Baltimore Orioles

The Baltimore Orioles are putting together a forgettable 2019 so far, but they will forever be remembered in MLB history as the team with the fastest pitching staff to allow 100 home runs in a single season.

The Baltimore Orioles have allowed their 100th HR of the season in their 48th game; the previous MLB "record" for quickest to allow 100 HR in a season was 57 games by the 2000 Kansas City Royals.

— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) May 22, 2019

Baltimore starter David Hess gave up a three-run dinger to New York Yankees outfielder Clint Frazier on Tuesday night at Oriole Park to mark No. 100. The fifth-inning home run was the third homer allowed by Hess in the game.

The Yankees beat Baltimore 11-4, dropping the Orioles to 15-33 on the season.

The three Yankees home runs brought Hess' total to 17 home runs allowed on the season. Entering the contest, the 25-year-old was tied for the league lead in most home runs allowed, and rotation-mate Dylan Bundy was not too far behind with 11.

The Orioles' current starting rotation—rounded out by Andrew Cashner, Dan Straily and John Means—is responsible for 53 of the 100 homers conceded. Alex Cobb, who's on the injured list with a back strain, has accounted for nine.

Baltimore began the 2019 campaign by allowing at least one home run in 16 consecutive games, according to Forbes' Todd Karpovich.

"I haven't seen this many [homers] in a short amount of time," Orioles manager Brandon Hyde told reporters on April 15. "But yeah, I think we just continue to stay behind our guys. We continue to improve and try to get better. Continue to pitch to a plan and work on our location. Work on being unpredictable."

With all due respect to the first-year skipper, something will have to change quickly, or else the remainder of his squad's season will be painfully predictable.

When Chris Davis stood at first base, grinned and asked for the ball after finally and mercifully busting out of an 0-for-54 slump this month, who couldn't help but smile along with him?

In one form or another, we've all been there. This was you at five, finally swimming after swallowing a few gallons of pool water while struggling to learn. You at 16, getting that dream date following numerous rejections. You at 40, finally successful on a home-repair project after banging your head against a wall for a week trying to figure it out.

Oh, Davis had been banging his head against a wall all right—the mother of all walls. His oh-fer set a record for futility for an everyday player (non-pitcher), surpassing Eugenio Velez's 0-for-46 in 2010-11. No matter what Davis did—start, pinch-hit, take extra batting practice, skip regular batting practice, connect with a fastball squarely, connect softly—he couldn't find a hit. No bloops, bleeders, squibbers, duck snorts, doinkers, Texas leaguers or even Baltimore chops. (You'd think an Oriole, of all people, could grab a Baltimore chop at his convenience, no? Oh, the inhumanity!)

Turns out, a Saturday afternoon single to right field in Fenway Park fueled Davis' flight to freedom.

"It was awesome," says San Diego's Manny Machado, a teammate of Davis' in Baltimore from 2012-18. "It sucks to be in that situation. We all know what it feels like. I was excited for him. I know a low of people were."

That's no exaggeration.

"I was really happy to hear he got a hit," Colorado's Nolan Arenado says. "You don't want to see somebody struggling like that in this game, especially people making fun of him.

"Fans and people who don't understand how hard it is ... the mental part of this is hard. That's what separates the men from the boys."

Arenado knows: In September, as the Rockies were racing the Los Angeles Dodgers down the stretch, Arenado without warning fell into an 0-for-15 hole with six strikeouts. One day he was a National League Most Valuable Player candidate, and then suddenly he couldn't buy a hit with a Visa Gold card and unlimited credit.

"It feels like hits are so far away," Arenado says. "It feels like there are so many outfielders and infielders. It feels like there's not nine players out there; it feels like way more.

"It's just frustrating, because you feel so good before that moment."

---

Baseball, we hear endlessly, is a game of failure: Even the best hitters fail seven of 10 times at the plate. But even more than that, it is a game that reveals a man's vulnerabilities. Opponents find the hole in a swing and exploit it. Hitters feast on a pitcher who can't hit the corners. As this plays out, baseball reminds us of our own vulnerabilities and shows us that the trick is to pick ourselves up and keep pushing, because tomorrow is a new day. As former manager Jim Leyland likes to say, Hey, the other guys drive Cadillacs, too.

"Obviously, your family lives and dies with you; they want you to have success every time," Arenado says. "I think what makes it hard, too, is that everybody starts giving their input about what you need to do, what you need to change. Everyone starts having all the answers when deep down nobody really does except yourself.

"They start coming out of the woodwork, saying how they can fix you or how trash you are. You hear all these different things, and it starts to beat up on people."

When Derek Jeter ended an epic 0-for-32 skid at the start of the 2004 season with a home run against Oakland, he wondered if a bird instead was going to get in the way of the long fly ball and knock it into an outfielder's glove.

Milwaukee manager Craig Counsell remembers suffering through an 0-for-45 run as a utility man for the Brewers in 2011. "The thing that was different for me was I did it over a very long stretch of time," he says. "I wasn't playing every day. I was playing very infrequently, to be honest with you. So it was once or twice a week, pinch-hit at-bats.

"In a lot of ways it went unnoticed—not unnoticed, but it wasn't like the media was complaining to [manager] Ron Roenicke that he was putting me in the lineup too much. Let's put it that way, know what I mean?"

Counsell chuckles, acknowledging that even on the few days on which Roenicke did write his name in the lineup, it couldn't have been easy for the manager.

"Look, it stinks," Counsell says. "You're obviously in a big hole and you're struggling and you've tried a lot of things and nothing's working. It's frustrating. It's embarrassing. ... Your teammates are all pulling for you ridiculously hard; you sense that too. I'm sure he's gone through all that stuff."

What made Davis' drought different was that it sabotaged what was supposed to be a fresh start following one of the worst statistical seasons in MLB history. In 128 games and 522 plate appearances in 2018, he batted .168/.243/.296 with 16 homers and 49 RBI. His minus-3.1 WAR was the seventh-worst mark since 1901, according to FanGraphs.

He couldn't hide either, having signed a seven-year, $161 million deal in January 2016.

"I think sometimes when you're upset about it, you don't realize how good that pitcher is," Arenado says. "You just think it's your fault for being a really bad baseball player.

"You lose sight of what's really going on when that happens."

Davis was booed vociferously during Baltimore's home opener and for a few games thereafter, but by the end of Baltimore's first homestand, something heartening happened: The vitriol turned to empathy. Fans at Camden Yards started to cheer him. The support continued on the road, when the Orioles headed to Fenway Park, even as the drought dragged on. The message seemed to be: It's one thing to buy a ticket, plop down in a box seat and take out your frustrations on some bum who hacks weakly at a curveball, but it's a wholly different thing to repeatedly kick a man when he's down. Even if he is making $161 million (with deferred payments running all the way through 2037).

Through it all, Davis persisted.

"It's hard because you feel the pressure. You feel like everyone in the stadium, your teammates, everyone, is watching you to see if you're finally going to get a hit," Arenado says. "It's a bad feeling."

The applause Davis got when the ball found a patch of grass and the infernal streak finally had concluded is something that will stay with him. Especially the outwardly emotional reaction he saw when he looked across the diamond to the Orioles dugout, where an overjoyed flock of teammates flapped their wings and hollered good things. And when he walked into the clubhouse after the game, everyone greeted him by banging on their lockers and cheering loudly.

Yes, as Counsell, Arenado and many others before Davis have learned, your teammates do root for you ridiculously hard.

"That's probably been the biggest pick-me-up moment in this whole thing, aside from getting the hit," Davis told reporters afterward. "Just having the guys day in and day out pick me up, constantly helping me stay in a positive mindset. I mean, that's what it's all about."

Isn't it? Davis has had a dickens of a time these past two years, but he works hard, keeps at it and moves forward with tremendous dignity. Before the game, he asked a coach if it would be bush-league to get the ball, should he break the streak. "He said: 'Absolutely not. I think it's a veteran, pro move.' It meant a lot to me," Davis told reporters. "... I don't know what I'm going to do with it, but I'm going to do something special."

In the time of his greatest humiliation, he was conscientious enough to think of others. Now, he plans to auction the ball and give the proceeds to the University of Maryland Children's Hospital—one more classy reminder that the same holds true in baseball as in life: How you act when things are not going well reveals far more about a person's character than how you behave when things are great. Because that last part is the easy part. The trick is to keep swinging and maintain your composure when you're in that 0-for-54 hole, when nothing is dropping and the quicksand is sucking you into the earth.

The beauty of it is, in baseball and in life, you've got tomorrow to make it better.

   

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report. Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.

Nearly seven months to the day after his last hit, Chris Davis halted his record-setting streak of futility.

The Baltimore Orioles slugger hit a two-run single in the first inning of Saturday's game against the Boston Red Sox, ending his record streak of 54 at-bats without a hit.

It's over! pic.twitter.com/wcorVDLOTS

— MLB (@MLB) April 13, 2019

Davis' last hit was a double off James Shields on Sept. 14, 2018. He's gone hitless since, shattering the previous record for a position player without a hit (Eugenio Velez, 46).

Still, he told ESPN.com's Eddie Matz fans have been behind him:

"It was a little unexpected, after Opening Day and most of the season last year, but it was awesome. I hear the people every night, cheering for me, encouraging me, the guys and gals that sit down closer to the field, the ones that are more consistent in attendance. I hear the encouraging people trying to pick me up, and I've always been very appreciative of it.

"Unfortunately, I feel like a few people who decide to boo, or say whatever they may say, are ruining it for a lot of people. I've been here long enough, I've played for the Orioles long enough to know what kind of fan base we have, and to know that they support their players through good and bad. And that thought has kept me in a good state of mind throughout this whole thing."

Davis has mostly been at fault during the streak, racking up whiffs while largely making weak contact when he does put the ball in play. 

The Orioles will have to hope this is the beginning of a return to the mean—especially given the fact he's under contract through the 2022 season. 

Baltimore Orioles first baseman Chris Davis has etched himself into MLB history, but this particular record has the 33-year-old surely wishing for an eraser. 

During the Orioles' Monday night game against the Oakland Athletics, MLB Stats declared Davis the owner of the longest hitless drought among position players in MLB history at 0-for-47. The record was broken when Davis lined out to left field in the bottom of the fifth, and he went hitless in two additional at-bats to make the stretch 0-for-49.

Chris Davis is now hitless in each of his last 47 at-bats, dating back to the end of last season.

He has passed Eugenio Vélez (46 from 2010-11) for the longest hitless streak in MLB history by a position player. pic.twitter.com/otaZaL7E6x

— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) April 9, 2019

Davis has only two more at-bats to secure a hit before he breaks the all-time record for most plate appearances by a position player without a hit, per Dan Connolly of The Athletic, as he struck out in the bottom of the seventh to put that stretch at 55. That record currently belongs to former Cleveland Indian Tony Bernazard, who had 57 hitless plate appearances in 1984.

Davis gets called out on strikes. 0-for-48 and counting with a hitless skid of 55 plate appearances. Strikeout No. 14

— Dan Connolly (@danconnolly2016) April 9, 2019

Davis' unfortunate streak dates back to last season. His most recent hit was a double on Sept. 14 in a loss to the Chicago White Sox. 

It seems much longer ago than 2013 that Davis led the league with 53 home runs and 138 RBI, which earned him a Silver Slugger Award.

In 2015, the one-time All-Star smashed 47 home runs to lead MLB again but also paced the league with 208 strikeouts. In hindsight, that may have been an omen. 

Following that season, Baltimore signed him to a seven-year, $161 million contract on Jan. 16, 2016—the largest in Orioles history at the time.

Since then, Davis and the Orioles have experienced a steady decline together. 

Last season saw Baltimore finished with an MLB-worst 47-115 record. While the team was losing, Davis finished with a .168 batting average—not only the worst mark of his career but also the worst among qualified hitters in league history since MLB expanded to 162 games per season (h/t Baltimore WJZ).

On Sept. 24, Sports Illustrated published a profile of an aching Davis by Stephanie Apstein. One particular passage makes it even tougher to swallow the 12-year veteran's struggles: 

"He felt—feels—completely lost. 'Failure just follows me around daily,' he says. He wakes up in the morning and thinks about how bad he is. He gets to the ballpark and thinks about how bad he is. He takes batting practice, slogs through another hitless night and drives home thinking about how bad he is. He plays a game for a living, but it's not fun anymore. More than once this season he has considered his bank balance and considered quitting."

To start 2019, Davis struck out three times on Opening Day. First-year manager Brandon Hyde had no choice but to bench him for the Orioles' March 30 matchup with the New York Yankees.

"I see Chris being part of our lineup," Hyde said. "This was just a day I felt like would be a good day for him to take a breather. I'm trying to get him off to a good start, and I want Chris to feel good."

Days later, Davis is still without a hit and has added 11 more strikeouts. 

Something has to give soon, right?

If not altogether impossible, it's increasingly difficult to imagine Chris Davis' $161 million contract with the Baltimore Orioles having a happy ending.

Davis certainly isn't having a happy beginning to the 2019 season. He's played in eight of the Orioles' first nine games, but has yet to produce even one hit. He's 0-for-23 with 13 strikeouts.

The low point (for now) came last Friday in Baltimore's Oriole Park at Camden Yards home opener against the New York Yankees. The Orioles' 8-4 loss featured an 0-for-3 with three strikeouts from Davis, which naturally brought out the boo birds.

Chris Davis strikes out for the third time today and the boos continue in Baltimore. Really tough scene. #Orioles pic.twitter.com/hDE5l79E0I

— Kyle J. Andrews (@KyleJAndrews_) April 4, 2019

"I wasn't expecting it, but at the same time I heard it a lot last year and rightfully so," Davis said, per MLB.com's Joe Trezza. "I said it before, I'll say it again: I understand the frustration. Nobody is more frustrated than me. Especially on a day like today."

The Orioles signed Davis to his nine-figure deal in January 2016, when he was fresh off leading Major League Baseball in home runs for the second time in three seasons. He went on to hit another 38 in the first year of his new deal, bringing his total since 2013 to an MLB-best 164.

To say it's all been downhill since then would be putting it charitably. More accurately and according to all available evidence, Davis has fallen into a bottomless pit.

He struggled his way to a .732 OPS and 26 home runs in 2017, but such numbers take on a Bondsian quality when compared with his performance in 2018. In 128 games, Davis could muster only a .168 batting average with a .539 OPS and 16 homers.

That average was the worst by a batting title qualifier since 1909. His OPS was easily the worst among all of last season's qualifiers. The same goes for his minus-2.8 wins above replacement, according to Baseball Reference.

It's hard to go any lower than that, yet that's the direction Davis is headed at the outset of 2019. To boot, the true origins of this direction date back to last season. He's 0-for-44 dating back to Sept. 15, which puts him just two fruitless at-bats away from Eugenio Velez's all-time worst hitless streak.

If 2019 was the last season of Davis' deal, the Orioles probably would have already made the difficult decision to cut him loose and chalk up his remaining money as a sunk cost.

In reality, he is only in the fourth year of a seven-year deal. And including the $23 million he's owed this year, he still has $92 million headed his way.

There ought to be some hope that he can turn things around. Though 33 is old by baseball standards, it's not ancient. Plus, a guy who stands at 6'3", 230 pounds ought to have power built to last.

However, the power stroke that fueled Davis' rise to stardom and ultimately made him a wealthy man has diminished into mediocrity.

As recently as 2015, he was one of baseball's best at generating power through a combination of launch angle (17.3 degrees) and exit velocity (91.8 mph) on his batted balls:

But then in 2018, Davis' average launch angle (14.7 degrees) and exit velocity (89.0 mph) reduced him to another face in the crowd:

To give credit where it's due, pitchers have had a hand in cutting Davis' power down to size.

He's traditionally preferred to do his slugging against fastballs in the lower two-thirds of the strike zone. Last season, pitchers adjusted by going to the playbook for Launch Angle Era sluggers and throwing 43.4 percent of all their fastballs against him in the upper third of the zone and beyond.

That was his highest such rate since 2012, and it's gone up even further to 60.3 percent early in 2019. He's been (literally) powerless to the tune of a .126 slugging percentage against these pitches.

Further, age may be doing a number on Davis' bat speed. This wasn't a problem for him as he was hitting so many effortless home runs in his heyday. But if a hitter's bat must be quickest on pulled balls, perhaps it's telling that the lefty slugger's pull rate descended from a peak of 56 percent in 2015 to just 41 percent three years later.

How Davis' swing looks in 2019 is difficult to address objectively, in part because he's put only 10 balls in play. The other part, however, is that he's not swinging much, period. His overall swing rate has plummeted all the way to 33 percent—17 percent lower than his 2013 All-Star season and 13 percent lower than the current league average.

For what it's worth, this is helping to resuscitate Davis' walk rate. And yet, it's shocking to see how seldom he's going after good pitches within the strike zone:

It's noteworthy that Davis isn't the only hitter with an in-zone swing rate in the 50 percent range in the early goings. Several others are right there with him, including a handful of good ones. So, perhaps this is nothing but early-season noise.

Yet the reality that this is the latest stop on a clear downward path raises suspicions. Perhaps Davis isn't seeing the ball as well as he gets older. Perhaps he's steadily losing confidence in his swing. Perhaps it's a combination of both.

In any case, it's yet another data point that points to Davis' slugging days being firmly in the past. He was a power-hitting machine, but not anymore.

The bright side, such as it is, is that Davis isn't weighing down an Orioles team that's otherwise loaded for a playoff run. The Orioles lost a franchise-record 115 games last season. As Neil Paine covered at FiveThirtyEight in March, they've come into 2019 with a historically bad collection of established talent. Davis is merely along for what figures to be a bumpy ride.

But unless Davis snaps out of his funk, the Orioles simply can't keep giving him at-bats for much longer. They'd be better off shifting his playing time to younger players like Rio Ruiz (24) or Renato Nunez (25) or prospects such as Austin Hays (23), Yusniel Diaz (22) or Ryan Mountcastle (22). Beyond that, it's arguably unfair to keep subjecting Davis to the boo birds just because he's being paid a lot of money.

Of course, Baltimore can't get out of paying Davis unless he voluntarily retires. He won't do that. Nor should he. It took a lot of years and hard work for him to get his money. He darn well should take every last cent that he's owed.

Nonetheless, the Orioles will have to move on and take a painful financial hit sooner or later. And at this rate, sooner would be better.

                   

Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.

Former Miami Marlins pitcher Dan Straily has agreed to a one-year deal with the Baltimore Orioles, the team announced Friday.

Baltimore designated infielder Drew Jackson for assignment in a corresponding roster move to open up a 40-man roster spot.

The Marlins released Straily less than a week before Opening Day. 

"We pursued Dan Straily immediately once he became available," Orioles general manager Mike Elias said in a statement. "He is the type of accomplished MLB starter who will stabilize our pitching staff. We are hoping to work him into our rotation soon."

Jon Heyman of MLB Network reported Straily had "a few" MLB offers before choosing the Orioles.

Straily is coming off a season in which he went 5-6 with a 4.12 ERA. However, he was limited to 23 starts after starting the year on the injured list because of a right forearm strain and missing nearly the final month with an oblique injury.

The 30-year-old went 1-0 with a 5.94 ERA and a 1.44 WHIP in five spring starts this year. He allowed 13 runs (11 earned) on 19 hits while striking out 14 in 16.2 innings of Grapefruit League action.

The Oakland Athletics drafted Straily in the 24th round in 2009, but his career gained new life in 2016 when the Cincinnati Reds claimed him prior to the season. The right-hander established career bests in innings pitched (191.1), wins (14) and ERA (3.76). The Reds, looking to add young talent for a rebuild, traded him following the season to the Marlins in a deal that landed 2019 Opening Day starter Luis Castillo.

Oddly enough, this won't be the first time Straily wears an Orioles uniform in his baseball career:

I finally have a good reason to use this picture! pic.twitter.com/xHRPF14P58

— Daniel Straily (@danstraily67) April 5, 2019

Baltimore's rotation ranks 18th in baseball with a 3.34 ERA through seven games.

There is no longer shot to win the 2019 World Series than the Baltimore Orioles, but that isn't stopping some bettors from putting their money on a team coming off a 115-loss season. 

According to ESPN.com's David Purdum, the O's have odds as long as 2000-1 to win the World Series at some sportsbooks, yet they are attracting wagers due to the huge potential payoff if they manage to shock the world.

The Orioles have received more bets to win the World Series than 10 other teams at William Hill sportsbooks in Nevada, New Jersey and West Virginia, and there was even a $500 wager placed on Baltimore at 1000-1 odds.

Purdum noted that The Westgate SuperBook in Las Vegas has taken 32 bets on the Orioles to win the World Series, as well as a $25 bet on the O's to win the most games in 2019, which carries 2000-1 odds.

SuperBook oddsmaker Randy Blum said, "People will always bet the super long shots."

The 2018 Orioles were among the worst teams in Major League Baseball history, as they posted the fourth-most losses in a season since 1900.

That was even with Manny Machado on the team for 96 games before being traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers, and closer Zack Britton making 16 appearances before being dealt to the New York Yankees.

Entering 2019, the Orioles have major question marks across the board in their lineup, starting rotation and bullpen.

First baseman Chris Davis figures to be a significant part of the batting order after hitting just .168 over 470 at-bats last season. Dylan Bundy is the staff ace but posted a 5.45 ERA in 2018. Closer Mychal Givens has just nine career saves.

Also, starting pitcher Alex Cobb, designated hitter Mark Trumbo and outfielder Austin Hays are all in line to begin the 2019 season on the injured list.

Betting on the Orioles to win their first World Series since 1983 appears to be nothing more than a shot in the dark, but the brave souls who took a chance on Baltimore will get their first chance to see the O's during the regular season when they face the World Series favorite New York Yankees in a road game Thursday on Opening Day.