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.
Ranger Danger19
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.
SweetBabyRayKingsThickThighs
Manager is fine they just need more pitching and to not rely too much on homers for offense
scruffmcgruff
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.
FletcherFan
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
Ranger Danger19
Meh. Most teams struggle to develop pitching. They didn’t lose this series because of it.
scruffmcgruff
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.
Ignorant Son-of-a-b
I think Hyde is out of his depth. Every time the camera caught him he looked slack-jawed and perplexed.
Troy Percival's iPad
Why do guys continue to dive out over the plate like Frogger? A lot of them get run over
Ignorant Son-of-a-b
I was always better at Dig Dug.
LFGMets (Metsin7) #BannedForBeingABaseballExpert
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
scruffmcgruff
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).
Ignorant Son-of-a-b
All these vaunted Baltimore position players strike out way too much.
scruffmcgruff
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.
Ignorant Son-of-a-b
I meant to say vaunted “prospects” so didn’t mean to indict every position player. My bad.
SFBay314
Hope he quickly MOOOves on from this