It Wasn't Bad Luck That Ended the Orioles' Season

One team’s magical season had to end, and unfortunately for the Baltimore Orioles, it was theirs.  After sweeping the Detroit Tigers in the American League Division Series, they ran into the buzz saw that is the Kansas City Royals, who became the first playoff team ever to win their first 8 games in a postseason.  It’s a particularly difficult series loss, considering that each game was decided by 2 runs or fewer, with Games 1 and 2 tied at the start of the 9^th inning or later.  One break here, or another break there, and this series (at the very least) is still being played.  Unfortunately, it didn’t happen that way.

You could spend a lot of time talking about how the Royals were lucky and the Orioles were not.  In a series where the final outcome was lopsided but each game was close, a luck-based argument could reasonably be assumed, even if you only saw the box scores.  And luck arguably did play a factor in the outcome.  It was reflected in not only each team’s BABIP (Royals with .324 compared to the Orioles at .259), but also in the way the Royals scored some of their runs (for example, Alex Gordon’s bases loaded broken bat double in Game 1 or scoring 2 runs without hitting the ball out of the infield in Game 4).  However, it’s difficult to claim that the Royals were that much luckier than Baltimore. Kansas City certainly had missed opportunities of their own.  So while they did score 2 more runs with 2 outs than the Orioles, they actually left 2 more men on base (31 to 29) and hit only .182 with runners in scoring position (for the sake of comparison, the Orioles hit .346 with RISP during the ALCS).

No, luck wasn’t the deciding factor in the outcome of this series.  The Orioles did plenty on their own to seal their fate.  The vaunted Baltimore offense, which finished the regular season as the 6^th best in all of baseball (according to wOBA and wRC+) went quiet, hitting just .217/.283/.297, with only 2 home runs.  On the other hand, the Royals (arguably the worst offensive team to make the playoffs) soundly outhit the Orioles, with a .280/.362/.417 triple slash line.  The potency of the Baltimore offense was their power, and with a team slugging percentage of .297, that power was noticeably absent in the ALCS.  You can probably attribute some of that to luck, but it can also be the result of pitching and defense.

Speaking of defense, you have to give credit where credit is due.  The defense of the Kansas City Royals during this series was phenomenal.  It was some of the best defense I think I’ve ever seen over an entire 4 game stretch.  Whether it was the Gordon/Lorenzo Cain/Nori Aoki/Jarrod Dyson outfield combination (that seemingly didn’t let a fly ball or line drive hit the ground all series), the dramatic catches of Mike Moustakas, the difficult plays made to look routine by Alcides Escobar, or the pitch framing of Salvador Perez behind the plate, the Royals defense dominated the series, and helped make the Kansas City pitching staff look much better than they were.

Not that the pitching was necessarily bad.  Prior to the ALCS, the pitching generally was considered to be evenly matched, with Kansas City potentially holding a slight edge. Although some of the individual performances were somewhat surprising, as a unit, each starting pitching staff performed about as well as expected.  Since the score of each game was tied or within one run when the starters left, the bullpens played an integral role throughout the series.  Here’s how each bullpen performed.

While the Orioles bullpen pitched well, it’s clear that the Royals bullpen pitched better.  Luck isn’t to blame for the Gordon and Moustakas home runs in Game 1.  It’s also not the entire reason Kansas City took the lead late in Game 2.  In the end, the Baltimore hitters weren’t able to muster up any offense against the Kansas City bullpen.  There’s no reason to feel bad about this.  The Royals had the best bullpen in baseball, so essentially every team struggled to score runs against them, unless they managed got some help.

Luck may have played a small role in the outcome of the ALCS, but it wasn’t the reason Baltimore lost.  The bottom line is the Orioles were outplayed in every aspect of the game.  Granted, they weren’t outplayed by much, but in a game where one inch can make a big difference, sometimes that’s all you need.  The pitching, hitting, baserunning, and defense of the Kansas City Royals were just a little bit better than that of the Baltimore Orioles, and that’s ok.  It happens sometimes.  As Matt pointed out yesterday, it’s important to remember that there are a lot of positives to take away from the 2014 season.  You can be disappointed that the Orioles lost the ALCS, but you can’t say that 2014 was a disappointing season.