The Orioles and Royals and their Bizarro Relationship in the American League

The Orioles and Royals just played a 3-game set in Kansas City, and the Royals took two of three.

In what was their first matchup since Kansas City swept the Orioles in last year’s Wild Card round, it came down to the Orioles winning the one middle game where Tomuyuki Sugano shut down the Royals’ bats.

The bread games of the series sandwich the Royals could pitch and the Orioles could not.

On paper, this series will go down as just 3 games out of 162, or around 2% of the year, and taking place in April. Red flags or green lights should not be going off in either direction.

However, the history and the dueling arcs of both of these teams in a muddied American League is absolutely fascinating.

PHOTO: Gary Rohman/Imagn Images

For one, there is the history- as mentioned before, the Royals took away another opportunity for the Orioles to contend in their “golden age” of prospects when they won the Wild Card last year, and even before that had the 2014 ALCS sweep of them the last time the Orioles have shown life in their 10 year postseason win draught.

There’s also now the added element of the superstar debate: Bobby Witt Jr. of the Royals and Gunnar Henderson of the Orioles are both 24 and 23 face of the franchise shortstops deemed to be the faces of the American League going forward at the position- Bobby the 5-tool, do it all prospect and Gunnar the lefty slugger with a smooth swing. While Gunnar was coming back from injury in this series and struggled, the Witt vs. Henderson debate won’t necessarily be as adversarial as the NBA talking head conversations, but it is one often worth having, given the similarities. Witt has seemingly looked like one of the consensus’s best overall players in baseball, and he’s already got the postseason sweep of Gunnar to show for it.

There was even a Cade PoVICH and Kris BuBIC pitching in this series, and Bubic won the itchy battle on the mound.

The parallels between the franchises are fascinating, but what’s certainly been telling is the makeup of both franchises and their roster makeup going forward if they’ve got any chance of contending in the AL.

For the Orioles, they’ve hoarded their entire treasure trove of hitting prospects after years of moribund seasons to the point where there isn’t any room in the lineup for players that could be getting everyday at-bats with other organizations. The offense has been humming along- Tyler O’Neill has looked like one of the signings of the offseason as their hits leader, Cedric Mullins is back to slugging, and Adley Rutschman is capable of bouncing back from injury; their 4 wins have come in offensive outpours where they score 8 or more runs.

The lack of investment in pitching, however, is what has prevented them from being a serious

team. They lost Corbin Burnes this free agency but easily had the capital to make a trade to acquire a Crochet or a Cease and sat on their hands. Now, they’re starting a 42-year-old Charlie Morton in a rotation that is bottom-10 in WHIP and batting average allowed, and the one “hope” they had as the future of the staff, Grayson Rodriguez, is injured yet again. The question as to whether or not they’ll actually call it in and make a move for more pitching (I heard there’s this Cy Young winner in Miami that might be available) remains to be seen, but they’re 5th in their division in what should be their golden age.

The Royals, meanwhile, face a bizarro set of circumstances. Even going back to their World Series win, they’ve been a franchise that can develop pitching talent; we saw that last year when they surprised all of our preseason predictions by making the postseason and having Michael Wacha, Seth Lugo, and Cole Ragans all put up top-10 starter numbers in the American League and had a bullpen blossom into form. They tried to switch it up this offseason to get some offensive help by acquiring Jonathon India from the Reds with the optimism that they were also getting Vinnie Pasquantino back from injury.

They have a surprising output from Maikel Garcia and a veteran Salvador Perez as their offensive shield around Witt Jr. at the moment. They’ve started off 4-5 and are still 2nd in the middling AL Central and have plenty of time, but the division is so up-for-grabs that to prove they’re serious people in the AL, they’ll shore up their weak point and look to add more offensive production that is 21st in slugging.

The trajectories of these teams in the League have collided and are all the more same and contrasting simultaneously.

It may have just been 2% of the year, but what SHOULD be two exciting teams with bright futures going forward have some work to do for us to get the peak buy-in that we deserve.

PHOTO: Gary Rohman/Imagn Images