The questions surrounding the Orioles rotation only deepened Sunday night, and every team in the country will have taken note. On ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball,” Baltimore’s trade deadline needs took center stage.
Left-hander Cole Irvin allowed five runs in 3 2/3 innings in the Orioles’ 11-2 loss to the Texas Rangers as he continued a difficult June.
Irvin held a 2.87 ERA at the beginning of the month, fresh off eight straight starts with two earned runs or fewer against him. But, as the Orioles’ rotation situation deteriorated in June — they lost Kyle Bradish, Tyler Wells and John Means to season-ending elbow surgeries this month — Irvin has fallen back to earth.
Including Sunday’s struggles, Irvin has posted an 8.50 ERA through his four most recent starts. In those 18 innings, he has allowed 22 runs and his season ERA has ballooned to 4.13 — which is near his career average. Compared to his most recent outings, however, Irvin said this felt like a step forward.
“I know the stat line doesn’t show it, but the adjustment I needed to make was to get more out of the zone, and I felt like I did that,” Irvin said. “It came with consequences. Walked two guys, hit two guys. Not my forte of how I pitch. But there were things to pull from this that showed some quality pitching.”
Baltimore is in the market for pitching, and Irvin’s fourth unsteady start in a row doesn’t change that. With or without Irvin at his best — and he feels close to returning there — losing three starters of the quality of Bradish, Wells and Means puts the pitching depth in a hole.
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“You look at our own areas for upgrade, it’s not a big secret that that would be on the pitching side of the equation,” Orioles general manager Mike Elias said this week during an interview on the Triple-A Norfolk broadcast. “But it’s driven so much by who’s selling and which players are available and what are they asking for that we gotta learn more about the market, and it just hasn’t taken shape yet. It’s too soon and there are too many teams in the hunt for that third wild card.”
There are options presumably already available from clear sellers, such as left-hander Garrett Crochet and right-hander Erick Fedde from the Chicago White Sox. But it’s evident Elias will be in the market for additions, even if Baltimore expects Irvin to right the ship.
“I’m not comparing myself by any means to this man, but Kobe [Bryant] said, ‘When you’re losing, it’s good,’” Irvin said. “There’s things that we can be doing; there’s changes to be made; there’s adjustments that can continue to happen. So, by no means am I trying to back away from what’s going on. I’m trying to find an adjustment. Trying to make the adjustments to where I was good earlier in the season. It’s there. It’s close. We’re not far off.”
The Rangers broke out after losing the first three games of the series. In those outings, Corbin Burnes, Albert Suárez and Cade Povich showed some of the depth that has carried the rotation this month without three regulars. Those three, aware of an aggressive Rangers lineup, played to soft contact.
And, while Irvin allowed just three balls with an exit velocity of 100 mph or faster, one of them was a homer and another was a double. After Irvin hit his first batter, Derek Hill checked in with a two-run homer. The outing unraveled on Irvin in the fourth, which began with Rangers rookie Wyatt Langford’s triple.
Irvin didn’t make it out of the frame before three runs had crossed, and with five on his line, manager Brandon Hyde turned the game over to a bullpen that didn’t stop Texas’ lineup either. Left-hander Nick Vespi conceded three runs in 1 1/3 innings.
Langford went on to record a cycle, with the final piece coming in the eighth inning against left-hander Matt Krook. Langford slapped a three-run homer to become the 11th Texas batter to hit for the cycle — and the first to do so since 2017.
“On a night we were really short in the bullpen, everyone who was available threw tonight,” Hyde said. “Would’ve been [good] to give us a little bit more, but I think he [Irvin] competed, just for me, didn’t have his best stuff.”
The Orioles, showcased to a national audience as one of the best teams in baseball, are still very much that entertaining team. They maneuvered through a grueling June that included just one day off and finished the month with a 17-12 record.
They have stars such as Gunnar Henderson, who announced while mic’d up on the field that he would compete in this year’s Home Run Derby. He wore custom Lego cleats. He then struck out four times as part of a dull offensive showing against left-hander Andrew Heaney.
It was that kind of night. And, at the end of it, a national audience will understand why Baltimore is looking for more pitching.
