Baltimore Orioles Must Reverse Struggles in Key Area to Turn Season Around

It has been a terrible start to the season for the Baltimore Orioles, and things haven’t gotten much better of late.

Despite coming into the year with playoff aspirations, the Orioles look like one of the worst teams in the league through the first month of the campaign.

Unfortunately, with the poor record, there are multiple reasons why Baltimore has struggled as much as they have.

The main reason has been the poor production from the starting rotation. This was a unit that had some question marks coming into the season, and injuries have had an even further negative impact on them.

However, while the struggles of their starters has been the main reason for the team not doing well, the lineup also deserves some blame. This is a unit that has the potential to be one of the best in the league, but hasn’t performed anywhere near that so far this year.

What Orioles Must Turn Around

Bradford Doolittle of ESPN+ (subscription required) recently wrote about the struggles of the right-handed hitters for the Orioles being something that needs to change.

“Their righty hitters (Tyler O'Neill, Jordan Westburg, Gary Sanchez, et al.) are hitting a collective .200/.261/.319. This, of course, comes after the Orioles moved in the left-field fence at Camden Yards over the winter," he wrote.

This winter, while Baltimore most notably let Corbin Burnes go in free agency, they also elected to let switch-hitter Anthony Santander walk in free agency.

As the leading home run hitter on the team in 2024 with 44, this was a significant blow to the lineup. To replace that production, they signed O’Neill and Sanchez. However, neither have lived up to their potential just yet.

Both players have been good power hitters in their careers, but staying healthy and being consistent has been an issue.

So far in 2025, both have already spent time on the injured list, and the stats when healthy haven’t been great. O’Neill has slashed .215/.284/.385 with two home runs and 10 RBI. Furthermore, in 12 games, Sanchez has slashed .100/.200/.100.

As the numbers indicated, it has not been a good start to the year for either player, and trying to make up for the production of Santander from last campaign has been a struggle.

In addition to the two new additions, Westburg has also struggled, slashing 217/.265/.391 with four home runs and six RBI.

It’s certainly been a frustrating start to the season for the Orioles on offense, especially from the right side of the plate. However, injuries have played a major role in their struggles overall, and this is a team that needs to get healthy quickly if they are going to turn things around.