Last men standing from the Orioles’ Opening Day roster

There has been a massive amount of turnover on the Orioles since the start of the season. As we all know, a lot of the players from the original 25-man roster were traded around midseason, including Manny Machado, Zach Britton, Jonathan Schoop, Kevin Gausman, Brad Brach and Darren O’Day. A few others suffered serious injury that effectively ended their seasons, like Pedro Araujo and Richard Bleier.

Only 11 players currently remain from the Opening Day 25-man roster. That number goes down to 10 if you exclude injured starting pitcher Andrew Cashner, who technically remains active because of expanded September rosters. The total dwindles to eight when you remove Chance Sisco and Caleb Joseph from that group, considering the fact that each spent a significant amount of time in the minor leagues this year.

Discounting Tim Beckham, since he missed a great deal of time due to surgery, leaves seven players. And pitcher Alex Cobb is not in the aforementioned group of last men standing because he started the year in the minors and is currently shelved with a blister issue.

That leaves only four pitchers and three hitters who have played the entire season, start to finish, without missing any significant time. Now we’ll take a quick look at how this small group of players fared in the second half of the season compared to the first half.

Dylan Bundy

Although Dylan Bundy spent a brief stint on the disabled list over the summer, he has still managed to make 30 starts as of September 27. In a year when many were hoping Bundy would take that next step towards becoming a dominant pitcher, the results just haven’t been there.

Bundy’s second half has been much more disappointing than his first half was. In 12 starts since the All-Star break, the right-hander is 2-7 with a 7.36 ERA and 1.60 WHIP. The first half of the season, Bundy was solid if unspectacular, pitching to a 4.35 ERA but still racking up the losses with a 6-9 record in 18 games started.

Miguel Castro

Reliever Miguel Castro has experienced a slight drop-off from the first half to the second. Pre All-Star break, he had a 3.54 ERA in 56 innings, but since then, he has a 4.75 ERA in 30.1 innings.

Castro has also allowed twice as many home runs (6) in the second half than he did in the first half (3), in almost half the number of innings pitched. His opponent’s batting average also increased from .218 in the first half of the season to .267 in the second half.

Mychal Givens

Current Orioles closer Mychal Givens has shown improvement as the season has progressed, but has still not performed as well as many hoped he would when the season began. He was 0-6 with a 4.28 ERA, 1.38 WHIP and 10.2 strikeouts per nine innings before the All-Star break. That strikeout number has decreased to 7.5 in the second half while most of his other numbers have improved.

He has a 3.91 ERA and 8 saves since inheriting the closer role from Zach Britton midseason. His WHIP has been 0.94 since that time. Although his strikeouts per nine have decreased from half to half, his strikeout-to-walk ratio has improved from 2.39 in the first half to 3.00 in the second half.

Mike Wright Jr.

Reliever Mike Wright Jr. is arguably one of the biggest surprises on this list of last men standing, just because he wasn’t even a lock to travel north with the team from spring training. Yet here he is, carrying a bloated 6.75 ERA, 1.50 WHIP and five home runs allowed in 29.1 innings since the All-Star break.

In 52 innings before the All-Star break, Wright was only slightly better, with an earned run average approaching 5.00. He had a 4.85 ERA, 1.69 WHIP and six home runs allowed in 52 innings.

Chris Davis

There’s not much to say about Chris Davis that hasn’t already been said. On pace for possibly the worst season in modern baseball history, Davis’ season half splits look like this: .158/.232/.274 pre All-Star break and .185/.261/.331 post All-Star break. He had nine home runs and 28 RBI before the midsummer classic and seven home runs and 21 RBI since.

Adam Jones

Outfielder and team leader Adam Jones has posted a typically solid season at the plate, even though the counting stats like home runs and RBI are a bit down from his career norms. He has 10 home runs and 36 RBI in 378 first half at-bats while slashing .275/.299/.423.

His average and on-base percentage experienced a boost in the second half while his slugging dipped a bit, which came out to a .289/.330/.406 batting line in that time. He has hit five home runs and driven in 25 runs in 180 at-bats since the All-Star game.

Trey Mancini

Sophomore slugger Trey Mancini had a poor start to the year, hitting only .216/.292/.363 in the first half of the season. He batting line has been much improved in the second half though, checking in at .278/.310/.487. His power and run production numbers have been almost exactly the same from half to half though, with 12 home runs 26 RBI before the All-Star break versus 11 home runs and 27 RBI after.