Until the season-ending pounding they took in Texas on Tuesday night time in Game 3 of the ALDS, those Orioles have been strangers to being swept. Buoyed by way of an outstanding younger core, the Orioles were not swept throughout all the sprawl of the 2023 steady season. Indeed, they have not been swept in a standard season collection of at least two video games because the Tigers broomed them in a three-game set long ago yonder on May 13-15, 2022.
That’s a span of 91 directly regular-season collection with out being swept. That’s spectacular stuff, even by way of the factors of a 101-win group such because the 2023 O’s style.
Some would possibly word that the sweep in Detroit predates the major-league debut of franchise catcher Adley Rutschman, who’s in such a lot of techniques the face of the Orioles rebuild and their fresh successes. It’s now been 90 consecutive regular-season collection with no sweep for Rutschman. That makes his the second-longest “sweepless” streak to start a career in MLB history.
There’s now an crucial qualifier appended to all the ones Orioles no-sweep streak observations, which you might have spotted in the phraseology above: steady season. Baltimore’s 2023 season is over ahead of the group may sign up a unmarried playoff win. The ALDS sweep at the fingers of the Rangers was already unexpected sufficient given the Orioles’ status as the highest seed in the AL. It’s extra unexpected nonetheless in gentle of the way lengthy it is been since they have been swept.
So what is responsible for the sweep that finally came about when the stakes have been the perfect? It’s most commonly because of what, smartly, just about everybody stated will be the Orioles’ deadly flaw: the rotation.
Coming off a 2022 season in which a purchaser’s cut-off date most certainly would’ve yielded Baltimore a playoff berth, the O’s didn’t a lot of anything else to handle an clearly missing rotation. They signed Kyle Gibson and referred to as it a wintry weather. Leading as much as the business cut-off date and nonetheless confronted with rotation shortcomings, they undertook the half-measure of dealing for Jack Flaherty. Both Gibson and Flaherty have been in the bullpen for this lately finished postseason collection.
As for the starters who did get started – Kyle Bradish, Grayson Rodriguez and Dean Kremer – they blended for a grisly 14.63 ERA in this ALDS. The Rangers have a powerhouse offense, and they very acutely reminded Baltimore starters of the ones capacities. Whether it is proprietor John Angelos’ unwillingness to spend at ranges even remotely befitting a World Series contender (they are twenty fifth in participant payroll) or GM Mike Elias’ prospect-hugging or some aggregate of each, it is the decision-makers who’re responsible for this embarrassing exit as a result of they are those who knowingly ignored the rotation that was their undoing towards Texas.
The counterexample for them was simply around the diamond. The Rangers signed Jacob deGrom and Game 3 winner Nathan Eovaldi. When they were given harm, Texas dealt for Jordan Montgomery and Max Scherzer. That’s getting buy-in from possession and the entrance place of work, and that is what Baltimore lacks.
There’s no ensure that other habits over the wintry weather and at the cut-off date would’ve modified this end result, however that is the danger of running boldly in a game like baseball, which has such a lot built-in randomness. Sometimes it does not cross your manner. That, alternatively, is at least extra consoling than going in half-cocked and getting decimated and, ahem, swept.
Angelos and Elias owed their enthusiasts and the ones younger gamers like Rutschman and Rodriguez and Gunnar Henderson and quickly sufficient Jackson Holliday greater than this. Maybe it is a lesson they’re going to have time to mirror upon and be informed over the remainder of October. The membership’s long run stays very vibrant, however the proprietor and lead decision-maker should do their phase to maximise the possibilities of a championship in the future years. They did not do this this time round.