O's Theory: The Mike Mussina Curse

 

After a few seasons of contention after a long rebuild, the Oriole's have regressed horribly this year. There's no way to put it other than they fucking suck right now, and it seems fundamentally across the board they have forgotten the basics. While timely hitting and manufacturing runs that don't rely on home runs has been the Achilles heel of the team for a while, pitching has been a thorn in the O's side for a long time. A long time as in 25 years and I started thinking, are the Orioles pitching woes the result of a curse?

Quite possibly the Mike Mussina curse? A team that at one time was known for their dominant pitching, when you think about it Mussina was the Oriole's last homegrown dominant pitcher. Hell honestly he is their last consistently dominant pitcher period. He left the Oriole's to join the dreaded Yankee's in the fall of 2000, and depending on who you ask he never really wanted to leave the O's, but they didn't make a serious offer to him. Ya know the same ol' song athletes often spew when they try to deflect the backlash from them leaving in free agency.

Since his departure, the Orioles no matter the era starting pitching just doesn't cut the mustard over the long haul. Scott Erickson who was a dynamic duo starting pitcher with Mussina, wasn't the same after Mussina left. He got hammered when he pitched, when he didnt pitch he spent long sometimes season long stretches injured.

 They've had decent pitchers who were very inconsistent like Sidney Ponson, Zack Britton, Chris Tillman and Erik Bedard. Guys who maybe weren't starting pitching material but was what they had at the time like Rodrigo Lopez and Jeremy Guthrie. 

Frustarting guys like Jake Arrieta and Kevin Gausman who you saw all the potential while they were here and then once they were no longer with the team it all came together.  Projects that didn't pan out like Brian Matsuz, Dylan Bundy, and Adam Loewen. Bad luck free agent signings like Alex Cobb, serviceable but not great like Pat Hentgen and head scratching one's like Ubaldo Jimenez. Not to mention the disaster of a signing this past off season in Charlie Morton.

Although 25 years have passed since Mussina left, and he and the team have mended fences. With Mussina entering the Oriole's hall of fame in 2012. He also entered the National Baseball Hall Of Fame in 2019, opting not to wear one team logo on the cap for his plaque as the only two teams he ever played for meant so much to his career. A nice gesture I guess, but nice to know he acknowledges how much he meant to the Oriole's and the Oriole's meant to him.

That doesn't mean, the Oriole's aren't still paying for the sins of how they let him leave. That can be the only logical explanation for why starting pitching continues to haunt the team to this day.