The Orioles changed their order for the series opener in Texas, moving Jackson Holliday into the third spot for the first time in his career and putting Gunnar Henderson at the top of the lineup. Tyler O’Neill followed fourth, with Coby Mayo at third base.
The move came with the Orioles one game back for the last Wild Card and tied with the Tigers, while the Rangers held that last spot and were 1 ½ games out of first place in the American League West. Texas had won two of three at Camden Yards from March 30-April 1, so this weekend arrived with more than one tiebreaker feel to it.
Holliday’s promotion gave the game its clearest marker, but it also reflected a lineup trying to turn traffic into runs. The Orioles drew eight walks Thursday to push their season total to 447, third most in the majors and their highest through 115 games this century. Even so, they scored one run or fewer, and yesterday marked the first time since Aug. 22, 2009, in Chicago that they had done both in the same game.
That kind of imbalance has followed them for a while. The Orioles were 2-for-17 with runners in scoring position over their last five games, and through five games this month they were averaging 1.80 runs, the lowest mark in the majors. They have still taken some edge from the bottom of the lineup, where their 28 pinch-hit RBIs are the most since 1991, but the bigger problem has been turning base runners into crooked innings.
Shane Baz was the one trying to keep that trend going from the mound for the Rangers, and he has been steadier than the numbers suggest. He held the Phillies to one run over 6 1/3 innings in his last start to lower his ERA to 3.86, and he has allowed one earned run in each of his last three starts covering 16 2/3 innings. Before that, though, he gave up 10 earned runs over his previous six starts in 34 1/3 innings, and he had allowed six runs in 11 innings in two career outings against the Rangers in the regular season.
The Orioles have their own history with the Rangers’ pitching plan, especially against Nathan Eovaldi. They had faced him 21 times in the regular season, and he was 9-4 with a 3.79 ERA in 111 2/3 innings against them. He also allowed six runs and eight hits in four innings on April 1 at Camden Yards and started against them in the 2023 American League Division Series, when he allowed one run in seven innings in the clincher. For Baltimore, that means the rest of the series may come down to the same thing this opener hinted at: whether a lineup built to create chances can finally cash them in.
