Winners of 101 games last year, the Orioles are showing no signs of slowing down in 2024
The Atlanta Braves will make their final stop on a three-city road trip Tuesday when they begin a three-game series against the Baltimore Orioles. It has been tough sledding for the Braves of late, as they split two games in Boston to start the trip but then dropped three of four to the Washington Nationals for the second time this season. Atlanta got off to a 19-9 start but is just 16-19 since May 1.
While the starting pitching has performed despite the loss of Spencer Strider, the offense just hasn’t clicked. Atlanta entered Monday’s off day ranked 18th in runs scored and tied for 17th in home runs. They still rank 10th in batting average with runners in scoring position, but are in the lower third in that category since the start of May. Atlanta was 5-for-24 with runners in scoring position during the four games in Washington and that number was propped up a bit by a 3-for-7 performance Sunday. The Braves are tied for the Orioles for the major league lead in average exit velocity and are second in the majors in hard hit rate but that hasn’t translated into any meaningful results. They have MLB’s biggest xwOBA underperformance since May 1, which pretty much explains their record — they’re simply not hitting well enough offensively to overcome the worst luck in MLB in that span.
Marcell Ozuna leads the National League with 18 homers and 55 RBI but has gotten little help from the rest of the lineup. Austin Riley has an 86 wRC+ for the season and is 9-for-49 with two doubles in 13 games since missing two weeks with soreness in his side. His line would look a lot better if he didn’t have eight barreled outs, which is a top-20 mark in MLB even though he missed about a fifth of the season so far. Michael Harris has an 83 wRC+ for the season and also has a huge xwOBA underperformance. Neither Riley nor Harris actually have a particularly good xwOBA, but they don’t deserve the horrid results they’ve gotten, either. Adam Duvall is 6-for-46 with 18 strikeouts since moving into the lineup on an every day basis after Ronald Acuña Jr’s injury… and has, say it with me, a giant xwOBA underperformance too. Since May 1, Orlando Arcia is hitting .192/.218/.344 with a 53 wRC+.
You get the picture. It is a whole lot of ugliness. At some point, it’ll probably get less ugly, and hopefully that’s sooner and not later.
As for the Orioles, well, they’re one of MLB’s current Fab Five — teams with a winning percentage above .600. They won 101 games last year and are on pace for 107 this year. They’ve been remarkably consistent, too, going 19-10 through April, 17-9 in May, and 7-3 so far in June. After losing three series in April, they’ve lost just one since — a sweep at the hands of the Cardinals — and just polished off a four-game sweep of the Rays. Still, they trail the Yankees by two games in the AL East.
Performance-wise, well, this isn’t your “outperforming all their peripherals” Orioles team of yore. These guys are third in wRC+, fourth in position player fWAR, and third in xwOBA. They’re also third in pitching fWAR, with both the second-ranked rotation and a top ten bullpen. You could say their pitching staff’s xFIP- is fairly pedestrian (95), but that’s really the extent of the way you can verbally malign them.
Gunnar Henderson already has 4.1 fWAR, combining well above average shortstop defense with a wOBA and xwOBA in the .400 range. The combination of him, Jordan Westburg, and Adley Rutschman gives the Orioles the new hotness of young baseball cores. Even their role players are playing incredibly well; Cedric Mullins II and backup catcher James McCann have been awful, but even they can’t stop the roll the team is on. Pitching-wise, the trio of Corbin Burnes, Kyle Bradish, and Grayson Rodriguez has been great in their own right, and nigh-unbeatable when combined with their lineup. The bullpen hasn’t had any trouble weathering what’s been an awful start for Yennier Cano, either.
Braves-Orioles was a really exciting series last year (that the Braves ended up winning thanks to some huge hits late), but this one could turn ugly quick if the Braves’ fortunes don’t immediately reverse themselves.
Tuesday, June 11, 6:35 p.m. ET (Bally Sports South)
Max Fried (12 GS, 73.2 IP, 23.1 K%, 7.6 BB%, 2.93 ERA, 3.23 FIP)
The Braves started Hurston Waldrep Sunday to give the rest of the rotation an extra day of rest, and so Max Fried will be operating with six days of reprieve from his last start when he takes the mound in Tuesday’s series opener. Fried has reestablished himself as one of the best pitchers in the game after getting off to a rough start to the season. He set a new career-high with 13 strikeouts and allowed two earned runs over seven innings in his last start against the Red Sox. Fried has a 1.83 ERA and a 3.05 FIP over his last 10 starts combined, and has been especially dominant in his last three tries, with a combined 28/2 K/BB ratio (all Braves wins).
Albert Suarez (13 G, 6 GS, 39.1 IP, 21.0 K%, 7.0 BB%, 1.83 ERA, 2.72 FIP)
Injuries to the Baltimore rotation have forced right-hander Albert Suarez back into the starting mix, where he has blossomed. Tuesday will be his fourth start since rejoining the rotation on May 25. After spending two years in the KBO, Suarez has pitched really well as a swingman. He started the season in the rotation and had a 61/71/93 line (ERA-/FIP-/xFIP-) over three starts, and has a 50/63/98 line in his most recent three starts. If there’s one concern, it’s that he has a freakishly low HR/FB ratio so far that could spell regression, but really, his seasonal xFIP- is an even 100, so it’s not even all that worrisome.
Suarez had a 4/1 K/BB ratio with two runs charged to him in five innings last time out against the Blue Jays, in what seems pretty much like a generic outing for him.
Wednesday, June 12, 6:35 p.m. ET (Bally Sports South)
Spencer Schwellenbach (2 GS, 9.2 IP, 20.0 K%, 6.7 BB%, 8.38 ERA, 5.22 FIP)
Spencer Schwellenbach will make his third start of the season in Wednesday’s matchup. Schwellenbach had a promising debut where he allowed three runs and struck out five over five innings against the Nationals. He held Washington scoreless over the first four before Lane Thomas tagged him for a three-run home run in the fifth in a very clear case of a young arm getting knackered by the times through the order penalty. Things didn’t go as well in his next start in Boston, as he was hit hard for seven hits and six runs in 4 2/3 innings. Schwellenbach has pounded the strike zone over his first two starts but has struggled to put hitters away. Baltimore’s lineup will be his biggest challenge yet.
Cade Povich (1 GS, 5.1 IP, 8.0 K%, 16.0 BB%, 10.13 ERA, 7.09 FIP)
Rookie left-hander Cade Povich will make his second career start in Wednesday’s game opposite Schwellenbach. Povich is the Orioles 8th best prospect per Baseball America. He made his major league debut on June 6 in Toronto and allowed five hits, four walks and six runs in 5 1/3 innings. Povich had a 3.18 ERA, a 3.22 FIP and a 32.5% strikeout rate in 11 starts at Triple-A prior to his promotion. He struck out just two hitters in his major league debut.
Thursday, June 13, 1:05 p.m. ET (Bally Sports South)
Reynaldo López (11 GS, 63.1 IP, 24.8 K%, 8.4 BB%, 1.85 ERA, 3.01 FIP)
Reynaldo López will get the start for the Braves in Thursday’s series finale. He too will be pitching on six days of rest. He has logged 63 1/3 innings through his first 11 starts and will probably surpass last season’s total of 66 innings during Thursday’s start. He logged six innings in his last start against Washington, allowing two runs to go along with seven strikeouts. Those two runs came on two solo homers the third time through, and “helped” pull his FIP towards his xFIP; before that start, Lopez had a massive gap in them due to a very low HR/FB rate.
Lopez has totaled 15 strikeouts in his last two starts combined after a four-start stretch where he managed just 16 punchouts total.
Cole Irvin (12 G, 10 GS, 62.2 IP, 16.7 K%, 4.7 BB%, 2.87 ERA, 3.65 FIP)
Lefty Cole Irvin will get the start for the Orioles Thursday. Irvin has done a good job of soaking up innings for the Orioles this season, and like many of his teammates, has really ridden a low HR/FB to new heights. He allowed eight hits but just two earned runs over 5 2/3 innings in his last start against the Rays, and has allowed two earned runs or less in nine of his last 10 appearances. Irvin hasn’t faced the Braves in a couple of seasons and hasn’t had much luck in his career. He made two starts in 2022 while with the Athletics and allowed 16 hits and 11 runs in 10 innings combined.
As a pitch to contact guy, Irvin generally won’t walk a lot of guys, and he tends to split his time between outings with barely any walks and strikeouts, and some better efforts where he has a handful of punchouts and zero walks. That said, he’s kind of scuffled in his last five outings (74/104/124) compared to the seven starts prior (76/86/96).