A few years ago, The Athletic ran a story asking whether the ’23 Orioles were lucky or good. The piece was an annoying attempt to gainsay the team’s 101-win season based on BABIP and expected ERA, things like that. Well, we certainly showed them. The ’23 Orioles got bounced from the playoffs immediately, and since then, this team hasn’t been lucky at all. In 2025, Baltimore had one of the worst starts in the game, finishing May with 11 players on the injured list and a 21-34 record that wrecked the whole season.
This year, the Orioles have a similarly long list of casualties, albeit a record that’s average as opposed to bad (14-15, seventh in the AL). They rank 16th in MLB in pitching WAR, fourteenth in hitting. They’re also middle-of-the-pack in striking out or walking people, and producing an average number of home runs and runs.
Is 2026 a similar story of the injury bug? There are eleven players on the IL, many important. One is starter Zach Eflin, finally free of a back injury, who exited his season debut on March 31 with right elbow discomfort and, after imaging and a second opinion, underwent Tommy John surgery, not to return until sometime in 2027. Trevor Rogers has a weird flu and was ineffective before that. Jordan Westburg, meanwhile, is on the 60-day IL with a partial right UCL tear and is not eligible to return before May 24. Jackson Holliday is working through a lengthy recovery from a broken hamate bone. Ryan Mountcastle has a fractured foot. The bullpen hasn’t been spared either: Keegan Akin (strained left groin) and Andrew Kittredge (right shoulder inflammation) both missed time, and closer Félix Bautista, who missed most of last year with shoulder surgery, remains on the 60-day IL and is not expected back until September at the earliest.
Is the Orioles continued lingering around the .500 mark attributable to this slew of injuries? I thought I’d look into the question, just for fun.
Here are some salient team numbers, starting with offense. Through the end of April the Orioles sit at 14-15, having scored 130 runs while allowing 143. That’s not a terrible Pythagorean score. The offense ranks sixth in hard-hit rate at 37.3%, 10th in xwOBA at .323, and 13th in wRC+ at 101. On the whole, these numbers suggest the contact quality is reasonably good and the results have lagged behind the process.
Some replacements are working out better than others. Jeremiah Jackson is more than holding his own at the plate as the Orioles’ everyday second baseman. Coby Mayo, however, has a -0.4 WAR while manning third. Pete Alonso, meanwhile, is still in an offensive freeze (a .198 BA), although his defense has been surprisingly good (helping to explain a 0.4 WAR). The loss of Holiday, Westburg, and Ryan Mountcastle has been mostly compensated for, in other words, but Westburg’s absence is glaring. Especially as the O’s are 0-6 against lefty starters with a puny .189 average.
On the pitching side, the five starters who have thrown the most innings for the Orioles this year all have ERAs over 4.00, which makes the rotation a glaring weakness. It’s hard to assess how much health is playing a role: from an eyeball point of view, Bradish looks like he’s still recovering from elbow surgery, Rogers has been spotty, and Eflin is sorely missed. (Interestingly, of all the names the Orioles were linked to in the “top-flight ace” conversation over the offseason—Framber Valdez, Dylan Cease, Ranger Suárez, Freddy Peralta, Nick Pivetta—only Cease has an ERA below 3.)
Defense, on the other hand, has been a true low point. FanGraphs ranks the Orioles the fourth-worst fielding team. There’s little mystery about where the blame falls: the same site rates Taylor Ward, Dylan Beavers and Tyler O’Neill as the team’s worst fielders. That’s funny considering the infield could be a real culprit, given that Coby Mayo is playing out of position, and Jeremiah Jackson is a replacement. Blaze Alexander is currently playing a good infield, but he’s not an outfielder. So yeah, that outfield.
So, how much upside is sitting on the injured list, ready to return?
My gut tells me that Jordan Westburg is the biggest factor. A healthy Westburg returning in late May adds what was, in 2024, a 3+ WAR infielder to a team that has been getting a 72 wRC+ from the third base position, 24th in MLB. That upgrade alone could be worth several wins over the course of the season—if Westburg returns healthy. Holliday, a former top prospect who started to hit last year, restores a legitimate lineup threat, but it’s not clear he will immediately outhit Jeremiah Jackson, despite his considerable upside.
As for the rotation, a healthy Rogers stabilizing the rotation would make a meaningful difference, while Dean Kremer provides a floor that hopefully would avoid outcomes like Brandon Young’s four-inning, ten-run stinker in yesterday’s doubleheader. The bullpen continues to shuffle around, but the core pieces—Rico Garcia, Anthony Nunez, Yennier Cano, Ryan Helsley, are already getting it done.
The defense has stunk, frankly, and most of that has little to do with Westburg or Holliday being on the IL. Their return wouldn’t give us, after all, a real outfield. That is an issue that falls at the feet of Dylan Beavers, Taylor Ward, Tyler O’Neill, and of course, the front office.
The cumulative effect of getting these players back is real, but perhaps not definitive. A near-.500 team with the Orioles’ profile—pretty good on offense, inconsistent in pitching, and poor on defense—needs more of a return-to-form from healthy players than an influx from the injured list. That could be good news or bad, but it gives us an idea of where to look.
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