The last time the Orioles set a home run record for a month, it was their 56-homer June, and it was basically utopia. They were flying high. Now, they hit 55 home runs this past month, tying a record for August, and things are going sideways. What's the difference?
Well, the Orioles offense didn't have much going for it besides home runs in August. That has been the reality since June ended, and it's a big reason why their hold on a playoff spot is slipping away by the day.
Second baseman Jonathan Schoop's two-out, ninth-inning home run tied a major league record for home runs in the month of August that, oddly enough, no one really knew the Orioles were chasing. The June pursuit of that record was covered in a similar manner to the Mark McGwire/Sammy Sosa home run chase of 1998, yet when manager Buck Showalter was asked after left fielder Hyun Soo Kim set the record, the manager asked, "Is there some record?"
This new record-tying effort snuck up, with ESPN Stats & Info tweeting it out after the game that the Orioles had tied it. There wasn't any fanfare, because it came late in a loss that dropped them four games out of first place behind the visiting Toronto Blue Jays, and into a tie for the second wild card with the Detroit Tigers.
Part of the reason they're looking up at the Blue Jays and over their shoulder at so many others is because the offense, despite its home runs, hasn't produced at as high of a level as it did early in the season.
In June, the Orioles led almost every major offensive category in the big leagues, most by a wide margin. They topped the rankings in home runs (56), runs (185), hits (294), batting average (.300), on-base percentage (.357) and slugging percentage (.531).
The home runs came in bunches as a symptom of everything else — patient at-bats, the fabled "pass the baton" mentality that comes and goes, good overall contact. They weren't the means to the offense's success. They were the end. Hitting coach Scott Coolbaugh said as much when lamenting the team's second-half need for home runs to energize them, as opposed to everyone feeding off each other's success.
In June, the Orioles had four players firing at a high level — third baseman Manny Machado (.370 average with five home runs), Schoop (.355 with five home runs), center fielder Adam Jones (.314 with 11 home runs) and Kim (.333). First baseman Chris Davis (.284 with nine home runs) and right fielder Mark Trumbo (.281 with eight home runs) weren't just power-only guys. They hit for average a bit, too.
August wasn't the worst month for the Orioles offense — May and July hold those distinctions — but this home run record didn't come as part of a well-rounded attack. Machado hit .312 with 10 home runs, and Trumbo and Davis added 10 apiece, but hit .184 and .214, respectively. Jones hit .309, but he and Machado were the only ones at that level.
As a team, the Orioles in August were 15th in runs (132), 20th in hits (244), 29th in walks (70), 23rd in average (.250), 25th in on-base percentage (.306) and third in slugging (.461).
So what caused the difference? It's hard to really say. You can't even point to the natural reason of strikeouts -- they had 231 in June and 214 in August. The fact that nothing really jumps out makes it all the more baffling. It's really that they didn't do much outside of their home runs.
In June, they scored 79 runs off home runs, accounting for 42.7 percent of their 185 runs that month. Their 55 home runs in August accounted for 81 runs, 61.4 percent of their 132 runs scored.
Extrapolated out a bit, they scored 6.61 runs per game in June, with 3.78 runs per game outside of their home runs. This month, they've scored 4.55 runs per game, with 1.76 runs per game coming on nonhomers. So if you want to know where those two runs per game went, and why the Orioles were 13-16 in August as opposed to the 19-9 their June home run record earned, there's a major reason.
Everything outside of the Orioles' signature skill, hitting home runs, dried up, and the offense couldn't recover around it.
