Detroit Tigers: What You Should Know vs Baltimore Orioles

Be Wary of Home Runs

While Baltimore’s rotation has been far from dominant, the O’s lineup has been—at least in terms of hitting the ball out of the ballpark.

The American League East club leads the Majors in home runs with 219. St. Louis is the next closest team with 202.

The O’s obviously place a premium on hitting the long ball thanks to their personnel decisions.

Chris Davis is locked into a massive contract, and has responded with 35 home runs this season. Normally, that would a lead a team at this point in the season, but Mark Trumbo has outdone his fellow slugger with 41 long balls.

Manny Machado (34 home runs), Adam Jones (26), Jonathan Schoop (21) and Pedro Alvarez (20) represent four more power threats in Showalter’s lineup.

However, all the home runs hasn’t necessarily translated into a perfect offense. The O’s have scored more than 100 runs less than baseball’s leading offense (Boston). Additionally, they have struck out the 11^th-most in the league. Chris Davis and company also rank 19^th in on-base percentage and 21st in walk percentage.

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Lastly, Baltimore is the worst running team in the Majors. They currently have 16 stolen bases as a team. By comparison, Cameron Maybin, in only 73 games, has 14 steals.