Why are Orioles weak on fundamentals? | MAILBAG

Question: What would be interesting is an assessment of why this team isn’t doing the fundamentals day in and day out? Another interesting topic would be a granular look at how many games this team has lost because of fundamental and fielding mistakes. From: Ripley Watson

Answer: Rip, I got another question about fundamentals from Paul Greenwell, who also wonders about the lack of teaching.

It’s frustrating for fans to watch poor fundamental play, and it’s also frustrating for me to watch it. The Orioles do teach fundamentals. They drilled players incessantly in spring training, and I watched them work on fundamental drills before a game last week.

But there’s a big difference between drills and games.

It’s not just the Orioles who are sometimes weak in fundamentals. Other teams are failing, and there are many reasons for it.

Some players are so good in high school and college that they never worked on bunting. If they’re batting .600 in high school and .300 in college, they’ll never bunt.

With fewer minor league teams than there were before the pandemic, players are often rushed through systems with less time spent on teaching.

I don’t know how many games have been lost on poor fundamentals, but entering Sunday’s game, the Orioles had committed the eighth-most errors in baseball. Their 11 runners picked off were tied for the fifth highest in baseball, and their 27 runners out while running the bases were tied for ninth highest.

Most weekdays, I’ll be answering at least one Orioles question. If you’d like to submit a question, send it to: Rich@BaltimoreBaseball.com. Questions may be edited for clarity, length and style.