[Baltimore Sun] On other side of rebuilds, Orioles and Royals will put parallels on display in wild-card series
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The Orioles and Royals’ last decades have mirrored each other in an almost uncanny resemblance.
The last time the Orioles won a postseason series, Kansas City ended their run. The Royals haven’t reached October since they won their World Series in 2015. And both clubs spent nearly every year since in baseball’s basement.
Salvador Perez, the bridge between those teams and these ones, has endured all the highs and lows a player can. His message to his teammates this week is to enjoy it all — he knows better than most how elusive and fleeting sustained success is.
“Anything can happen in the playoffs,” the Royals’ veteran catcher said. “We’re gonna see tomorrow.”
The clubs will meet again Tuesday on the other side of their respective rebuilds, brought together by the parallels that have tied the organizations together for a decade.
This season is the Royals’ first winning campaign since their World Series run nine years ago. They lost 100 games three times since, then improved by 30 wins from their 56-106 season in 2023.
Their savvy moves are to credit. To supplement Perez and budding superstar shortstop Bobby Witt Jr., they spent more than $100 million on eight veteran free agents last offseason. Chief among them is Seth Lugo, a right-hander who became a first-time All-Star at 34 years old and will start Wednesday. Former Orioles Adam Frazier and Hunter Harvey, out for the postseason with an injury, also aided the Royals’ turnaround.
That’s astray from how the Orioles have spent their winters during their rebuild. Baltimore’s $13 million contract with Craig Kimbrel was the most expensive deal given out by general manager Mike Elias, who’s instead chosen to round out his roster with cheaper free agents and trades.
“They did a great job this offseason with combining their youth and talent with some awesome veterans,” Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said.
But for all the Royals’ organizational success, Ryan O’Hearn might be their largest miss. The first baseman played 342 games with Kansas City from 2018 to 2022 but finished his tenure there with a .683 OPS. Through two seasons in Baltimore, that mark is .779.
The sometimes-true cliché of a scenery change has benefitted O’Hearn. He finally blossomed into a regular with the Orioles after being traded for cash considerations and can now end his old team’s season in his second postseason trip with Baltimore.
“You knew he had that in his ability, and he just went and worked and got better,” said Witt, who spent his rookie season with O’Hearn. “He’s out there now getting a chance to display it.”
Witt will forever be linked with Orioles stars Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson. He was taken second overall in the 2019 draft behind Rutschman, then the Orioles selected Henderson 40 picks later.
They’ve all developed on similar timelines, are now stalwarts of their respective lineups and set to battle for a chance to stamp their young careers with a postseason moment. Witt and Henderson even played on the same prep teams as high schoolers.
They do share one large difference. Kansas City rewarded Witt’s ascension by signing him to an 11-year, $289 million contract this offseason. Baltimore’s pair of young stars are unsigned beyond their arbitration seasons. In doing so, the Royals will have their superstar on a team-friendly deal for the duration of his prime. There’s still no guarantee Rutschman and Henderson will spend theirs in Baltimore.
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“Watching him in high school stuff, he was the No. 1 guy in the country for a reason,” Henderson said. “It seems like he’s only getting better.”
The Orioles and Royals haven’t seen each other in nearly six months, when the Orioles took four of six across two series in a three-week span in April.
They faced Royals ace and Game 1 starter Cole Ragans twice in that stretch. In the first, the left-hander tossed 6 1/3 scoreless innings in an Orioles loss. They tagged him for seven runs and chased him before the second inning ended the next time, a start Ragans said he’ll never forget for the wrong reasons.
There’s value in that familiarity. But in Ragans, the Orioles also have a roadmap for how to handle career-defining injuries to pitchers.
Ragans is a two-time Tommy John surgery recipient, first in 2018 then again the following year as a Texas Rangers prospect. John Means is now traversing that painful and long journey back after he underwent the procedure a second time this summer. Kyle Bradish and Felix Bautista have also had the surgery in the past year.
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The Royals’ left-hander rehabbed, got traded, then became an All-Star. Means is 10 years older than Ragans was, and his recovery won’t be as easy. But Ragans has shown it’s possible.
“There was worry that I’d never play baseball,” he said. “You go through one, it’s all right. But the back to back — there were days where it was like, ‘I don’t know if I’ll ever be healthy again.’”
Ragans’ break out, Witt’s ascent and Perez’s stability helped produce one of the sharpest improvements in recent history — just behind the Orioles’ 31-win jump from three seasons ago. The opponents’ long list of similarities will be on display this week. Their divergent ways of capping lengthy rebuilds will be, too. Even if just for a three-game series, one philosophy will be victorious.
Have a news tip? Contact Taylor Lyons at tlyons@baltsun.com, 410-375-9663 or @TaylorJLyons on X.
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