Orioles Review (4/14/26): It's all going to be OK

Note: This review is hitting your inbox a day late, but it gives me an excuse to look at the Orioles' performance over 16 games (about 10% of the season).

Weekly Review: ⚾️⚾️⚾️⚾️⚾️ (5/5 Gunnars)
Win-Loss Record: 6-1 (9-7 total)
Win-Loss Pace: 91-71
Projected wins*: 83.4
Playoff odds*: 51.5%

*Per FanGraphs

In last week's review I asked whether these Orioles could stop the bleeding and prevent the kind of early hole they dug for themselves last year. Question answered.

The boys fired on nearly every cylinder last week, sweeping the White Sox and taking two of three from the Giants on the road. Gunnar Henderson hit 4 home runs, Taylor Ward was a doubles and on-base machine, and Pete Alonso, Samuel Basallo and Colton Cowser showed some signs of life. Trevor Rogers was good as usual, Kyle Bradish looked a little more like his normal self, Shane Baz had mixed results, Chris Bassitt wasn't awful and Cade Povich and Brandon Young provided very good spot starts. The bullpen excelled, giving up just 5 runs in 21.2 innings. In fact, the bullpen minus Nick Raquet gave up just 2 runs in 20.2 innings.

And while yesterday's game was on track to be a dud thanks to an early 7-1 deficit, the Orioles came back with a vengeance thanks to two home runs (including a grand slam) from Jeremiah Jackson and a cathartic go-ahead homer from Pete Alonso. Pretty good week in Birdland.

Here are three takeaways.

The offense has been solid, with some room for improvement

This was projected to be a good hitting team, with the potential to be a great one if some young players hit their ceilings. They haven't been great, but they have been very good. The Orioles rank 5th in MLB in wRC+, 6th in wOBA, 7th in OBP, and 6th in slugging. That is a strong, well-rounded offense, despite missing key contributors in Jordan Westburg and Jackson Holliday.

Despite all that, they're just 16th in runs scored. It's hard to attribute that to bad luck: Their .317 BABIP ranks 3rd in MLB, they've outperformed their xwOBA by .022 points and they've outscored their expected runs scored by about a third of a run per game, according to the site xR Philosophy.

It's very early and the sample is still very small, but what I'm seeing is a good offensive team that is streaky and prone to poor plate discipline, but is masking those things due to good performance in high-leverage situations of late. Some of those factors will even out over 162 games, but I'd expect this to continue to be a fairly volatile offense that looks mostly good in the aggregate.

Pete Alonso will (probably) be fine

I fear I may have contributed to some early season panic, pointing out that Pete Alonso's bat speed was down significantly to start the season. I didn't realize I was wading into days of discourse taking place across several platforms. I don't want to re-hash everything, but here's a quick recap.

1. Pete's average swing speed was down about 3 MPH through late last week
2. Despite this, he was posting some of the best exit velocities of his career
3. But those EVs were inefficient because he was not pulling the ball in the air, potentially a consequence of a slower bat
4. The company line was that Pete was expanding the zone and getting caught in between, which can cause the bat to slow down
5. This seemed directionally plausible, even if his chase% wasn't any higher than usual, and an approach issue is a lot more re-assuring than a physical issue
6. All of this might be moot, because Pete absolutely walloped the ball over the last two games and did it with a top swing speed of 84 MPH — not far off from his top speeds the last few years — while raising his average bat speed for the season up into the 65th percentile.

Pete Alonso is a veteran slugger with a 7+ year track record of good-to-elite production. He deserves the benefit of the doubt over a tough two-week stretch, even if it comes at the start of a season with a new team. It's also true that his underlying data had some legitimate flags suggesting he earned those bad outcomes, so we shouldn't hand-wave this as pure luck or randomness. And it's also not suddenly true that "bat speed doesn't matter, actually," even if we don't fully understand yet how or how much it matters, or how it interacts with the many other factors at play.

But, thankfully, Alonso seems to be moving in the right direction. And we might find that as Pete goes, the team goes.

The bullpen might be ... good?

I'm as shocked as anyone. I wrote in this very space that the bullpen looked like the team's biggest weakness heading into the year, except for maybe the defense. The defense has indeed been bad, but Orioles relievers are off to a scorching start. On the whole, they're 10th in both ERA and xERA, but that's skewed by a few awful appearances by guys who won't stick around. Here are the ones leading the charge.

Ryan Helsley (6.1 IP): 2.84 ERA, 2.19 FIP, 2.81 xFIP

Anthony Nunez (7.2 IP): 1.17 ERA, 2.62 FIP, 1.78 xFIP

Rico Garcia (7.2 IP): 0.00 ERA, 2.23 FIP, 2.91 xFIP

Yennier Cano (4.1 IP): 2.08 ERA, 0.83 FIP, 1.44 xFIP

Even Grant Wolfram (3.00 ERA, 0.81 FIP, 1.68 xFIP) has been solid, and Tyler Wells hasn't been a total disaster. Andrew Kittredge is on the verge of returning to the club.

We've got 90% of the season left to go, but the pen is in a much better spot right now than I expected.

Comics stuff

If you didn't know, I've been moonlighting as a comic book writer and running a small press publisher and distro of horror and fantasy comics. I'll be tabling this weekend (Saturday and Sunday) at Brooklyn Independent Comics Showcase in Industry City. If anyone reading this is in the New York area, it's a fun, casual, free con with indoor and outdoor space surrounded by restaurants and shops. And you'll see lots of independent creators whose work you wouldn't otherwise come across. Say hi if you come by! I'll be at table 149 in the main Red Room with copies of my book Julie Grimm as well as some of the best underground/small press/self-published genre comics around.

Ask me anything in the comments. I'll reply. See you next week!