There’s an adage in baseball that every team will win and lose a third of its games, leaving the other third as those that will decide their seasons.
The Orioles would be positioned well if their first 54 games prove to be that decisive third. Even with Monday’s 5-0 loss to the Cleveland Guardians — one in which center fielder Cedric Mullins exited in the eighth inning with an apparent lower-body injury — Baltimore is off to a 34-20 start, the sixth-best start in franchise history.
Each of the five teams they trail reached the postseason and won at least 97 games. Going 54-54 the rest of the way would leave Baltimore with 88 victories, a total that would likely be enough for the organization’s first playoff berth since 2016.
In the years since, the Orioles have often challenged that adage, frequently credited to longtime Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda. They won fewer than 54 games in 2018 and 2021, exactly that many in 2019, and played only a handful more in 2020′s shortened season.
Baltimore’s breakout in 2022, in which the club went 83-79, was its first season since 2017 winning more than 54 games. Monday’s loss, the Orioles’ 600th game since Brandon Hyde became their manager ahead of the 2019 season, meant they remain 20 shy of that threshold in 2023.
“First few years were tough. [I’m] happy with how we’ve stayed with it and happy with how our team has gotten more talented,” said Hyde, who is 248-352 in his five seasons as Baltimore’s manager. “We took our bumps and bruises the first few years, and especially in this [American League East] division with, back then, playing 19 times a year, those teams that we were playing. But we made a lot of progress organizationally, and I’m really proud of that and to be a part of that here. I think we’re doing a lot of good things right now.”
Much of the team’s improvement has come since the promotion of cacher Adley Rutschman, the former top overall prospect who Baltimore selected with the first pick of the 2019 draft. Monday’s game marked the first of the season in which he did not appear, ending with him on deck as a potential pinch-hitter. With Gunnar Henderson also on the bench and Kyle Stowers and Joey Ortiz in the minors, Monday’s lineup was Hyde’s first this year that didn’t include at least one member of their 2019 draft class.
Hyde said before the game he would “love” to give Rutschman a full day off after bringing him off the bench the other three times he did not start at either catcher or designated hitter. Cleveland’s four-run seventh provided a margin that made that feasible.
Beforehand, the game had been a duel between Orioles right-hander Tyler Wells and Guardians lefty Logan Allen. The only run to that point scored in the fifth when Wells allowed a double to Will Brennan and balked him to third ahead of a sacrifice fly by Cam Gallagher, who spent time in Baltimore’s organization last season.
Wells, who entered the start leading the majors in walks and hits allowed per inning, surrendered only three other hits in his six innings, walking none as he struck out seven. He has recorded at least that many strikeouts in four straight starts; only Connie Johnson, with eight in 1957, and Erik Bedard, five in 2007, have recorded longer streaks as Orioles.
But with him out of the game in the seventh, the Guardians (24-29) recorded four straight one-out hits off Cionel Pérez. Mike Baumann inherited two runners from Pérez, and they both scored when second Adam Frazier inaccurately threw home on a ground ball.
Baltimore, meanwhile, managed little against Allen as he set career highs with seven innings and 10 strikeouts. With Cleveland’s bullpen finishing the shutout, the Orioles have scored one run in their past 17 innings and 11 in 46 innings since striking for eight runs in one frame last week against the New York Yankees.
This story will be updated.
Guardians at Orioles
Tuesday, 7:05 p.m.
TV: MASN
Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM
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