Baltimore Orioles Continue Slide Into Bottom Half of MLB Power Rankings

The Baltimore Orioles had yet another mediocre week of baseball and are continuing to slide down power rankings, this time finding themselves in the bottom half of the league.

The Orioles continued their home stand last week with series' against the Cleveland Guardians and the Cincinnati Reds. They were able to take the series against the Guardians, but only took one from the Reds.

Overall, Baltimore was 3-3 in their six games from the last week. MLB.com's Will Leitch put them at No. 17 in his latest power rankings, four down form their spot at No. 13 from a week ago.

Pretty much every concern that people had about the Orioles before the season has come to fruition and there aren't many things to look forward to as solutions in-house.

It's hard to point to anyone else but Charlie Morton as the most concerning player on the pitching staff. The 41-year-old has not had a great start to the year, but his last week was especiially poor.

Baltimore has yet to win a game he has pitched in this year. Last week alone he gave up 12 runs in 7.1 innings of work with seven walks and just four strikeouts.

On the flip side of things, their other veteran starting pitcher signing has proven to be pretty solid. Tomoyuki Sugano pitched in one game last week, giving up just two runs over seven innings of work.

Sugano doesn't strike many batters out, but he also rarely walks them. He has an ERA+ of 109 on the year, so he has at least been above average. That's more than a fair share of the pitching staff can say.

Over on the offensive side of things, they were actually much better. They had a team wRC+ of 138, which is the third-highest in that span.

Young outfielder Heston Kjerstad had a strong, but small sample size of production with two home runs and six RBI in just 12 plate appearances.

Cedric Mullins has continued his hot start to the year with three home runs and a .300/.462/.800 slash line over 26 plate appearances last week.

Catcher Adley Rutschman fell into a big time slump, going just 2-for-23 at the plate, which is disappointing after his solid start to the year. Hopefully this cold streak doesn't last as long as the one he had a year ago.

The Orioles will now head on the road for this week with series' against the Washington Nationals and the Detroit Tigers.