One weekend does not define a season, just as one difficult Opening Night does not derail a dream. Don’t tell the Orioles. They don’t care.
By the time they departed Fenway Park they were flying high, winners of two of three over the Red Sox after taking Sunday’s rubber game, 7-4, having pushed their lopsided Opening Day loss further out of memory. Every game counts more in a condensed schedule, so it’s fair to point out the rebuilding Orioles own a share of first place one series into this 60-game sprint of a season. Perhaps their weekend in Boston provided the blueprint for making a little noise in the American League East this year after all.
“Series wins are huge and they will carry you,” said Wade LeBlanc, who logged 5 2/3 innings to earn the victory in his Orioles debut. “It was definitely nice to come back and show some resilience.”
Sunday’s outcome came courtesy of a team-wide effort, with homers from Rio Ruiz and Anthony Santander and a four-hit day from José Iglesias backing LeBlanc, who pitched for long stretches better than his final line indicated. Santander also added a couple of fine defensive plays in right field, wrapping around the Pesky Pole on one to rob Xander Bogaerts of a home run.
All came in support of an Orioles staff that largely held the line behind LeBlanc, with Miguel Castro and Tanner Scott recording key late-inning outs and 30-year-old rookie Cole Sulser notching a six-out save, the first of his career. They did not walk a batter as a team for the second consecutive game, marking the first time since May 2015 they’d gone two straight games without issuing a free pass.
It was a complete effort, the kind that was hard to come by in these parts a year ago. How long can it continue? That’s largely beside the point. As manager Brandon Hyde said, “I want our guys to improve and we’re off on the right foot.”
Here are some observations from the season’s opening series that drive that notion home:
1) Their offense might be underrated
Hyde mentioned recently that toward the end of last season, opponents began remarking to him in private what tough outs several young Orioles hitters were becoming. That might sound like hyperbole at first, as the Orioles ranked 22nd in MLB and 11th among AL teams in runs scored in 2019. But zoom in and those numbers start to change -- and tell a story. Baltimore shot up to 14th in MLB in runs scored in the second half, after Austin Hays, Santander and others carved out regular roles at the top of the lineup.
Now those youngsters are the heartbeat of an offense that produced 15 runs in 17 innings at one point this weekend, and had little trouble after flame-throwing Nathan Eovaldi departed on Friday night. Santander doubled home a run Saturday and golfed a two-run homer to chase losing pitcher Ryan Weber on Sunday, quelling concerns he’d be physically ready for the season after arriving to camp late because of COVID-19. Hays had two hits Saturday and added a sac fly Sunday, and Hanser Alberto simply picked up where he left off with six hits in the opening series.
The real surprise is Iglesias, whom Hyde inserted into the three hole and who promptly began the year with seven hits in 12 at-bats, including four on Sunday. That’s clearly unsustainable, and this is still a unit missing Trey Mancini and not necessarily built to slug. But that doesn’t mean it can’t hold it’s own.
“Everyone knows I like guys who put the ball in play and force action,” Hyde said. “Without a ton of power, it’s nice to be able to use the whole field and move runners around.”
2) Ruiz is rollin’
Even before the season started, the differences in Ruiz between this year and last were plain to see. His hair is almost shoulder length, draping down his neck. He sets up in the box with a slightly opened stance, and now utilizes a leg kick to get his left-handed swing going. Like the 15 pounds of muscle he added this winter, the adjustments were designed with an eye toward driving the baseball with authority more consistently, after hitting .232 with a .682 OPS in 2019.
“His swing is a lot more aggressive and freed up this year,” Hyde said.
Then the games began, and there was the way it has all come together. Albeit a small sample, Ruiz is simply making better contact this season. The latest example being the two-run homer he launched off Weber in Sunday’s first inning. It was Ruiz’s second homer in three games; he hit just 12 in 127 contests a year ago. The real reason for optimism, though, is rooted in the way the ball was struck. Ruiz’s homer Sunday left the bat at 102 mph and a 22-degree launch angle, per Statcast, close to ideal contact for extra-base hits. He only checked both of those boxes on five swings last season. All were homers.
3) The pitching is already better
What LeBlanc and Alex Cobb did the past two days underscored just how little it’ll take for Baltimore’s rotation to improve in 2020. Cobb went 5 1/3 innings, holding the Red Sox to a run on Saturday. LeBlanc pitched with a lead and held it, despite surrendering four runs in 5 2/3. Neither dazzled, but both pitched into the sixth and didn’t walk a batter.
Those kinds of outings were rare in 2019, when Cobb missed all but three games due to hip surgery and the Orioles cycled through 18 different starters. If Cobb, LeBlanc and Tommy Milone, who took the loss on Opening Day in place of John Means, can stay healthy, it should stabilize things by default. If the bullpen pitches half as well as it did Saturday and Sunday (one run in 5 2/3 innings, no walks) you could see breakouts from guys like Castro, Scott, Sulser and potentially others. It would change the entire complexion of the staff.