The 2026 Orioles still have a pulse, faint as it might be.
A three-game road sweep of the New York Mets left Pete Alonso and Baltimore 2 1/2 games out of the final wild-card spot entering Thursday’s off-day. With nine games to play, the Orioles hold a playoff probability in the neighborhood of 5% to 6%, according to the likes of FanGraphs, Baseball Reference, and ESPN. If nothing else, Craig Albernaz’s club has mastered the art of doing just enough to keep your attention — even after so many crushing setbacks throughout the season.
Credit Alonso, Coby Mayo, and the surprising Christian Encarnacion-Strand for carrying this offense in September, which was again on display at Citi Field. As an aside, Mets players had to feel shellshocked over their own fans cheering for Alonso to the point of rooting against them during the series, but credit Baltimore for taking advantage of the odd atmosphere and New York’s deficiencies.
If the Orioles somehow were to pull this off, they’ll earn it — relatively speaking in this lousy American League anyway — playing the toughest remaining schedule of the six clubs still vying for a division title or the final wild-card spot. Just two of those teams — Cleveland and Chicago — are barely above .500 in “the race of the undead.”
As we’ve said for months, none of these teams are any good, making this feel more like those last couple playoff spots gifted in the NBA or NHL than any kind of real accomplishment. That the Orioles are still on the outside looking in with the bar being this low speaks to how incredibly underwhelming this all is.
If you’re looking for some optimism, however, the Orioles own tiebreakers over the two teams — the White Sox and Houston — currently scuffling the most out of the aforementioned group of six. In contrast, the Guardians and Texas already own tiebreakers over Baltimore, meaning those are the preferable division winners if you’re the Orioles.
This weekend, Baltimore will host the best team in baseball in Milwaukee, who’s still trying to hold off the Los Angeles Dodgers for the National League’s No. 1 seed and home-field advantage. If the Orioles somehow manage to hold their own or better against the Brewers, they’ll host fellow wild-card hopeful Toronto and need a sweep of the Blue Jays to gain the tiebreaker advantage. Baltimore then finishes in the Bronx against a team that may not have much for which to play unless the Yankees do heavy damage against AL East-leading Tampa Bay in a four-game set early next week.
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Anything less than a 7-2 finish with some well-placed help seems very unlikely to cut it.
Even if you’d genuinely like to believe in a team that’s done so little to justify such confidence, the chances remain bleak. But stranger things have happened this time of year. Just ask last year’s Guardians.
It also reminds just how many opportunities have slipped through the Orioles’ fingers over the course of the 2026 season. Even an additional victory or two from all the winnable games and series they’ve squandered would be enormous to their postseason hopes at the moment. A few more than that, and the Orioles would already be trying to set up their postseason rotation.
Remember that 10-4 stretch from late May into early June? Baltimore won one of the next eight series thereafter.
The seven-game winning streak wrapped around the All-Star break? The Orioles dropped three of their next four three-game sets, which led to president of baseball operations Mike Elias selling at the trade deadline.
Those two impressive near-sweeps of the Rays in mid-August? Baltimore was swept by the Yankees at Camden Yards in between.
Of course, the very likely fatal blow was finally getting back to .500 with Colton Cowser’s miraculous catch in Colorado on Aug. 31 when the Orioles were suddenly the talk of baseball. They celebrated by immediately losing a season-worst six in a row. That started with two losses to a Rockies team that’s won a total of two(!) games since then.
8Every time the Orioles have dared you to start buying in, they’ve immediately fallen back down the mountain of mediocrity. But these are the failures of a sub-.500 team that would already be out of it and playing out the string in a typical season in the AL.
No, this isn’t anything close to what Elias was selling to the fanbase years ago, and whatever happens over these final 10 days doesn’t change that.
Disappointing Holliday season
One of the few silver linings at the time of the trade deadline sell-off was Jackson Holliday coming off the best month of his career with a .368/.500/.421 slash line in July.
The 22-year-old seemed to finally be past the effects of the right hamate bone fracture that cost him all of spring training and the first eight weeks of the season, so Holliday finishing 2026 on a high note would have boosted morale going into an otherwise uncomfortable offseason. Instead, his season likely came to an end Wednesday with the Orioles placing him on the 10-day injured list with left wrist inflammation, capping a poor finish to his 2026.
Beginning Aug. 1, Holliday produced a .196/.224/.278 slash line and walked just six times over his final 166 plate appearances. He had miscues in the field and on the bases that contributed to critical losses and even called into question his baseball pedigree despite being around the major league game his entire life as the son of seven-time All-Star outfielder Matt Holliday.
With now more than 1,200 major league plate appearances under his belt, Holliday owns a very underwhelming .229/.300/.354 slash line. Other than his speed and chase rate, the Statcast data doesn’t look all that promising either.
8No, this isn’t about having unfair expectations for a 22-year-old to be a league MVP or even an All-Star second baseman at this early stage of his career, especially in the wake of the hamate injury. But have we seen enough flashes that Holliday is going to blossom into anything more than an OK ballplayer?
Even throughout an incredibly disappointing 2026 season, Gunnar Henderson still displays the traits that helped make him the 2023 AL Rookie of the Year and an All-Star shortstop and MVP candidate the following season. Unfortunately, such flashes are few and far between for someone who was the first overall pick in the 2022 draft.
With Henderson at a career crossroads and carrying just two more years of club control and Holliday’s ceiling remaining a real question now three years into his major league career, this winter could prove to be an interesting one for two individuals once thought to be long-term pillars for this organization.
