Jon Meoli: The 4 factors that will decide the Orioles’ second-half fate

It’s easy to look at the two-plus weeks before the Aug. 3 trade deadline and focus on the path Orioles president of baseball operations Mike Elias is going to take in terms of adding or subtracting to the team.

I’m as guilty of that as anyone.

The most likely outcome is that, no matter what happens before the deadline, this season will be influenced a lot more by what happens on the field in the two-plus months remaining. The clustered American League playoff race almost ensures the Orioles are going to play meaningful baseball into September, and it’s up to them to take advantage of that.

Here are the four factors that will decide whether that happens.

What will the impact of Blaze Alexander’s injury be?

Alexander’s fractured hand, suffered late in Sunday’s sweep-clinching win over the Royals, is a meaningful loss for the Orioles at a time when they can’t afford any. His defensive versatility is always the first thing manager Craig Albernaz points out when discussing the 27-year-old’s value to the team, but we’re also talking about a player with an .807 OPS who since May 1 is batting a league-best .365 with a .942 OPS.

Missing him for the next few weeks will test the team on both fronts. He was acquired in February because the Orioles stress-tested the roster and realized in the case of injuries on the infield — which ultimately occurred with Jordan Westburg and Jackson Holliday — their lack of depth would be exposed.

Coby Mayo, whose 1.092 OPS against lefties means he’ll be at third on those days, will be part of the solution. Jeremiah Jackson will likely see more time, though neither he nor Holliday has played much third this year.

Christian Encarnacion-Strand was added to the roster from Triple-A Norfolk, but there’s no like-for-like replacement for Alexander’s role on the team as the primary third baseman — and that’s before we even get to how good he’s been at the plate.

Who’s going to carry the offense?

The Orioles’ last stretch before the All-Star break was their best offensive week of the season, with a collective .845 OPS thanks to their 13 home runs. Almost all of their regulars had big weeks, and it felt as though they finally were developing into the offensive team they’re meant to be.

The question is who’s going to sustain that and, essentially, do what Alexander did over the last two-plus months? There’s some bullish sentiment around Gunnar Henderson, who spent the last week before the break pulling himself out of a slump, while Pete Alonso’s .941 OPS over the last month is the best of anyone on the team. Taylor Ward seems to be driving the ball more frequently.

There are options. We know the Orioles’ offense is at its best when everyone is chipping in and they’re giving themselves a lot of run-scoring opportunities. But the best offenses typically feature the best players, and someone needs to take that mantle down the stretch.

Is this the rotation’s level going forward?

Over the last two months, the Orioles’ rotation as presently constituted — Kyle Bradish, Trevor Rogers, Shane Baz, Dean Kremer and Brandon Young — has a 3.42 ERA and a 1.24 WHIP, with a 3.91 fielding-independent pitching, which calculates ERA based on factors a pitcher can control.

Few rotations can claim to be better in that span, and even mixing in the starts from those not active at the moment (Chris Bassitt and Trey Gibson), the rotation ERA over the last two months is 3.90.

The Orioles’ rotation was the first segment of the roster to reach the levels it was meant to this season. Although it’s certainly everyone’s prerogative to relitigate the offseason conversations about the lack of a proven ace, everyone is more or less pitching to expectations.

The ability to sustain that will probably be the most significant influence on the remainder of the season. Questions around Bradish and Rogers’ workload will probably persist, while Young at 84 1/3 innings already coming off seasons in which he threw 90 and 111 should probably be in that group as well.

If this season doesn’t end up where it’s supposed to, the rotation will probably get blamed because that’s how things go around here. If the Orioles surge, it will be mostly thanks to those pitchers.

Will they stop getting punched in the face?

Albernaz has been quick to point out that this is a resilient Orioles team, a point that’s well taken but also would be less of a big deal if it stopped taking those proverbial punches in the first place. He’s started noting that as well, and more so than any kind of qualitative aspects of the team, it feels as if that’s a requirement for the second half.

Even when they won before the break, there were late-game errors and the mental mistakes that have turned wins into losses throughout the first half. They just got away with them.

Above all else, the Orioles need to stop finding rakes to step on and start winning the games they’re supposed to. Their record would be a lot different without some of the games they’ve fumbled. They’ve already used whatever margin for error existed.

Any more presentable gut-punch losses may spell the end for them — even more so if they occur before the trade deadline. So, even if they have it in them to bounce back, they can’t afford to be in that position ever again.