Everyone saw the Baltimore Orioles greatest flaw coming

The Baltimore Orioles season is over. With a 7-1 loss in Game 3 of the ALDS to the Texas Rangers on Tuesday night, an unforgettable season came to a screeching halt.

The Orioles won 101 games and had the best record in the American League, second in all of baseball. They were heavily favored to win their ALDS matchup with the Rangers and contend for a World Series title with the Houston Astros.

However, they were overmatched by the upstart Rangers, and as such, their season is over. There are several reasons why the Orioles have already gone home for the winter. But the No. 1 reason can be traced back to the greatest flaw the team had heading into October.

The pitching.

Baltimore Orioles biggest weakness was exposed

Dayn Perry of CBS Sports describes exactly what went wrong for the Orioles in the ALDS and how they got to this point. The Orioles biggest flaw was and still is their starting rotation, but not unlike the St. Louis Cardinals, they didn't add any major pieces to upgrade that rotation.

In fact, Baltimore grabbed one piece from the weak St. Louis rotation at the deadline in Jack Flaherty, but he and free-agent signing Kyle Gibson could only get them so far. Both of them were in the bullpen for the ALDS. Another important thing to note, as Perry mentions is the fact that Kyle Bradish, Grayson Rodriguez, and Dean Kremer combined for an ugly 14.63 ERA during the series.

Against a powerful Rangers lineup, that isn't going to get the job done, and the Orioles lack of pitching was exposed right from the start. A true ace is what Baltimore was lacking, and these days, most contending teams have two starters that can be classified as ace-type pitchers.

The Rangers had picked up Jordan Montgomery in a trade with the Cardinals and signed Nathan Eovaldi in the offseason. Eovaldi pitched a seven-inning gem against the Orioles in Game 3, while Montgomery shined in the Wild Card Series. Neither are necessarily aces, but are at least starters that can be counted on in the postseason.

Baltimore simply did not have that, and it's going to take some soul-searching for owner John Angelos and General Manager Mike Elias if they want to take the Orioles back to the postseason in 2024.

Operating like a small-market team is proving to be less and less effective in this day and age.