BALTIMORE -- Plenty went wrong for the Orioles in Sunday¡¯s loss -- as indicated by the 24-2 score and two position players (utility man Jorge Mateo and backup catcher Gary S¨¢nchez) combining to pitch the final two innings.
It was the most runs allowed by Baltimore since a 30-3 loss to Texas on Aug. 22, 2007.
¡°It¡¯s embarrassing. It¡¯s not what you want to do on Easter Sunday in front of your home crowd,¡± manager Brandon Hyde said after his club dropped the finale to Cincinnati in lopsided fashion at Camden Yards. ¡°You want to compete.¡±
It¡¯s difficult to compete with a rotation that has the highest ERA in baseball (6.11) and has combined for 10 outings of fewer than five innings in 21 games.
When starters can¡¯t get deep into games, it taxes the bullpen. When starters give up a lot of early runs, it results in nearly insurmountable deficits for the offense to come back from.
So a big reason for the Orioles¡¯ 9-12 start -- which has featured only one series win and no winning streak longer than two games -- has been the performance of their rotation.
¡°You¡¯re just not going to be able to win games that way,¡± Hyde said. ¡°You¡¯re going to win them once in a while because you¡¯re going to outscore teams, but that¡¯s not how you win Major League Baseball games.¡±
One of the most confounding aspects of the O¡¯s starting-pitching struggles has been the performance of Charlie Morton -- an 18-year MLB veteran who signed a one-year, $15 million deal to bring reliability to the staff. He was expected to eat innings and pitch at a level that would make him a sturdy presence in the middle of the rotation.
Instead, Morton is 0-5 with a 10.89 ERA after five starts -- the most recent being Sunday¡¯s 2 1/3-inning outing in which he allowed a season-high seven earned runs. The 41-year-old¡¯s ERA is the second-highest by an O¡¯s pitcher through his first five appearances for the team (with a minimum of 20 innings pitched) behind only Ty Blach¡¯s 11.32 mark in 2019.
Morton can¡¯t seem to solve his early-season struggles. His four-seam fastball is playing up, but his curveball isn¡¯t nearly as sharp as it has been in recent years. He¡¯s missing some bats, but when he doesn¡¯t, major damage is done against him.
The Reds scored seven runs in the third, with six being charged to Morton, who gave up a leadoff home run to Elly De La Cruz, a two-run single to Jake Fraley and an RBI single to Austin Wynns during the frame. Wynns¡¯ knock (the second of six for the former Oriole) chased Morton after 68 pitches.
¡°If you said, ¡®We¡¯ll give you 30 starts to get this right,¡¯ I¡¯ll get it right. It¡¯s just, how negatively do I affect the team during that process, right? That¡¯s the question,¡± Morton said. ¡°Do I think that I can still pitch well? Yeah. It¡¯s just some of the things that are going wrong right now -- like just throwing strikes, making decent pitches consistently, getting into a rhythm, getting some momentum. That¡¯s the issue.
¡°But I don¡¯t doubt the fact that I can get it right. It¡¯s just, ¡®How quickly can I get it done?¡¯¡±
At the moment, the Orioles don¡¯t have many other choices than to let Morton work out his issues. Their rotation is again down to four pitchers -- seven are on the injured list -- and their only starters with MLB experience at Triple-A Norfolk are Brandon Young (who debuted Saturday before getting optioned a day later) and Thaddeus Ward.
(Kyle Gibson, who has made three Minor League starts after signing late in Spring Training, will join the rotation soon to get it back up to five.)
Baltimore also made a considerable financial commitment on its 2025 payroll to bring in Morton, so it¡¯s too early to consider cutting ties. And Morton is healthy, noting he feels even better than he did during the second half of the 2024 season.
The rest of the Orioles¡¯ clubhouse still has faith in the veteran.
¡°Oh, I have no doubts in Charlie,¡± catcher Adley Rutschman said. ¡°He knows what he's doing. It's a long season, and for him, it's just, ¡®We're on to the next,¡¯ and I have full belief in him that he's going to go out next game and throw a seven-inning shutout. He has that capability.¡±
The O¡¯s would love that. They also badly need starts like that.
Otherwise, the up-and-down nature of the first half could continue and put Baltimore in a spot it doesn¡¯t want to be in by the time the summer months arrive.
¡°I see a bunch of guys coming in with a positive attitude,¡± veteran center fielder Cedric Mullins said. ¡°That¡¯s all I really want to see day in and day out to give us the best chance out there.¡±