with a deep major league club vying to repeat in the AL East and a glut of offensive phenoms proving they’re too good for Triple-A. Hyde often refers to it as a good-club problem, and that’s the healthiest view, but it’s not an easy balancing act.
The fans actually did a good job with All-Star voting
Six All-Star finalists made for a fun testament to how far the Orioles have come.
That status carried extra weight for Ryan O’Hearn, who said such an honor “seemed unattainable for a long time” when he couldn’t even find at-bats for the dreadful Kansas City Royals. O’Hearn finished four percentage points behind mighty Yordan Álvarez in the final vote at designated hitter.
Remarkable.
In the end, the two Orioles who won the fan vote, shortstop Gunnar Henderson and catcher Adley Rutschman, were the two who deserved it as the clear statistical standouts at their positions. Narratively speaking, they’re also the faces of this new Baltimore juggernaut.
There were five first basemen with cases, but the winner, Toronto’s Vladimir Guerrero Jr., is having a better season than Ryan Mountcastle by just about any measure.
Anthony Santander made a push in the outfield with his June power bonanza, but he’s no match for Aaron Judge and Juan Soto’s modern Ruth-Gehrig act on the Yankees, and Steven Kwan is hitting .362 with pop and Gold Glove defense for the first-place Cleveland Guardians.
Third baseman Jordan Westburg deserves a reserve spot. He hits the ball as hard as any Oriole other than Henderson, plays sound defense and lifts everyone with his intense professionalism. But he’s not better than Cleveland’s José Ramírez, a perennial top-five Most Valuable Player candidate who recently reminded the Orioles how terrifying he is.
We have to assume Burnes will be part of the American League pitching staff when the rest of manager Bruce Bochy’s roster is announced Sunday evening. Kimbrel and/or Rodriguez could join him. If Westburg doesn’t make it, it would likely be because this is his first standout season, not because of anything he failed to do on the field.
For now, however, the fans acted wisely.
