Orioles Should Be Extremely Concerned About Slow Start for Starting Pitcher

Should the Baltimore Orioles be concerned about a slow start for a new pitcher?

Nick Ziegler | Apr 13, 2025

Apr 8, 2025; Phoenix, Arizona, USA; Baltimore Orioles pitcher Charlie Morton (50) pitches against the Arizona Diamondbacks during the fifth inning at Chase Field. / Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images

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Baltimore Orioles

The Baltimore Orioles continue to try and navigate through the early part of the season with injuries mounting.

It has been a challenging start to the year for the Orioles.

Coming into the campaign, they were already a bit short-handed because of players being injured. Now, as the season continues to move on, more key contributors have started to miss time.

This has resulted in the team being under the .500 mark, and there doesn’t appear to be an easy fix.

One of the main reasons for the struggles has been the performance of the starting rotation.

After losing Corbin Burnes in free agency, this unit instantly became an issue for the team, and it has only gotten worse since the year started.

Currently, the team is without arguably their top two pitchers with both Zach Eflin and Grayson Rodriguez on the injured list.

As a team that is a playoff hopeful in the American League, the rotation has to be better If they are going to turn around the slow start.

Will Leitch of MLB.com recently wrote about some of the biggest concerns around the league. For the Orioles, he highlighted the starting rotation being a massive issue with really no clear way to fix it as of now.

“If Morton can no longer be an effective starter -- and that’s the way it has looked lately -- it’s not clear where the Orioles can turn, at least until some reinforcements get healthy.”

While losing Burnes in free agency certainly wasn’t ideal, the replacements for him weren’t high-end starters.

Baltimore signed two veterans -- Tomoyuki Sugano and Charlie Morton. While both have had nice careers, neither would be considered to be an ace at this point in time.

Of the two, Sugano has been pretty solid coming over from Japan, but Morton has not pitched well at all.

At 41 years old, there was a lot of risk when it came to signing someone of that age, and so far it has not paid off.

This season, Morton has totaled an 0-3 record with a dreadful 8.78 ERA.

The Orioles were relying on the right-hander to help replace some of the production they lost with their ace leaving in free agency, but instead he has become a liability.

Couple the struggles of Morton with injured members of the rotation, and it is easy to figure out why the team is off to a slow start.

At this point, Baltimore is in a significant amount of trouble when it comes to the rotation. Even though the lineup and bullpen can be very good, it is going to be hard to compete with this starting unit struggling as much as they have early on.

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