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Buck Showalter

The Baltimore Orioles Bullpen Keeps Team In Contention

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The Baltimore Orioles won’t go away in the American League playoff race—in fact not only are they not going away, they’re still holding down the second wild-card berth as they enter the finale of a big weekend series in Detroit today. And not only are they not going away and still holding down a playoff berth, they’ve been getting better in the second half of the season. The biggest reason for this is the bullpen.

Baltimore’s relief pitching is third in the American League this year, only trailing Tampa Bay and Oakland—the latter of which is the other team that keeps hanging in the race in spite of public skepticism. What’s more the Oriole bullpen is deep, so it’s not a case of having to carefully handle one or two pitchers. While some are obviously better than others, manager Buck Showalter has a lot of arms at his disposal.

Jim Johnson is the closer and has been one of the more underrated relief pitchers in the American League for at least five years, starting with his work as a setup man in 2008. Then you mix in Matt Lidstrom, Luis Ayala, Darren O’Day and Troy Patton. All have worked about 50 innings this season and all have ERAs below 3. Patton is currently on the disabled list, but is expected back in late August.

A good closer and four reliable setup arms—including one with playoff experience in O’Day, a part of the Texas Rangers’ staff the last two years—is pretty good on its face. But we haven’t yet got to the crown jewel and that’s Pedro Strop. The young righthander has worked 53 innings and posted a dazzling 1.51 ERA.

Baltimore’s starting pitching hasn’t overwhelmed anyone this year, although with Miguel Gonzalez and Chris Tillman pitching well, it’s getting better. The offense ranks in the bottom half of the American League in scoring runs. But the Orioles have a team that, if you don’t beat them the first five innings, are very tough to take out in the second part of a baseball game.

What it adds up to is a team whose record in one-run games is a stunning 23-8. To put that figure in perspective, no one else in the AL East is over .500 and no one else in the American League overall is more than four games over .500. The common statistical interpretation of this is to say its luck, an example of the balls bouncing Baltimore’s way. If this were the middle of May, I’d agree with that and say let’s wait for things to even out. When it’s the middle of August you have to at least be open to the idea that there’s a reason for it—and when the Orioles excel in an area so obviously vital to winning close games, you can’t just casually dismiss it.

So what does this mean for the future, both the next six weeks and the future of this rebuilding organization? In the short term, the Orioles are going to need better starting pitching, or at least for Gonzalez, Tillman and Wei-Yin Chen to continue to pitch well. As the season reaches its finish line the games resemble a postseason series, and in those games its starting pitching that defines success. Bullpens win you games over the long haul. Starting pitching wins in the short haul.

For the future, Showalter can feel good about Strop, Johnson and O’Day as the foundation for his pen, though it is risky to keep counting on a bullpen this deep over time. The team will realistically need to acquire another starter or have Zach Britton fulfill his potential.

But those are concerns for December. For now, it’s time to stop asking why Baltimore is in a playoff race. They’re in it because they have a deep corps of relief pitching and a manager who knows how to maximize its use.

MLB March Report: Baltimore Orioles

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The city of Baltimore loves its Orioles, and in spite of attendance figures that suggest otherwise, my four years of living in Charm City have me convinced that it will take just a small spark to re-ignite the passion and fill Camden Yards. Is 2012 the year the Birds can have their first winning season since the playoff years of 1996-97? TheSportsNotebook takes a look at the Orioles and evaluates them on the four key areas of the ability to get on base, hit for power, starting pitching and the bullpen.

ABILITY TO GET ON BASE: The problems with the offense all start right here, as this lineup seems to be the anti-Moneyball. It’s not that there isn’t individual talent here—there is, as we’ll see when we come to the power section. But all the talent has the same weakness, and there are just not good on-base percentages in this lineup.  One exception to that is rightfielder Nick Markakis. The 28-year-old hits for average and has the plate discipline to take his walks. This area of the offense has been hurt enormously by the injuries to second baseman Brian Roberts over the last two years. When he was healthy, Roberts made consistent contact, drew walks and drove the ball to the alleys. With back problems afflicting his 34-year-old frame, it’s hard to be optimistic about his attempts to come back.

POWER: The Baltimore offense doesn’t have the one dynamic slugger that opposing pitchers will gameplan around or that SportsCenter will build highlight reels off of, but what they do have are several hitters who are consistent at hitting the alleys and pretty good at hitting it out of the park. It starts with catcher Matt Wieters and centerfielder Adam Jones, both entering their fourth full year in the majors. J.J. Hardy found the power stroke he seemed to have left in Milwaukee five years ago and enjoyed a career resurgence. Mark Reynolds bashed 37 home runs. New acquisition Wilson Betemeit, who can play both corner infield spots and DH has consistently slashed the ball to the alleys when he gets consistent playing time. Nolan Reimold has done mostly part-time duty in his career, but he’s consistently hit for power and will likely get the full-time gig in left field for this season. And then there’s Chris Davis, who came over last year in the deal that sent reliever Koji Uehara to Texas. The 25-year-old Davis looked to be on the rise in 2008-09 in Texas, but injuries and the development of Mitch Moreland froze him out the last two seasons. At his best, he hits for power, but, like the rest of this group, needs serious improvement at getting on base consistently.

STARTING PITCHING: If you look at the depth chart and competitors for the Orioles starting rotation, it looks like these tryouts are being used as Buck Showalter’s personal stimulus plan for unemployment. But you can focus on five names—Zach Britton, Wei Yin-Chen, Tommy Hunter, Brian Matusz and Jake Arretia. These five, all aged 24-26 are the ones who have to contribute. Britton looked like a Cy Young candidate early last year with his nasty slider before he began to struggle and finished with a 4.61 ERA. He’s also the youngest of the group though, so for now I’m prepared to assume it was just normal growing pains. Chen is over from Japan and all we really know is that he was good in the Far East. Whether that translates to the AL East is another question. Arietta has 40 starts over the last three years and has a 4.88 ERA. It’s tough to see him being a high-end starter, but if he nudges the ERA down just a little bit and can do so while getting 30 starts, he can be a valuable #4 or #5 guy—either for this team, or as trade bait in July. Hunter and Matusz are the wild-cards. The former won 13 games with a 3.73 ERA with Texas in 2010 before injuries got him last season and he was traded over with Davis. Matusz posted a solid 4.30 ERA in 32 starts for the Orioles in 2010 before his own injury problems tripped him up. If these two arms get healthy, they’ve each shown their stuff. The only arm beyond the Young Five is Jason Hammel. At 29, Hammel is pretty much settled into being a pitcher who chews up innings, but has a high ERA. As long as he can keep the ERA under 5 and the Orioles don’t rely on him for more than being a fifth starter, he’ll be fine.

RELIEF PITCHING: Last year Kevin Gregg got the closer’s job and there was hope he could stabilize this area. It didn’t work out and Gregg is now one of two veteran options Showalter has in setup, along with Colorado’s Matt Lidstrom, acquired along with Hammel in exchange for Jeremy Guthrie. The O’s should get good work from Lidstrom, and Gregg is a wait-and-see proposition. The closer’s role fell to Jim Johnson, who’s done solid work in setup the last four years and closed all eight of his chances after taking the ninth-inning role from Gregg late last year. Depth in front of this group might come from Darren O’Day, who did a good job for Texas in 2010 before injuries derailed him a year ago and he became available on waives. Brad Bergesen, a one-time promising starter, is relegated to competing for relief work. And Jason Berken, who appeared to emerge as a solid middle reliever in ’10, fell back to earth last year. The lineups of the AL East grind on a pitching staff, so you need a deep group in the pen, meaning at least one of these latter three have to become reliable.

LAS VEGAS OVER/UNDER WIN TOTAL: 69.5: I’ve been optimistic about Baltimore’s chances going back at least to 2005, but last year took a lot out of me. If the young pitchers all come together, the Orioles will get into the mid-70s, but even at that, they’ll need better work at getting runners on base to get the elusive winning season. On the flip side, if the starting pitching doesn’t come through, 100 losses is a distinct possibility. The percentage move here is to bet the under.

Springtime In New York: The 1994 New York Rangers, Knicks & Yankees

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TheSportsNotebook’s focus on fan markets has always divided New York into two distinct groups—the Aristocracy, which falls in line with the Yankees, Giants and Rangers. And the Peasantry, which backs in the Mets, Jets and Islanders. The two classes in the city’s caste system converge on the Knicks in the NBA, although the arrival of the Nets to Brooklyn has even thrown that up for grabs.

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But for our purposes here, 1994 was a terrific year to be a part of the aristocratic New York sports class. The Rangers hadn’t won a Stanley Cup since 1940, but broke though and won their first championship in 54 years. Mark Messier led the way and did with a flair for the dramatic in consecutive seven-game series in both the Eastern Conference Finals and Stanley Cup Finals.
The Aristocracy also saw the Yankees return to prominence. The Yanks hadn’t made the postseason since 1981, nor seriously competed for it since 1988. They would have broken that string in 1994 had it not been for the players’ strike of August. New York had the best record in the American League at the time of the strike, and while the year didn’t get its ultimate fulfillment, at least the winning was back in the Bronx.
And our aristocratic elite shared in the joy and anguish of the entire city when it came to the Knicks. Pat Riley’s team finally broke through the barrier that was the Chicago Bulls, aided in no small part by the retirement of Michael Jordan. The Knicks then won a thrilling seven-game series over the Indiana Pacers to reach the NBA Finals. New York got to within a basket of the NBA title before ultimately falling to the Houston Rockets.
All in all, it was a sunny springtime in New York, with the Rangers winning a title, the Knicks nearly doing so, and the Yankees giving everyone a taste of winning baseball again.
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