MIKE BURKE

Allegany Communications Sports

The body language of both teams, the Baltimore Orioles and the Toronto Blue Jays – where they are going and where they have been – was evident Wednesday afternoon at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, one day after the Major League Baseball trade deadline had expired.

The Orioles had a bounce to their step, for not only did they make significant upgrades to their team, particularly the pitching, the players who were still dressed in orange and black – most notably Cedric Mullins, Ryan Mountcastle and Ramon Urias – seemed quite pleased to still be so attired.

Not only that, baseball’s top prospect, Jackson Holliday, who had been reactivated by the Orioles on Wednesday belted a grand slam for the first big-league home run of his career, and, overall, looks to be a brand new man compared to his first call-up to the big leagues. Time will tell …

The Orioles left town on Wednesday for their four-game series with the Cleveland Indians, which did not start well, with a big win and a series win over the Blue Jays, but also with very bad news, as valuable infielder Jordan Westburg suffered a broken hand when he was hit by a pitch and is expected to be out of action for at least two months.

(The Orioles, by the way, did not cry, whine or complain about the Blue Jays pitching inside the way Aaron Judge and the Yankees, whose pitchers lead MLB in hit batsmen, do, as pitching inside is, in fact, part of the game.)

Westburg will be impossible to replace given his versatility defensively and his timely hitting, so just as the Orioles feel they’re seeing the light of day again, one of their three best players goes down for what will be at least most of the regular season. It’s definitely not the way they wanted to enter a four-game series with the team with the best record in baseball.

As for the trades general manager Mike Elias put together, despite what you see on social media, I think the Orioles grade out very well and improved the ballclub.

Orioles fans wanted trades, and that’s what they got, as there are now seven players on the roster who weren’t there at the beginning of last week – that’s 27 percent of the 26-man roster of a first-place team.

The extremely unrealistic dreams dancing in some fans’ heads were of Tarik Skubal, Garrett Crochet, or even Blake Snell, but the prices were obviously too high for any of those guys to end up being traded at all, and you just felt there was no way the Orioles would take a flier on Jack Flaherty again.

So the Orioles went out and got righty Zach Eflin and lefty Trevor Rogers, who have already gone into the rotation, not just for this year but for next year as well. Seranthony Domínguez and Gregory Soto feel like fine upgrades for the O’s shot bullpen and they also secure a right-handed power bat in Eloy Jimenez.

The Orioles believe they fortified their rotation for this year and next year when Corbin Burnes might be elsewhere through free agency. Eflin, who already has a win for the Orioles, is no Burnes, of course, but he has been a good mid-rotation starter (3.89 ERA over the last five seasons) who doesn’t walk people and who is signed for 2025.

That should look pretty good to O’s fans as the team’s rotation had a 3.01 ERA for the first two months, then a 4.54 ERA since, as the injuries have piled up. Should the Orioles make the playoffs, Eflin would be the Game 3 starter behind Burnes and Grayson Rodriguez, which looks pretty good from where I’m sitting.

Rogers was an All-Star in 2021, but injuries have limited him to 230 innings and a 4.92 ERA since. Rogers had posted a 3.17 ERA in his last nine starts before the trade, but there has been a decline in fastball velocity as well as command, as we saw on Thursday night. Scouts, though, still love his changeup, and he’s not a free agent until after 2026, so presumably the O’s see something they believe they can fix.

If they can fix it, in the immortal words of Earl Weaver, “I wouldn’t wait a pitch longer.”

Even before the trade of outfielder Austin Hays to Philadelphia for Dominguez and outfielder Cristian Pache, who was designated for assignment on Thursday, the Orioles wanted another right-handed bat with some pop.

In Jimenez, they acquired from the White Sox a player who was one of the most feared young hitters in the game, as he slugged .527 in his first two seasons in 2019-20. Since then, Jimenez has been plagued by injuries, most recently to his hip and his hamstring. Yet, despite having not-good numbers, he still hits the ball harder than most players do.

The Orioles are essentially taking a chance here because (where have we heard this before?) Jimenez has a very favorable contract. Though he is signed through just this season, the Orioles hold club options for 2025 and 2026.

If the power that JImenez has shown in the past is still there, the Orioles have added a strong bat to a strong lineup for possibly two more years. If the power isn’t there, the Orioles just walk away clean, so why not?

Either way, these moves seem to be the best moves the Orioles could have made without having to give up top prospects Holliday, Coby Mayo and Samuel Basallo, not to mention Mullins, Mountcastle and Urias, who the Orioles now need more than ever with Westbrook on the IL and with Connor Norby on the Miami Marlins’ Triple-A roster to learn how to play third base.

We’ll see, but it looks like the O’s might have picked the wrong weekend to go to Cleveland.

Mike Burke writes about sports and other stuff for Allegany Communications. He began covering sports for the Prince George’s Sentinel in 1981 and joined the Cumberland Times-News sports staff in 1984, serving as sports editor for over 30 years. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow him on X at @MikeBurkeMDT