The Orioles’ leadoff crisis: Outs and lost momentum

ARLINGTON, Texas — Before Sunday’s much-needed breakout, which featured 10 runs and four homers to salvage a game against the Rangers, the Orioles dealt with an issue that keeps cropping up.

Bases empty, one out.

That is, the Orioles have struggled mightily to lead off innings. The responsibility goes beyond the leadoff hitter — after all, the batter topping the lineup that night is guaranteed to lead off only once, in the first inning. Instead, these leadoff woes have percolated through the order and leave Baltimore in less-than-ideal situations.

“It just feels like, every time we get a guy into scoring position, it’s just with two outs,” manager Craig Albernaz said Saturday night after a third straight loss in which Baltimore scored one run.

Entering Sunday, the Orioles ranked near the bottom of the majors in most no-out situations. They were tied for 28th in slugging percentage with no outs (.363), tied for 26th in on-base-plus-slugging percentage (.676) and, since July 1, Baltimore’s 69 hits with no outs in the inning were the fewest in baseball.

Sunday’s 10-5 victory was a departure from this trend. Colton Cowser homered to begin the second inning. Carlos Narváez walked to start the fourth. Pete Alonso walked to open the sixth. Coby Mayo singled at the onset of the seventh. Alonso and Dylan Beavers walked at the beginning of the eighth and ninth innings, respectively.

That is rare for the Orioles, and it allowed Baltimore to pile pressure on Texas’ pitchers.

“Something we talked about throughout the year, where we run the bases aggressively, being able to go first to third, take the extra 90 feet, it just takes the pressure off the guy in the box and he doesn’t have to slug to get the guy in,” Albernaz said.

Prior to Sunday, the last time a leadoff batter reached base for the Orioles was when Leody Taveras singled to open the ninth inning Friday. Beyond that, 17 of the 18 leadoff hitters were outs on Friday and Saturday. On Thursday, in another loss that featured one run from the offense, the Orioles twice walked to begin an inning but mustered little from there.

The Orioles had been particularly poor in the small sample that is August. In the first seven games, the offense combined to score 11 runs, which was its lowest tally in a seven-game span since 2018.

“We’ve got to keep pushing,” Jackson Holliday said before Sunday’s game. “It doesn’t get any easier. We’re facing big league guys every night. They’re here for a reason, and I don’t know, I don’t have a direct answer, I guess, but when you face guys like [Nathan] Eovaldi, [Jacob] deGrom and [Zack] Wheeler, it’s tough. They’re good.”

A contributing factor is what’s happening to begin innings.

In those seven games, Baltimore managed three hits — all singles — out of 66 plate appearances with no outs (the Cincinnati Reds were the next lowest with nine hits). The Orioles also struck out 31.8% of the time with no outs, which was tied for the second-worst rate in August.

This is, perhaps, a result of who’s missing from the lineup. With no outs this season, the Orioles’ two best-performing players were Blaze Alexander and Taylor Ward.

Alexander is recovering from a broken hand. Prior to that July injury, he reached base at a .398 clip with no outs and he was hitting .342 in those situations. Ward, whom the Orioles traded to the Seattle Mariners, had a comparatively low average (.262), but his walks led to a .392 on-base percentage with no outs.

By contrast, shortstop Gunnar Henderson — who hit leadoff all three games in Texas — entered Sunday with a .200 average with no outs and a .271 on-base percentage. Beavers, another leadoff option of late, has a .161 average — the lowest on the Orioles among players with at least 20 no-out plate appearances.

When asked about the importance of getting runners on base earlier in innings to allow for baserunning aggressiveness, Henderson said, “that’s probably a lot on me, being able to get on so we can actually run and it not be two outs.”

“I’ve got to do a better job of that, I know, to give us as many opportunities as we can to be in scoring position and actually put up some runs,” Henderson said Saturday.

Henderson didn’t break out Sunday, but many of his teammates did. What was critical in that success was getting the leadoff man on base. Hitting is one of the most challenging things in any sport, and reaching base to start an inning is easier said than done.

Still, the Orioles haven’t done it enough this year.