The Orioles are the worst-pitching team in baseball, and it’s not even close — they’re giving up 5.35 runs a game, half a run more than the next-worst staff in Minnesota. The Orioles have had bad rotations for years and years, but what’s special this year is the incredible consistency. Usually our bad rotation has at least one good pitcher (Erik Bedard, Jeremy Guthrie in a good year, Sidney Ponson in a good year, Rodrigo Lopez in a good year…) Or even when there’s no good pitcher, there’s a bad pitcher like Daniel Cabrera who pitches a gem every third or fourth time out. But not this year. It’s like a pitchpipe of mediocrity. Every starter has an ERA between 4.5 and 5.5. And get this. We just took two games from Twins, 4-1 and 8-1. Before that, the last time the Orioles allowed fewer than 2 runs in a game was June 10, when we shut out the Rays. More than two months without a single game when an Oriole pitcher came out and shut down the opposition. It’s weird, and it explains why this stretch of baseball has been particularly dreary to follow.
Update: Orioles win 6-1 — three straight games allowing 1 run after not doing it since June!
Re-update: Another 6-1 victory — four straight!
You know you get extra karma points for rooting for a crappy team, right?
Technically, Alfredo Simon has an ERA of 4.30 (ERA+ 94; best amongst the starters but still bad). Baseball Reference lists him as a starter, but it looks like this has been a new-ish development.
Either way, the point still stands. It’s a pretty bad pitching staff. Did they spend much on their 2011 draft?