[Baltimore Sun] After last year’s failure, Orioles believe they’re prepared for playoff spotlight
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MINNEAPOLIS — In a matter of only a few days, it was over. A season that began eight months before in sunny Florida suddenly came crashing down in a Texas dome.
As slugger Ryan O’Hearn remembers it: “We were just hit by a truck in the postseason.”
This year, O’Hearn and his Orioles teammates are hoping they’re the ones proverbially running people over this October. After a grueling 162-game season filled with ups and downs, injuries and underperformance, and enough wins to earn them more, it all comes down to a best-of-three series.
The Orioles on Tuesday will welcome the Kansas City Royals to Camden Yards for the start of the American League wild-card series. It will be the second year in a row that Baltimore fans will wave orange towels and cheer on their local nine during a playoff game after only being given the opportunity twice in the previous 25 years.
But the two playoff games last October don’t engender positive emotions — for the Orioles or their fans. The Texas Rangers steamrollered Baltimore and every other team in their path to a championship.
The Rangers’ shocking run to the World Series (to say nothing of the scrappy Arizona Diamondbacks’) is proof for all 12 teams in this year’s field that anything can happen in October.
“We saw it last year,” manager Brandon Hyde said. “Texas finished the season terribly, flew across the country and all of a sudden kind of got pissed off and started to swing the bat and we ran into it.”
Can his Orioles do the same this year?
“No doubt,” he answered without hesitation.
The Orioles were a better regular-season team last year. They won 101 games, went all season without being swept (until the AL Division Series against the Rangers, of course) and barely had any hurdles to overcome — at least compared with this year.
“We want to do something special together,” Ryan O’Hearn said. (Abbie Parr/AP)
Other than closer Félix Bautista’s injury, the 2023 club enjoyed its injury luck. This year, the Orioles were nearly sunk by their misfortunes.
“We’ve dealt with injuries and some tough stretches and things like that,” O’Hearn said. “It seemed like last year everything — aside from Félix — was pretty peachy.”
Pitchers Tyler Wells, John Means and Kyle Bradish started a combined 15 games before their seasons ended under the knife. The starting rotation wasn’t as deep or potent without them, and it’s even more hampered by the absence of Grayson Rodriguez, who won’t return for the postseason.
Danny Coulombe, the club’s best left-handed reliever, missed three months, and Jacob Webb, another valuable bullpen arm, was out for six weeks. The bullpen has been below average since they were first injured, though their September returns offered hope. A trio of right-handed hitters — Ryan Mountcastle, Jordan Westburg and Ramón Urías — missed significant time in the second half, turning one of MLB’s best offenses into a middling one.
Those injuries were the main reason — perhaps the only important ones — the Orioles underperformed in the second half. After sprinting out to a 49-25 start, the Orioles went 42-46 the rest of the way. They were a .500 team after the All-Star break.
A stretch of average play for that long could suggest that the Orioles aren’t capable of making a run in October, although the Rangers went 50-50 to end the 2023 regular season. On the other hand, remaining competitive and playing .500 ball despite a mountain of injuries might be looked back on as a success and proof that the Orioles were a World Series contender the whole time and just needed to get healthy.
Throughout the second half, shortstop Gunnar Henderson has repeated that he believes the Orioles are “battle-tested” for a run in the postseason because of the trials they’ve endured this year. James McCann, 11 years Henderson’s senior, agrees.
“I think adversity gets you that, right?” McCann said. “I’ve said it for a long time in my career, you don’t learn a lot from success; you learn from failure. And this team has had its share of failure … and I think these guys have learned from it and have learned how to handle that adversity. And when you get to the postseason, there’s a lot of adversity. You’ve got to fight through things and I’m excited to see what this team has in store in October.”
“You learn from failure,” Orioles catcher James McCann said, “and this team has had its share of failure.” (Abbie Parr/AP)
Still, ending the regular season on a high note was a breath of fresh air for a clubhouse desperate to feel like itself again. The only issue with the vibes in the second half, they say, was that they weren’t winning. Last week, they took two of three and clinched a playoff spot from the New York Yankees — the club the Orioles will face in the ALDS if they beat the Royals — and then swept the Minnesota Twins. The last time Baltimore won consecutive series against winning teams was in mid-June.
“It was huge. Guys are having fun again,” McCann said. “Losing stinks. Sometimes it’s the way the game rolls that no matter what you do, no matter how many different things you try, you just don’t come out of that rut. This last week was really good to see guys swing the bat well, guys throwing the ball well, defense playing well, really all aspects of the game.”
Can this momentum bleed into the postseason? If the Orioles finally got back their “mojo,” to use general manager Mike Elias’ word from mid-September, will that mean a series win over the Royals is more likely?
“Well, it didn’t matter for Texas last year,” Hyde quipped. “But I think you want to be playing well. The way we’re throwing the ball right now, you see some guys having some really good at-bats. Hopefully we can carry that into the wild-card round.”
The baseball cliche that Earl Weaver coined applies here: “Momentum is the next day’s starting pitcher.” And that’s why Elias traded for ace Corbin Burnes this offseason. The ace and perennial Cy Young Award candidate will take the ball Tuesday opposite Royals ace Cole Ragans.
Burnes, with 19 career postseason innings, is meticulous in his preparation and regimented with his routine. But even he admits playoff baseball is different.
“It’s a lot different feeling than a regular baseball game,” he said. “It’s a lot tougher to win a postseason game. Momentum shifts are huge in the postseason. There can be a momentum shift in the second inning that changes the game, or it could be the eighth inning. That’s something you don’t get in a regular-season game because they don’t mean nearly as much as the postseason game.”
The Orioles’ youth and inexperience might not have played a part in their playoff failure last season. The Houston Astros, the AL’s best team over the past decade, also lost to the Rangers.
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But only six of the Orioles’ 26 players last year had postseason experience entering the ALDS. This time around, 20 of the 26 players expected to be on Baltimore’s AL wild-card roster have playoff experience.
“I think it’s more different for the first-time guys or your second time getting into it. There’s definitely a lot more adrenaline, there’s definitely a heightened environment,” Burnes said. “Once you know what to expect, you can kind of prepare for it a little bit and try to keep the adrenaline as low as you can.”
As the Rangers celebrated on their home field last October, the Orioles sat on the top step of the dugout and soaked in the pain of that moment. For many, it fueled them through their training in the offseason.
The 2024 season was arduous, and lesser teams might have folded as the injuries compiled and the groans at home games became louder. But the Orioles survived, and they believe they have what it takes to do to others what the Rangers did to them.
“We want to do something special together,” O’Hearn said.
AL wild-card series, Game 1
Royals at Orioles
(Best-of-three)
Tuesday, 4:08 p.m.
TV: ESPN2
Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM
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