The Baltimore Orioles have been one of the best teams in baseball throughout the 2024 season. They just have the unfortunate luck of sharing the American League East with another juggernaut, the New York Yankees.
As a result, despite being 82-63, they are 1.5 games behind first place in their divisional race. A wild card appearance could be on the horizon for the Orioles, which would be far from ideal.
There is still time to catch the Yankees, as the teams have what will be a season-defining series starting in the Bronx in two weeks.
What will it take for Baltimore to overcome the gap in the standings and take home the AL East, or at the very least build positive momentum into the postseason?
In the opinion of Jim Bowden of The Athletic, it will all come down to their star players. In a piece from September 6th, the former MLB executive believes the team’s biggest x-factor is if their stars will catch fire down the stretch.
“For the Orioles to outlast the Yankees and win the division, they’ll need their star players to get hot again. Over the last 30 days, Gunnar Henderson is hitting .238 with a .763 OPS, Adley Rutschman is hitting .238 with a .613 OPS, and Anthony Santander’s production has tailed off slightly (though he still has an .804 OPS and seven homers over this stretch). The Orioles need their star trio to get hot down the stretch and power the offense,” wrote Bowden.
An MVP candidate for a majority of the season, the Orioles’ star shortstop has fallen out of the race with Bobby Witt Jr. of the Kansas City Royals and Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees putting up video game numbers.
Their young catcher has not been producing for a while, which has been a major detriment to the team as Brandon Hyde has kept him near the top of the lineup.
This offense goes as the trio Bowden mentioned does. If they are hot, everyone else can fill in the gaps around them. If they are struggling, it is hard for the entire unit to produce runs.
If Baltimore wants to keep pace with New York and make that series in two weeks mean something, they have to figure out the bats soon. They have lost three in a row and four out of their last five, scoring seven runs in total.
