It’s early.

Baltimore fans understand that a baseball season lasts six months and there is plenty of time for the Orioles (8-11) to get into a rhythm after an uneven start. But three weeks into the season, many of the fans making the trip out to Camden Yards have seen some of their concerns about the club’s offseason come to fruition.

“It’s kind of disappointing,” said Michael Feciura, an Orioles fan from Gainesville, Virginia, who attended Saturday’s game against the Cincinnati Reds. “I was hoping for the best going in, but it’s kind of patchwork replacements that they, with respect to their free agent signings and all of that, kind of disappointing. But very early in the season, it kind of feels to me like they need to make a trade or something pretty soon to get some help in the starting rotation.”

The Orioles had a busy offseason. With outfielder Anthony Santander and ace starter Corbin Burnes hitting free agency, their front office led by executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias made a slew of signings including outfielder Tyler O’Neill (three years, $49.5 million), starters Charlie Morton (one year, $15 million) and Tomoyuki Sugano (one year, $13 million) as well as reliever Andrew Kittredge (one year, $10 million).

However, the void Burnes left atop their rotation was never filled, a fact Orioles fans lamented despite the team’s efforts to shore up its pitching depth. That depth has already been depleted with Grayson Rodriguez, Zach Eflin, Albert Suárez, Trevor Rogers and Chayce McDermott joining the elbow-surgery-recovering Kyle Bradish and Tyler Wells on the injured list.

“I feel like we’ve also kind of mismanaged free agency,” said Jimmy Harris from Eastern Maryland. “The Orioles have a decent amount of money to spend when it comes to free agency. So many guys out there this offseason, like Dylan Cease, Garrett Crochet, a bunch of other starters that we could have brought in, or at least made offers on, that could have been our ace this year. And that’s kind of been the main problem is starting pitching: bottom two in the league, 29th, the only team below us is the Colorado Rockies, and they’re 3-15 at this point.”

Baltimore didn’t make the big splash akin to the trade for Burnes the previous year. The club also has yet to sign any of its young stars such as Gunnar Henderson, Adley Rutschman or Jordan Westburg to long-term extensions, though Elias said Tuesday that the team is “working on” signing some of its core players to new deals.

“Gunnar Henderson absolutely has to be the No. 1 priority,” said Colin Baynard, also from Eastern Maryland. “There’s definitely potential in every single person on this roster, and being able to sort out who are the one or two that we’re able to sign to make us good long term so we don’t have to do another rebuild, I think that’s major. And that’s on the ownership and the GM to be able to figure that out, who that is.”

The Orioles have money to spend under owner David Rubenstein, who took over control of the franchise on opening day last season. In their first offseason with him cutting the checks, the Orioles’ payroll jumped from $92.9 million to $164.5 million — a 77% surge that stood as the largest year-over-year increase in MLB this winter.

With the team giving out a bobblehead of their new owner Saturday, fans expressed tepid optimism that Rubenstein has them headed in the right direction, even if they’re nervous about the club’s path to immediate success.

“I think obviously he’s much better than John Angelos,” Harris said. “Brings a different atmosphere for the park, a different feel for the team. I guess a lot more looseness when it comes to financials, which is why I said there were a lot of missed opportunities in free agency. He frees up a lot of money, gives us even more room to improve, but for whatever reason they didn’t capitalize on that.”

The consensus among the 10 fans who spoke to The Baltimore Sun on Saturday was that the rotation needs to be addressed, and not from the back end forward.

“Once they get that rhythm going, I think we could be pretty much in contention of getting into the playoffs,” said Brian Scott from Pasadena. “Right now, I don’t see them going any further in the playoffs if we don’t pick up an ace, because we did lose Burnes. So, you don’t have that ace sitting there that you can depend on after every four or five games. You know you got somebody that’s going to stabilize the situation.”

Have a news tip? Contact Matt Weyrich at mweyrich@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/ByMattWeyrich and instagram.com/bymattweyrich.