The seal on MLB managerial firings has been broken, with Pittsburgh sacking Derek Shelton after a 12-26 start. Could Baltimore Orioles manager Brandon Hyde be next?
Fair or not to Hyde, I’m surprised it hasn’t happened already, if only because GM Mike Elias needs to show that he’s doing something, with the O’s currently sitting, shockingly, at 13-23, with the second-worst run differential (-69) in the Majors.
The only good news for O’s fans is that nobody in the AL East has distinguished themselves, with the defending AL champs, the New York Yankees, in first place at just 21-16, meaning the Orioles are somehow only seven and a half games out at the moment.
But they’re also 10 games under .500, with a pitching staff depleted by injuries and lack of attention to detail by Elias putting up the league’s second-worst team ERA, and the vaunted offense ranking 26th in team batting average, 21st in team OPS and 22nd in runs per game.
I don’t think any of this is Hyde’s fault, particularly the pitching staff – he’s just trotting out there the hodgepodge of guys that Elias made available.
ICYMI
The algorithms in the preseason all had Baltimore contending again in the East – PECOTA had the O’s finishing at 89-73, a game back of the Yankees, but in the wild card for a second straight year, and the playoffs for a third straight year.
To get to 89-73 now, you’re talking a 76-50 finish – doable, if the pitching staff gets healthy, Elias is willing to part with some of his chess pieces to boost the depth on the staff, and the lineup gets its head out of its collective ass.
One thing GMs are known to do to try to get a team to light a fire under itself is to fire the manager.
We might be getting close to that.
Remember that the Washington Nationals, in their 2019 world-title season, got as low as 19-31 on May 23 before things started to turn around, and even then, it took them more than a month, out to June 28, before they finally got over .500.
The Nats that year finished out 74-38 after the 19-31 start, and didn’t have to fire the manager, Davey Martinez, to get things going, though the Googler will give you several links to columns from sportswriters and bloggers telling you that the prevailing wisdom at the time was, dump Davey.
It’s moving time for Brandon Hyde, is what I’m getting at here.
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Chris Graham
