The Baltimore Orioles could not be off to a worse start. At 15-27, Baltimore leads only the infamously bad Chicago White Sox in the American League standings. Expand the pool, and only Pittsburgh and Colorado are worse in the National League. That is bad company to keep.
How we got here is unclear. New ownership was supposed to usher in an era of increased spending and real contention. Baltimore has been trending up the past couple of seasons. There is immense talent coming through the farm system and several bona fide stars in the lineup already. Gunnar Henderson is supposed to win an MVP award one day. Jackson Holliday is supposed to be him.
Instead of taking the next step, however, Baltimore has regressed into the troubling patterns of old. The lineup runs cold far too often and the pitching rotation is laughably bad. We all knew keeping Corbin Burnes was never realistic, but Mike Elias' unwillingness to even try to replace him was laughable. Charlie Morton? Really?
Just about everything that could have gone wrong, has gone wrong. Morton is cooked. Tyler O'Neill has been especially bad as their first "big" free agent signing in years. And well, yeah, Burnes' absence stings. There has been one positive, though, in the form of unheralded Japanese ace Tomoyuki Sugano.
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Tomoyuki Sugano has been the only positive in a bleak season for the Orioles
Lost in all the hubbub around Rôki Sasaki and recent Japanese stars like Shōta Imanaga and Yoshinobu Yamamoto was the stateside arrival of Tomoyoki Sugano, a longtime NPB star who inked a one-year, $13 million contract last winter to reinforce a weak O's rotation.
Through nine starts, Sugano has been far and away Baltimore's most dependable ace. He has a 3.08 ERA and 1.03 WHIP, with a high groundball rate (45.8 percent) and only nine walks allowed through 52.2 innings. Sugano does not get much swing-and-miss — he's in the fifth percentile for strikeout rate — but he works the edges of the zone with masterful precision, mixing low-90s heat with a sweeper and a gnarly split-finger pitch.
He looked mortal in Thursday's loss to Minnesota, allowing six hits and four runs in 6.1 innings, but Sugano has overwhelmingly outperformed his peers in the O's rotation. If there is a path back to contention this season, it starts with Sugano's sustained impact. If the season continues to fall apart, well, at least Sugano can provide meaningful value as a trade chip. He may end up as the only real positive in an otherwise dour campaign for the Orioles.
At 35 years old, Sugano's longevity and his ability to keep offenses in check without put-away stuff deserves commendation. His arsenal is predicated almost entirely on finesse, and right now, his ability to deliver wins — Baltimore is 5-4 in games Sugano starts — is the only thing keeping the O's clinging to life in the American League's toughest division.