The Orioles were outclassed in the Bronx over the weekend and are flirting with having their season spiral out of control before Memorial Day for a second straight year.
After losing three straight games to the first-place New York Yankees, they enter Monday a season-worst four games under .500 and sport the worst run differential in the American League despite playing a relatively forgiving schedule to this point. Baltimore ranks 27th in team ERA (4.79) with the bullpen (4.58) rapidly catching up to the starting rotation (4.95) in terms of ineffectiveness. Despite an offseason of hype and excitement, the offense remains closer to painfully mediocre than elite. And your eyes don’t need any metrics to evaluate a horrid defense that makes the routine plays look tough and the tough plays look impossible.
For as often as the Orioles — from top to bottom — mention how talented they are, poor fundamentals continue to make them a difficult watch on a nightly basis. “Talent” is supposed to show up at some point, isn’t it?
It was three weeks ago that the Orioles erased a six-run deficit for a 9-7 win over Arizona on the night a Jeremiah Jackson liner into the dugout struck first-year manager Craig Albernaz in the face. The vibes of that comeback victory reminded of 2023 and led fans to hope it would serve as a galvanizing moment for a club needing to get off to a good start to put 2025 behind it. Instead, the Orioles have gone 6-12 since that night.
“For me, it’s at a crucial point where, ‘What team do we want to be? We can fold up and just think that everything will turn around just by itself, or we’ve got to put the work in and really make this happen,’” Albernaz told reporters at Yankee Stadium after Sunday’s 11-3 loss. “I feel with those guys in the clubhouse, I feel it’ll be the latter. These guys will put the work in, and we’ll be better as the season goes on.”
We’ll see.
The injuries continue piling up and remain a significant reason for the struggles, but when do we stop chalking that up to bad luck and seriously question why this organization’s strength and conditioning and training staffs show so little success in keeping players on the field and nursing them back to good health in a timely manner?
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Injuries don’t explain why Gunnar Henderson sports a .275 on-base percentage and is striking out more than ever, Pete Alonso only elevated his OPS above .700 this past week, and most of the talented young position core™ continues to make fans wonder why it was so critical to suffer through multiple seasons of tanking to draft these guys. The absence of starting pitchers Zach Eflin and Dean Kremer has hurt, but Shane Baz’s 4.50 ERA being the best of the healthy rotation members says it all about the rotation.
If one thing has become clear a year later, ex-manager Brandon Hyde wasn’t close to being the Orioles’ biggest problem. That’s not to say Albernaz and a revamped coaching staff are absolved from any blame or questioning, but one has no choice but to look higher in the organizational pecking order with the same problems persisting.
What is president of baseball operations Mike Elias going to do about this?
If there were ever a time for a roster shakeup, this is it. Demote a player or two. Make a trade for a decent third baseman or an outfielder. Do something that gets the attention of both your clubhouse and fan base to signal that none of this has been good enough.
Infielder Coby Mayo continues to be below replacement level at the plate and in the field, and a pair of mental lapses defensively in Sunday’s defeat looked like an opportunity for the organization to send a message. Utility man Blaze Alexander may not be any better with the bat in the meantime, but he’ll play better defense at third base, which will help a struggling pitching staff.
Outfielder Colton Cowser has looked lost at the plate since spring training. If an organization that doesn’t prioritize defense isn’t going to utilize his above-average skill in that area, why wouldn’t a trip to the minors to try to fix his swing and rebuild his confidence be in order rather than having him rot on the bench? If the Yankees could demote 2024 AL Rookie of the Year Luis Gil recently, the Orioles can certainly send that year’s runner-up to the minors.
8When is Tyler O’Neill going to show signs that the three-year, $49.5 million deal he signed two winters ago is anything but a sunk cost? The man signed primarily to mash left-handed pitching hasn’t done any of that since arriving in Baltimore.
No, the alternatives at Triple-A Norfolk don’t look appealing, but that’s not really the point. Players aren’t on scholarship. As Buck Showalter would bluntly say, this is the big leagues.
The Orioles have gone 128-146 since July 1, 2024, which amounts to just over a 75-win pace for close to two calendar years now. Many of the players from that 101-win club from 2023 are gone now, and what remains continues to look nothing like a playoff-caliber product about which to be excited.
Is there going to be any accountability and urgency from this organization?
Or are we content to “think that everything will turn around just by itself” soon?
