ANAHEIM, Calif. — If there was a simple fix, the Orioles would’ve made it already.
No lineup in baseball has been worse with runners in scoring position this season than Baltimore, which entered play Friday sporting a .564 OPS in such situations compared with .713 with the bases empty. The problem has been most prevalent among their young, homegrown hitters. Gunnar Henderson (.488 OPS), Ryan Mountcastle (.485), Jackson Holliday (.481), Heston Kjerstad (.464) and Adley Rutschman (.423) have all contributed toward pulling that number down.
“Definitely haven’t been the best and that’s part of baseball,” Kjerstad said after the team went 2-for-13 with RISP in their 5-2 loss to the Minnesota Twins. “But also, I think there’s maybe an approach change for some of us. I think there’s a lot of us trying too hard. I would speak for myself mostly, sometimes with runners in scoring position I tend to try to do too much when you just need to dial it back and just put a ball in play and something will happen.”
The Orioles’ coaching staff has addressed their inability to come through in clutch situations in hitters meetings both on an organizational philosophy level and case-by-case with individual players. Manager Brandon Hyde acknowledged that “inexperience, pressing” among the younger players are factors, but the overall message applies to every position player struggling: Slow down. Relax.
“Guys have asked me, I try to keep things simple,” said veteran Cedric Mullins, whose .953 OPS with RISP leads the team among players with at least 20 such plate appearances. “What’s the difference between you hitting a single with no one on versus getting a single with a guy on second base? The thought should be similar to each other in that regard. So, it’s a matter of guys calming down and going, ‘It can be that simple.’ You’re not going to come through every single time. That’s just the nature of the game. But don’t try to force it either.”
It’s a mentality change that has proven difficult for some of the Orioles’ young stars to adopt. As the frustration of the Orioles’ 14-23 start has mounted, some of them have only pressed harder to try and win games with one swing. Henderson has struck out 31.6% of the time with RISP, way up from his career average of 24.1%.
It’s a big reason he entered Friday with only six RBIs after tallying 92 in his breakthrough 2024 campaign, but he homered in the first inning and hit an RBI triple in the ninth of Friday night’s 4-1 win over the Los Angeles Angels to get back on track. He was one of the few clutch hitters as Baltimore again finished 2-for-13 with RISP and left nine runners on base.
“I just feel like the big thing is you just can’t go out there and try to force it to happen,” Henderson said. “Just got to go out there and try to string it together each and every night and go out there and try to progress in the right way and not, like I said, force it to happen. Because if you try to force it, then obviously, it doesn’t really turn out too well. I feel like that’s the biggest thing is just go out there and continue to try to string together good at-bats.”
The good news for the Orioles is they got Tyler O’Neill back Friday after he missed about two weeks with a neck injury. In addition to being historically effective against left-handed pitchers — another significant area of concern in Baltimore — O’Neill has a .978 OPS in 18 plate appearances with RISP this season. Batting in the middle of their lineup, the veteran outfielder will have ample chances to pick up where he left off.
However, given how invested the Orioles are in their core of homegrown hitters, they will ultimately only go as far as their young stars take them.
“For guys that aren’t having success, I think it’s up to those guys to go out of their way to figure out how to make those adjustments,” Mullins said. “I can try to forcefeed some of these guys some information but if it’s not really sticking there’s not much I can do outside of that.”
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