Orioles reset: The ALDS soured Baltimore’s historic sweepless streak. Here’s why it still matters. | ANALYSIS
When the Orioles were swept out of the playoffs last year, the fact that it ran counter to the defining feature of that team wasn’t lost on its players.
“It’s an ironic situation,” center fielder Cedric Mullins said. “We avoid sweeps the entire year, come in the postseason [and] … baseball does what it does.”
Those 101-win Orioles tore through the American League without being swept all season — a streak that dates to May 2022 — only to be defeated in three straight games by the pesky and powerful Texas Rangers in the AL Division Series.
To some fans, the remarkable sweepless streak died there. That was the Orioles’ most important series since 2014, and they fell flat.
Baseball records, though, are based on the regular season, not the postseason. Babe Ruth has 714 career home runs, not 729 counting his playoff long balls. However, the AL-record streak will always have a massive caveat, an asterisk in the boldest of lettering, because of that ALDS sweep to the eventual World Series champion Rangers.
And it should.
Of course the streak means a little less because of the ALDS. But that playoff failure doesn’t change how absurdly impressive it is for a team in the modern era with a bottom-five payroll in baseball’s best division to go more than two calendar years without being swept in the regular season.
The streak — now 106 regular-season series — does not make this team indomitable. That was never the case, and the ALDS proved that. In that way, the streak is unimportant.
However, what it says about the 2022-24 Baltimore Orioles is anything but.
The streak obviously isn’t top of mind for Orioles players or manager Brandon Hyde. When they drove to Camden Yards on Wednesday with it on the line against the Toronto Blue Jays, their main focus was on winning the game to avoid dropping three straight — something they’ve yet to do this season — more than keeping the streak alive.
The way they won that game, though, is perhaps evidence that the streak matters. The Orioles had no business beating the Blue Jays that day. They squandered every opportunity they had with a lack of situational hitting and perplexing decisions such as a failed safety squeeze bunt.
But, somehow, they won, as Adley Rutschman pulled a rabbit out of his hat for a two-run, walk-off homer. Across the 106 series, the Orioles have been one loss away from it ending 14 times. They have, obviously, won all 14 games with a run differential of plus-43.
This level of consistency hasn’t been seen in the major leagues since World War II. The only teams in history to go unswept in more series than these Orioles are the 1906-09 Chicago Cubs (115) and the 1942-44 St. Louis Cardinals (124).
To fully understand the spectacular nature of this streak, look at the team the Orioles recently passed on MLB’s all-time list: the 1903-05 New York Giants, who went 105 series without being swept.
The trajectory of those Giants and these Orioles is eerily similar.
After years as one of the National League’s worst teams, the 1903 Giants won 84 games — 36 more than the season before. They took the next step the following year, winning an NL-best 106 games. New York kept the streak alive — easier back then because most series were four or five games compared with the standard three today — for most of the 1905 season en route to winning a World Series title.
In 2022, the Orioles won 83 games — 31 more than the year before. Rather than regress the next year, Baltimore won an AL-best 101 games. When the Orioles bucked statistician and historian Bill James’ “plexiglass principle” — which states that teams that see a large improvement one season tend to regress the following campaign — they became the first club in MLB history since those Giants to improve by 25 or more wins one year and by at least 18 the next.
That’s where the similarities end, though, because of the way those two clubs were built.
The Orioles spent years rebuilding, stocking up on prospects and selecting high in the MLB draft. Rutschman was general manager Mike Elias’ first draft pick in 2019, and since he arrived May 21, 2022, he’s never been swept. Neither has Gunnar Henderson, Elias’ second draft pick. Or Kyle Stowers, his third. Or Jordan Westburg, a first-round pick in 2020. Or Colton Cowser, the No. 5 overall pick in 2021.
The Giants, on the other hand, were a juggernaut in large part because of roster chicanery foreign to today’s game, only explainable within a dead-ball era context.
Before he became the Giants’ skipper, baseball legend and Hall of Famer John McGraw was player-manager for the — wait for it — Baltimore Orioles in 1901 and 1902. He started his professional playing career in 1891 for the American Association Orioles before the club joined the NL. Those Orioles were contracted out of the NL in 1899 and a new Orioles team became a charter member of the upstart American League in 1901. (The Orioles lasted just two seasons before moving to New York to become the Highlanders or, as they’re now known, the Yankees.)
McGraw managed the Orioles for a season and a half before he orchestrated his own ouster so he could manage the Giants. He brought along six Orioles, including several stars, to the Giants.
Two of them — Roger Bresnahan and Joe McGinnity — are Hall of Famers. Bresnahan, an outfielder, hit .350 with a .936 OPS for the Giants in 1903. McGinnity, a starting pitcher, was so good — 66 wins from 1903-04 and a 1.61 ERA in 1904 — that he was the Giants’ ace ahead of a young Christy Mathewson. Two others — first baseman Dan McGann and second baseman Billy Gilbert — were regular starters for McGraw’s Giants.
The combined career wins above replacement between the seven men who jumped from the Orioles to the Giants in 1902 and subsequently went on a then-record sweepless streak is 194.7, according to Baseball-Reference. That is more than the combined career WAR of Hall of Famers Todd Helton, Mike Piazza and Jim Thome.
So, the last time an MLB team did what these Orioles have done — drastically improve in back-to-back seasons without being swept in more than 100 series — it was because a Hall of Fame manager took four of his best players, including two all-time greats, to form a super team.
The streak might bring painful reminders of the ALDS. That doesn’t change the reality that it’s unprecedented and still defines who these Orioles are.
“I think it’s a cool testament to our team,” Rutschman said after his walk-off homer.
That’s an understatement.
What’s to come?
The last breather before a gantlet.
The Orioles (29-15) spend all week on the road, playing three against the St. Louis Cardinals (20-26) and four against the Chicago White Sox (14-33). The White Sox are MLB’s worst team, while the Cardinals are closer to the NL’s basement than first place in the Central.
To keep up with the scorching-hot Yankees (33-15), the Orioles must take care of business this week before the schedule gets more difficult. From May 27 through June 30, the Orioles play 33 games in 35 days against nine teams with a combined winning percentage of .562. That stretch includes series against the AL-best Yankees, the NL-best Philadelphia Phillies, the juggernaut Atlanta Braves and the defending-champion Rangers.
What was good?
What Cowser did this weekend was perhaps more encouraging about his long-term outlook than winning the AL Rookie of the Month Award last month.
The rookie outfielder slumped to begin May, going 4-for-32 with 11 strikeouts. But he proved this weekend that his hot start wasn’t a flash in the pan and that he’s an integral part of this team. Cowser reached base multiple times in each of his past four games with six hits in 10 at-bats and five walks. With an .892 OPS, a walk rate that ranks in the top 10% in baseball and above-average outfield defense, the 24-year-old might be blooming into a star.
What wasn’t?
As Cowser, Austin Hays and perhaps Mullins begin to emerge from their slumps, Ryan Mountcastle has started to fall into one of his own.
In his past 16 games, Mountcastle is hitting .176 with 18 strikeouts and zero walks. That compares with 21 strikeouts versus 10 walks over his first 24 games in which he hit .319 with a .906 OPS. The first baseman still has a respectable .751 OPS on the season.
On the farm
There might not be space in Baltimore’s starting lineup for him right now, but Heston Kjerstad is too good for Triple-A.
In his first week back in the minors, Kjerstad homered on both the first and last pitch he saw. He hit an opposite-field solo shot Tuesday and a walk-off grand slam in the 12th inning Sunday. Kjerstad, who Baseball America ranks as the No. 33 prospect in the sport, is slashing .318/.395/.701 — good for an eye-popping 1.096 OPS — with 12 homers and 39 RBIs for Norfolk this season.