In the aftermath of their elimination at the hands of the Royals, the Orioles announced that rookie outfielder Colton Cowser broke his left hand. There’s no indication the injury will require surgery, but it could have some level of impact on Cowser’s offseason.
The injury occurred on one of the most consequential plays of tonight’s loss. The lefty-hitting outfielder came up against K.C. reliever Angel Zerpa with the bases loaded and one out in a 1-1 game in the bottom of the fifth. On a 1-2 count, Zerpa threw a 97 MPH fastball well up and in. Cowser nevertheless swung at the pitch, which struck him in his top hand (video link). He was called out on strikes and Zerpa escaped the inning when he got Adley Rutschman to ground out. Kansas City scored in the next half-inning and would hold on for a 2-1 victory.
Baltimore scored just once (on a Cedric Mullins home run) in the two-game sweep. It’s obviously not the way Coswer or the team wanted to end the year, though the former fifth overall pick had an impressive showing overall. Cowser hit 24 homers with a .242/.321/.447 slash over 561 plate appearances. He’ll very likely be a finalist in AL Rookie of the Year balloting.
Cowser proved himself to be a legitimate power threat, though he fanned in more than 30% of his plate appearances. The amount of swing-and-miss in his game has always been the biggest question mark. He’ll need to make more consistent contact to become an elite hitter, but the power and strong defense in left field already make him a good everyday player.
The O’s could be in for a shakeup in the outfield. Anthony Santander is a few weeks from free agency. He’ll receive and reject a qualifying offer on the heels of his 44-homer campaign. If Santander walks, the O’s could plug Heston Kjerstad into the corner opposite Cowser. Baltimore reportedly considered dealing Mullins this past summer. The former All-Star center fielder was mired in a months-long slump at the time, but he found his stride with a .266/.374/.457 line in the second half. Mullins is headed into his final season of arbitration, with MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projecting an $8.7MM salary.
I feel bad for the O’s. They have so much talent that I have to wonder if the skipper is on the hot seat tonight.
Manager is fine they just need more pitching and to not rely too much on homers for offense
The lack of pitching and reliance on the long ball has, unfortunately, been the O’s bane of existence for more than a decade now. Trade a hitter or two and (sigh) another prospect and get some quality pitching and you’ll see a difference.
The Orioles pitching staff gave up an entire 3 (THREE) runs vs KC & lost both games. They need more “quality” pitching going forward. It’ll help to have a healed (healthy) Grayson Rodriguez coming back.
Can’t blame the Orioles for losing 1-0 and 2-1. They faced 2 pitchers that were great all season long. C’mon. That can happen to any team and it was great baseball.
They’re gonna be fine.
It’s pitching – and I hope they get Crochet when he’s traded – for sure, but I also think it’s because of the team’s youth and relative inexperience in the majors. Hopefully they’ll do better next year. Third time’s the charm.
This series was decided by both teams’ best player. Bobby Witt Jr. delivered in the clutch and Gunnar Henderson did not.
Witt jr is only getting better every year
If not for Aaron Judge’s historic season, Witt is probably the MVP.
He’s definitely as good as advertised!
Big Os fan here too- and i actually 100% agree with you.
Hyde is not bad as an in game manager, but he feels about average as an in game manager. I have never seen a move that made me angry; but he takes virtually no risk and always feels like he is making the easiest to justify decision even if it is not the right decsion in game.
I think he is more or less safe though. this was a bad team that he has managed to bring back into being a consistent playoff team.
Weirdly, this season almost rests on Adleys feet to me. He was/is their non power driven offensive player- who was just terrible in the 2nd half and playoffs. Saying that he will be in a time share at C and maybe not be DHing all of his off days next year would have been crazy a year ago, but i could see Basallo being the guy next year taking that role with Adley seeing 50% behind the dish and only 25% at DH vs. Basallo being closer to 50/50 (playing every day).
Swapping Kjerstad and Santander will have a net 0 effect IMO, both are power hitting corner OF. Santander is not a 44 HR player consistently but is a .260 with 30 HR guy, and i think KLjerstad can do that next year with regular playing time.
The big question is how do you make this group of hitters less reliant on the long ball. It is fair to say that the starters next year due to team control will include cowser, mullins, gunnar, westburg, mouncastle, adley, holliday, and likely Kjerstad (since outide the org will be too expensive to top what he is likely to do), and the DH and regular backups are Mayo and Basallo (guys who get 300-500 at bats by rotating in). I just do not see that offense changing what it looks like much.
Their starting staff is just fine, when healthy. Doubtful Burnes will return though. Even without him, they have Eflin, bradish, Grayson, Means, and Kremer. Suárez and Povich are serviceable when someone goes down (hopefully not four again!) Rogers is a project for sure.
Their relief staff is a question mark, but the Mountain will be back and hopefully true to form. That’s a huge plus.
The hitting needs to improve, obviously. Hopefully the youngsters will continue to develop with more ABs. I’m still optimistic!
Bradish and Means both had arm surgery so they’ll be out most if not all of next year.
They will need to get another front end pitcher (assuming Burnes is gones).
Wouldn’t mind Snell on another short term deal and trade for another pitcher or sign 3/4 guy.
Snell, Eflin, (3/4 guy), Kramer, Povich/Suarez.
He’s made some questionable calls for sure, I would give him the first half of the next year before making a change on account of the injuries the team had to deal with. The co-hitting coaches need to go however, the bats have been trending down since the all-star break and it continued into the postseason, whereas the pitching starting picking it up in september and was excellent in these two postseason games.
Wish we could keep Santander around as he encapsulates the personality of the team but eventually some of these young guys need a shot at everyday play. I doubt we could even tempt Burnes to stay with any offer we could make so its going to be rough to rely on some very good when healthy pitchers (Means, Bradish, Wells) that are unfortunately oft bitten by the injury bug.
I’d be shocked if they don’t offer Santander a contract this winter
I’m sure they will, but will probably be outbid. The ownership is a huge question mark right now.
Elias’ reaction will be to draft more LHH corner outfielders with serious platoon splits and/or swing & miss issues in the first round and fail to develop their best pitching prospects into anything more than inefficient #5/#6 starters
That strategy has helped them go 0-5 in the postseason during his tenure!
So sick of the Baltimore glazing from the baseball media
Meh. Most teams struggle to develop pitching. They didn’t lose this series because of it.
Definitely this, Burnes was an excellent offseason addition and Eflin was a great deadline acquisition. The guys they were counting on at the beginning of the season (Means, Bradish, Wells) ended up out for the remainder. That’s tough luck, no one will sympathize really, but the pitching isn’t what failed this team in crunch time.
So is your solution is to keep doing what they’re doing and draft more two-tool college outfielders, trade for Trevor Rogers-types, and shop in the #4 bucket of the FA pitching market? As a fan of another AL East team, I would love to see Elias keep that approach!
You’re ignoring the fact they are behind 20+ orgs in pitching development and there are no TOR arms on the trading block they can offload their overrated prospects for
I can’t wait to see where Gunnar gets traded at the 2026 trade deadline tho
Oh hell no trust me, they need to do a way better job drafting and developing pitching. The position players Elias has done a great job with, Rutschman, Henderson, a competitive balance pick in Westburg, Coby Mayo (assuming he develops at the big league level) in the 4th round, Kjerstad also still a question mark until he actually gets playing time. Cowser as well and presumably Holliday if he develops.
From a pitching development standpoint the O’s are definitely behind the 8 ball, but they also dealt with injuries to 3 guys they were expecting to be in their rotation and a guy who was one of their best starters (Rodriguez).
I sincerely doubt he’s sitting there thinking that we dont need to do a better job drafting and developing quality pitching. Its hard to say how far into the top tier of FA pitching he’s allowed to or is willing to go, I’m not sure how far along they believe their pitching in the minors is in terms of readiness. I would love to see them bring back Burnes especially when we are this competitive at this moment (garbage tier playoff showing aside), but this clubs history of big contracts is checkered at best.
“….they need to do a way better job drafting and developing pitching.”
–
They don’t draft pitchers.
Before 2 people making cookie cutter comments in discussions (which this entire thread is doing),
learn what the O’s philosophy is.
The O’s lost 2 playoff games giving up one run in the
first, and 2 in the second.
And the problem is pitching?
The announcers called it before the game started yesterday saying they needed to quit swinging for the fences on every pitch, one you make it to the wildcard or playoffs you’re not facing all the mediocre pitching, you’re facing some of the best pitchers, you can’t all be swinging for the fence, play some small ball and try hitting for contact.
Seattle Mariners enter the chat. Thought their park is the worst hitters park in all of MLB.
You think they would trade Gunner or do you think them making the wildcard might be the beginning of spending more on players and keeping them
Hard to say. We don’t know, yet, what the new owner’s appetite for spending will be.
Gunnar won’t be traded. This shows your ignorance of the Orioles situation.
The offense is what let us down. There’s nothing to be said poorly about Elias’ pitching development. The only truly elite pitching prospect he’s had is G-Rod. I think Elias is going to have to start spending draft capital on pitchers though. That just needs to happen or we’re going to fall behind on depth quickly.
But I love when they draft a clone of the same: blonde hair, blue eyed, white boys
Povich and Mcdermott are the five and dive #5/#6 starters I was referring to. There are no other examples because they have no other starters with big league projection in their system. You are delusional if you think either of them will become playoff starters.
Cowser will always be a streaky hitter due to the moving parts in his swing and him constantly getting stuck on his backside, leading to huge swing and miss issues. Kjerstad is just Mickey Moniak with a slightly better approach. Honeycutt and Fabian can’t hit, Bradfield is a surefire CF whose OPS will top out around .700. Mayo is a R/R 1B who will never hit big league pitching. Basallo is an obese 20-year old who has red flag in-zone miss rates. That is the Orioles only talent on the horizon. Players with one or two tools whose flaws will prevent them from becoming regulars
You don’t know ball. Hope you had fun watching your infallible O’s play a whopping 2 games of playoff baseball!
I think Hyde is out of his depth. Every time the camera caught him he looked slack-jawed and perplexed.
I’m not willing to lay it on Hyde, but someone has to be the fall guy. Definitely the hitting coach is done and possibly the bench coach. If Elias can find someone he likes better, Hydes gets canned.
As with batting average, 99% of MLBTR believes that managers are roughly 10000% more important to the outcomes of games than they actually are.
@raregokus So you think manager are not in full control and can’t control outcomes with players they put in, or am I reading your post incorrectly.
Well, pitching to Witt with a base open cost them the game, so that’s on him. But also, not able to score with bases loaded and nobody out absolutely isn’t on him, and that cost them the game as well.
sn33 MLB network, Kevin Millar and a couple other people spoke of this as did the announcers before the game stating Baltimore needs to quit swinging for the fences on every pitch, are they right ?
Ouch. That white Sox reference hurts!
Why do guys continue to dive out over the plate like Frogger? A lot of them get run over
I was always better at Dig Dug.
How were you at Pac-Man?
The one I really excelled at was Karate Champ. Round house kick to the face my secret move.
The pitcher played Cowser. Both of the strikes he had were down and WAY away. Colton thought that last pitch was going away too and he guessed wrong. Got jammed and his left hand phalanges paid the price.
Typical pitch selection. If they come inside, the next one is breaking outside and vice versa.
This time he came into the kitchen and broke some dishes…literally.
Looks like I was right again about Ellias being one of the worst GMs in the game. He never goes for it all. The Ellias mentality is to sit back and pray while he sticks a toothpick in his mouth. GM of the year? Yeah maybe if you’re delusional. Finishing in last place for 5 straight years to accumulate top draft picks is nothing to be proud of
I wouldn’t go that far personally, grabbing a big name pitcher may have changed the fortunes of this wild card team and made it a division winner, but the last thing that any of us really expected was that the O’s bats would completely just go silent in the second half. Great pitching can mitigate that problem for sure but at some point you have to score runs, and only scoring 2 in a couple of playoff games wont get you anywhere. Hard to say if they go further or not with someone like a Skubal (if he was available) or Crochet.
I will say however, it is certainly fair to question his decision making for the teams staff. The hitting coaches couldn’t right the ship even with the entire second half to work with, and Hydes decision making has been pretty uh…..Jekyll and Hyde (I apologize).
All these vaunted Baltimore position players strike out way too much.
I mean they were ranked 18th in strikeouts on the year so 17 teams had more than them. The postseason games definitely made them look awful though.
I meant to say vaunted “prospects” so didn’t mean to indict every position player. My bad.
You’re not wrong but front office peeps don’t blink an eye when someone strikes out 20% of the time.
A little salty.
They finished in last THREE times under Elias. You exposed your ignorance of the Orioles
Hope he quickly MOOOves on from this
Hope he is MOOOved on to a different team.
I had the same thought when Cowser got hit as I did Anthony Rizzo: Something just broke. It would be more of a story if the O’s were continuing on. He’ll have the winter to get better.
Ironically, the wall the O’s moved back to help their team pitching may have done them in during this series. There were two or three balls hit to the track that would’ve been homers with their old dimensions.
That’s a myopic comment. And fails to take into account Sal Perez’s flyout in Game 1 may have been a HR.
It may have been. That’s why I also said “may have” done them in, because we will never know. What we definitively know is that there were at least two HRs that would’ve changed the scoring, lineup, pitching, etc.
I’m not sure how that is myopic, but maybe…..
Well, if that doesn’t sum up the 2nd half of the season…
The bats went consistently cold before the trade deadline. They dumped Hays and it never improved. They left a historic amount of men in scoring position. Not that I have stats to back it up but just what my peepers showed me. Pitching wasn’t an issue for the most part.
We need 2 right handed bats to balance us out offensively. A couple contact oriented hitters would be a big plus for this lineup.
They should have started Slater over Cowser in Game 1. Reverse splits be damned, Cowser is incapable of hitting LHPs.
As terrible as Cowser is against lefties, he never should have been allowed to bat in that situation. That’s the only thing I’ll criticize Hyde for in the game.
Cowser should not have started Game 1 either. He is totally incapable of hitting LHPs
This will be a critical offseason for the Orioles and will show if they’re truly about winning or continuing to build for the future. Couple of thoughts from a subjective fan:
1) The O’s completely abandoned their approaches at the plate as the moment clearly got too big for all of them. Prime example is Santander in the 5th with no outs and bases juiced. He had some of the worst AB’s on the team as he was clearly only swinging for the fence. NO ONE wanted to be “the guy” to get it done. No killer instinct and they paid the price. I understand the royals pitching is elite but they had sooo many opportunities with RISP and less than 2.
2) Remember everyone thought the pitching would be the postseason issue? 3 runs in 2 games. Probably wouldn’t have pitched to Witt in the 6th but Perez has been wild all season had they intentionally walked him to face Vinnie. You just don’t know.
3) Starting pitching will need some work this offseason with only Eflin, Rodriguez, Kremer, Suarez, and Povich somewhat established. Unsure if they will sign anyone to big dollars or make a trade. Could definitely see either way when Rubenstein said “next year.” Bradish and Wells will be back by the all star break hopefully so there will be reinforcements. If they don’t sign Burnes they should get an established mid rotation and roll the dice with an aging vet such as Scherzer/Verlander and get what they can from them and allow them to mentor and lead the staff. Very least, they sell some tickets.
4) Would not be surprised in the least bit if Hyde is very sneakily on the hot seat. He did a decent job guiding the ship but I’m not sure there is the a next level for him. He was completely out managed all season and does not know how to run a bullpen IMO. Too many times relievers would get 2 quick outs and then he decided to match up only to see it not work out.
More questions than answers headed into the offseason but the future is still very bright with the pipeline.
I don’t think Max/Verlander sells any more tickets