Coming into Wednesday night, the Orioles were 4-8 and sitting in fourth in the AL East. Things had not quite started as the Orioles may have wanted but it is nowhere near the end of the world or a call to sell everything with value. Last night’s 5-3 win over the Jays is evidence enough of that.
Some Orioles’ players have made positive impacts so far this year and I feel we should look at them in the hopes that the rest of the ball club follows suit eventually.
Dylan Bundy is 2nd in WAR for pitchers behind Max Scherzer.
i know it’s April, let me have this.
— Connor Guercio (@connor_guercio) April 10, 2018
The answer to who has been the most impressive so far for the Orioles is easy: Dylan Bundy. So far he is everything as advertised and then some. Bundy has a 1.35 ERA, 1.90 FIP, 0.950 WHIP, and has 25 K’s in 20 innings pitched. I am sure everybody in Baltimore is praying this is what we will get for the rest of the season from Bundy because he will be a major factor in the Orioles making a run for the postseason.
Currently second on the team in on base percentage (.350), Mancini’s power is slow to get started but he is hitting the ball to all fields and sooner or later those balls are going to find holes in the outfield. I also think Mancini may have found his niche in the leadoff spot simply by having the exact opposite approach as Chris Davis who led off the first handful of games this season. With the weather hopefully warming soon, Mancini’s wall scrapers will eventually be going over the wall for dingers. I hope this is the case for the rest of the team as well.
Duh. Machado’s statline early on is one of the best in baseball as he is currently ranked 9th in WAR by FanGraphs. With a .313/.421/.542 slash line coming into play on Wednesday, Machado is well on his way to having possibly an MVP caliber season. While he is having a slow start to the season defensively, I think he will come around in his ability to play short everyday at the Major League level.
Whether he has two days of rest or nine years of it, Bleier seems to be the long man guy for the Orioles this season. In 8.2 IP so far, Bleier has a 1.04 ERA, 3.58 FIP, and has only allowed seven hits while facing 35 batters. In a bullpen with many familiar names, Bleier started to make a name for himself last season and early on has been one of the go-to guys in several key situations.
As we all have to remember, the hitters do not even had 100 plate appearances yet and we are only roughly seven percent done with the season. There is plenty of time to right the ship in many regards. Alex Cobb, Mark Trumbo, and Zach Britton still aren’t on the team yet, guys like Jonathan Schoop, Adam Jones, and Chris Davis aren’t this bad, and the rotation has shown flashes of being somewhat okay.
I have made it a personal rule to not panic in April about losses or slumps, especially in the first two to three weeks. Things will be okay. Hopefully.
—
Every weekday morning at 8 AM, we publish our “Daily Feature” — it’s our favorite piece of the day, the one we don’t want you to miss. You can read our “Daily Feature” here on BSR or have it emailed to you by adding your address to the sign up box in the sidebar (or below if you’re browsing BSR on a mobile device).
