Bryan Baker walked too many guys this year and sometimes it really hurt the Orioles
The postseason meltdown was as bad as it got, but it wasn’t a new problem
Baker’s last two regular season Triple-A games saw him give up seven runs (three earned) while allowing seven hits and two walks.
The second-guessing about putting Baker on the postseason roster at all was one of the better critiques about the Orioles playoff strategy. It’s not why they got swept, but it didn’t help. Why bring him back at all? They liked how he pitched in the Triple-A playoffs, apparently.
It’s worth saying about Baker and his postseason dump that not even a dedicated Baker hater – of which I am probably one of the greater ones – would have expected anything as disastrous as what he did in ALDS Game 2. Even command-challenged guys don’t usually walk the bases loaded. Baker never issued three walks in a game at all in 2023 until summoned into that game. That was a bad day to have the worst day of his career.
This season was bookended by disastrous outings for Baker. His first game of the year was the season opener, and he was called upon with the team holding a six run lead over the Red Sox in the eighth inning. By the time he was done pitching that day, the lead was down to a mere three runs. Baker didn’t finish the eighth, giving up three runs as he gave up two hits, walked a guy, and hit another guy.
Had Baker spent the whole season pitching like this, he would have been gone a lot sooner. After that awful Opening Day, Baker pitched 15 consecutive outings without allowing a run. The 40.50 ERA dropped to 1.72, and this wasn’t a smoke and mirrors kind of thing. His Fielding Independent Pitching number, the ERA analogue that tries to account for how a pitcher has performed using only what is under the pitcher’s control, was at 2.17 at the end of this stretch.
The reason this was a mirage may be that it was the soft part of the Orioles schedule, facing what turned out to be a lot of weak offenses. Things got worse for Baker again as soon as the O’s hit the first of the season’s gauntlets, with seven earned runs allowed in 11 May innings. In June, it was clear he’d fallen down the list of trusted guys; Baker only appeared in nine June games after making 13 appearances in May. He was mostly the sixth inning guy then and still had his struggles before being sent to Norfolk. Then in the ALDS he was the third inning guy and we saw how that went.
When things are going well for Baker, he can be a guy with some fun swagger. Remember that time he made the Blue Jays mad at him for moonwalking off the mound after a clutch out? Imagine being another team and the guy you beef with is Bryan Baker. Embarrassing stuff. He just could not be that guy consistently enough.
Baker turns 29 in December. He does not have a minor league option year remaining for the 2024 season, meaning that he’s pretty much in “shape up or ship out” territory. If he doesn’t show up to spring training next year looking like the command issues are fixed, he might end up on waivers. Depending on how the O’s decide to shuffle players through the 40-man over the offseason, Baker might not even make it to spring training. No one who watched that ALDS meltdown will feel too bad about it.
