Last year was something of a tale of two seasons for Orioles outfielder Colton Cowser. There was the regular season, when he would have been the AL Rookie of the Year if the voters for that award had been paying attention to the season. Then there was the postseason, in which Cowser, batting with the bases loaded, struck out swinging at a pitch that hit him and broke his hand. Failure in baseball doesn’t get much worse than that.
The postseason failure was not exactly an unrepresentative experience for Cowser. In crucial batting situations in the 2024 season, he performed at a lower level than he did the rest of the time.