Jon Meoli: The Orioles need someone to play the hero in the second half

This is asking for trouble, because so often on a baseball field, right or wrong, the better outcomes seem to stem from not being a hero and not trying to do too much.

We’ve seen the Orioles lose countless games this year because of this. There is a moment in the field when the stakes of the game get too big and they get away from doing the basic things well, or there’s the plate appearances when one swing could turn a late-game deficit into a lead and you can tell the hitter is thinking the same thing.

But I’m not talking about a spectacular moment. I’m talking about a spectacular second half.

One of the many hitters the Orioles have on their roster capable of it needs to have one. Even though there are plenty of everyday players having good seasons — more than you’d think based on the inconsistency of the unit as a whole — that’s what it’s going to take for an offense that was touted as one of the game’s best last winter to live up to it.

As a group, this is a middle-of-the-pack offense. The Orioles entered Thursday 12th in runs per game (4.57) and 16th in OPS (.716). That is below expectations for a team that added Pete Alonso and Taylor Ward to a group that expected to have bounce-back years from Adley Rutschman, Gunnar Henderson and Colton Cowser, plus a full year of rookie Samuel Basallo.

No one would push back on that. And, similarly, no one can explain why they haven’t put it all together. In pursuit of an answer, a data point that only clouds the picture more emerged.

Measured by weighted runs created plus, which quantifies a player’s offensive output based on the value of each positive offensive outcome then adjusts it to league and park factors, the Orioles have five players with at least 200 plate appearances who are at least 10% above average: Alonso, Ward, Blaze Alexander, Rutschman and Basallo.

Only two teams have more, with six apiece: the Pirates and the Giants.

The Orioles also have eight players who, through Wednesday, were above 90 wRC+ (100 is league average) in 200 plate appearances. It’s no great shakes to be 10% below league average, but only the Dodgers, Twins and Pirates boast that many, and only the Giants have more.

It’s not as if this is a team full of scrubs. What’s missing from a lineup in which five everyday players are meaningfully above average is greatness. Alonso, the team’s leader at 126 wRC+ entering Thursday, sits behind 44 players with at least 200 plate appearances in that category.

Now that the rotation is stabilized and has been for some time, the Orioles’ offense has to start carrying its end of the bargain. It’s going to take someone — probably more than one someone — to elevate this hitting group. MLB offenses can be more than the sum of their parts, but sometimes it’s just as helpful to add bigger numbers into the mix.

Working backward to various points in the season gives an idea of who that could be. Alexander has a 160 wRC+ since May 1, and it’s beyond time he gets out of the bottom third of the order to give the Orioles spark and contact ability in a more meaningful spot. Alonso, in eschewing All-Star consideration, noted his slow April but is at 143 wRC+ since the start of May.

Since the start of June, Tyler O’Neill is at 148 wRC+ — trailing only Alexander and Alonso — but then Ward and Rutschman are the only other Orioles over 100. Cut it down to the last two weeks, and Coby Mayo (148 wRC+, owed mostly to his dominance of lefties) and Jackson Holliday (127 wRC+) join the list. Seven Orioles have calendar months above 126 wRC+, and six were over that mark in the first eight games in July.

As with everything about this team, the abundance of candidates to be this productive is just as promising as the frustration that to this point no one really has been. Hitting is hard. It only gets harder as the stakes get higher, and they’re only going to climb for the Orioles.

It’s time for someone to rise in step with them and pull the rest of the offense up with him. The trend lines would point to Alonso and Alexander having been that kind of producer. There have been spells when Rutschman and Basallo have been.

There have also been troublingly few mentions of Henderson in this accounting of Orioles who either have had these productive stretches or are trending this way. He’s supposed to be this kind of player, and you can’t tell the offensive story of this team without noting he hasn’t been.

It seems pretty clear that part of the issue is how bad he wants to be that guy for this team. A task that’s as hard as any in sports — hitting a baseball — is only made more so by the pressure to do it.

Henderson still has the potential to do it in the second half. Many of his teammates do, too. It doesn’t matter who does at this point, but someone has to.