Until the end of the season, which they experienced Tuesday night in Game 3 of the ALDS at Texas, getting swept was foreign to these Orioles. Aided by an impressive young core, the Orioles went undefeated throughout the 2023 regular season. In fact, they have not been defeated in a regular season series of at least two games since the Tigers defeated them in a three-game set way back on May 13-15, 2022.
That’s a stretch of 91 consecutive regular season series without a loss. That’s impressive, even by the standards of a 101-win team like the 2023 O’s model.
Some may note that the win in Detroit came before the major league debut of franchise catcher Adleyrutschman, who in many ways is the face of the Orioles’ rebuild and their recent successes. Forrutschman it is now 90 consecutive regular season series without a win. That’s what defines him the second-longest sweepless streak to start a career in MLB history.
All Orioles no-sweep streak observations now come with one key qualifier that you may have noticed in the wording above: regular season. Baltimore’s 2023 season is over before the team had a single playoff win. The ALDS win by the Rangers was surprising enough considering the Orioles are considered the top seed in the AL. It’s even more surprising when you consider how long it’s been since they were swept.
So what is to blame for the breakthrough that finally occurred when the stakes were highest? That’s largely due to what, well, almost everyone thought was the Orioles’ fatal flaw: rotation.
After a 2022 season in which a buyer’s deadline likely would have given Baltimore a playoff spot, the O’s haven’t done much to address the apparent lack of rotation. They signed Kyle Gibson and called it a winter. Just before the trade deadline and still facing rotation deficiencies, they took the half-step and traded for Jack Flaherty. Both Gibson and Flaherty were in the bullpen for this recently concluded postseason series.
As for the starters who actually started – Kyle Bradish, Grayson Rodriguez and Dean Kremer – they combined for a ghastly 14.63 ERA in this ALDS. The Rangers have a strong offense, and they have clearly reminded Baltimore’s starters of those skills. Whether it’s owner John Angelos’ unwillingness to spend anywhere near a level befitting a World Series contender (they’re 25th on player payroll), or GM Mike Elias’ openness, or a combination of both, it is the decision makers who are responsible for this embarrassing exit because they are the ones who knowingly neglected the rotation that was their undoing against Texas.
The counterexample to them was directly opposite the diamond. The Rangers signed Jacob deGrom and Game 3 winner Nathan Eovaldi. When they got hurt, Texas was playing for Jordan Montgomery and Max Scherzer. That requires buy-in from the owners and front office, and that’s what Baltimore is missing.
There’s no guarantee that different behavior over the winter and at the deadline would have changed this outcome, but that’s the danger of taking bold action in a sport like baseball that has so much randomness built into it. Sometimes things don’t go the way you want them to. However, that’s at least more comforting than going into the game at half strength and getting decimated and, er, swept.
Angelos and Elias owed more than that to their fans and young players likerutschman and Rodriguez and Gunnar Henderson and soon Jackson Holliday. Maybe it’s a lesson they can reflect on and learn over the rest of October. The future of the club remains very bright, but the owner and key decision maker must do their part to maximize the chances of winning a championship in the coming years. This time they didn’t do that.