After finishing the 2024 Major League Baseball (MLB) regular season with the 7 th most
wins in the league and third most in the American League (AL) with 91 wins, the Baltimore
Orioles were swept by the Kansas City Royals in the Wild Card Round of the 2024 postseason.
The sweep was the Orioles’ second consecutive one after they were swept by the eventual
World Series winners Texas Rangers in last postseason’s American League Division Series
(ALDS). According to 2WMAR Baltimore, the loss was the team’s 10 th consecutive loss and
fourth consecutive sweep in the postseason dating back to Game 1 of the 2014 ALCS against the
Royals.
After averaging the fourth most runs scored per game with 4.85, slightly above the league
average of 4.39, the Orioles were only able to score one in two games against the Royals
courtesy of a Cedric Mullins homerun. The Orioles’ struggles at the plate weren’t solely their
fault as the Royals pitching also played a role in the sweep. In Game 1, starting pitcher Cole
Ragans earned the win after pitching 6 innings finishing with 4 hits and 8 strikeouts. In Game 2,
starting pitcher Seth Lugo pitched 4.1 innings; finishing with 5 hits, 1 earned run, 1 walk and 6
strikeouts. The performances were by no means coincidences as Baseball Reference ranked both
Ragans and Lugo inside the top 10 for WAR for pitchers. WAR is an acronym that stands for
Wins Above Replacements and essentially represents the number of wins a player added to their
team above what a replacement player would. Ragans and Lugo both had a a WAR of 4.9 and 5.3
respectively which means Ragans was a starting caliber pitcher whereas Lugo was an All-Star
caliber pitcher.
The frustrating thing about the sweep is it came after last season’s postseason
disappointment, as the AL East champions were swept by the Rangers in three games in the
ALDS. Stars including the likes of catcher Adley Rutschman and shortstop Gunnar Henderson
failed to show up against the Royals as the former went 1 for 8 at the plate for a .125 average and
.250 on-base plus slugging (OPS) and latter went 0 for 7 and had an .222 OPS. OPS is a baseball
statistic that represents a player’s ability to both get on base and hit for power, two important
offensive skills in MLB. Henderson’s numbers were concerning given the fact he batted .281 and
had 37 homeruns, 92 runners batted in (RBI) and 21 stolen bases to go along with an .893 OPS
in the regular season.
Meanwhile, for the Royals, their sweep of the Orioles was their first playoff series win
since 2015 when they won the World Series against the New York Mets. Star shortstop Bobby
Witt Jr. delivered in his first two career postseason games with a .214 average, 2 RBI and .428
OPS after finishing the regular season with a .332 average, 32 homeruns, 109 RBI, 31 stolen
bases and .977 OPS.
Going back to the Orioles, General Manager Mike Elias and manager Brandon Hyde are
expected to return to the team for the 2025 season. Hyde, who was hired by the Orioles in 2019,
has led the team to three consecutive winning seasons and two postseason appearances after not
finishing above .500 in each of his three seasons with the team. However, the team will have a
lot of decisions to make in the offseason as they have 16 free agents. Of the 16 free agents, the
most notable ones are pitcher Corbin Burnes, right fielder Anthony Santander, Henderson and
shortstop Jackson Holiday. Burnes played 32 games and went 15-9 with a 1.10 walks plus hits
per inning (WHIP) and 2.92 earned run average (ERA). WHIP and ERA are essentially metrics
that indicate how many baserunners a pitcher allows per inning and how many earned runs a
pitcher allows per nine innings. Santander has been with the Orioles since 2017 and finished last
season with 91 runs, 140 hits and 102 RBI. Holliday was the first overall pick in the 2022 MLB
Draft and finished the regular season with 28 runs, 36 hits, 23 RBI, 15 walks (BB) and a .189
batting average.
Only time will tell if the Orioles are able to build upon their regular season success and
have it translate to the postseason. However, it appears as though much of the Front Office
personnel will be retained including the aforementioned Mike Elias and Brandon Hyde.
