The Orioles’ 2026 season is officially on the shelf.
Last night, the White Sox beat the Royals in Kansas City, locked up a playoff berth, and mathematically knocked Baltimore out of wild card contention. The math finally caught up to what had been obvious for a long stretch: this team was never going to play its way into October.
That shouldn’t have been the script back in spring. The Orioles opened the year with hope after a miserable 2025, and they did it with Pete Alonso in the mix after signing him in the offseason.
Instead, the season has unraveled into the same ending as last year - no postseason, no late push, just another October spent watching from home. Alonso held up his end.
The rest of the roster did not.
The reasons are all over the place. Baltimore was sloppy in the field, shaky on the basics, and constantly dealing with injuries.
Craig Albernaz, a rookie manager, has looked overwhelmed. And perhaps most troubling of all, the Orioles’ homegrown hitters mostly either stalled out or took a step backward.
That points to a deeper problem inside the organization, one big enough to raise questions about the way talent is being developed. It’s enough, at least in the eyes of the source material here, to justify moving on from Mike Elias and bringing in a new general manager to rethink the whole operation.
But Elias recently said he expects to stay with the Orioles, and that he wants Craig Albernaz back too, which does not exactly inspire confidence that major changes are coming. The club has felt out of sync since mid-2024, and keeping the same voice in charge would be a bad bet.
What’s left now is a three-game set at Yankee Stadium to finish the year. The Orioles and Yankees are scheduled for a doubleheader today, with the first game at 4:05 and the second no earlier than 7:05.
Saturday has already been wiped out because of severe storms expected along the East Coast, and Sunday may also disappear entirely. None of it changes anything for Baltimore, and it doesn’t matter much for New York either, since the Yankees have already clinched the first wild card spot and will be using the weekend to get ready for the Wild Card Series on Tuesday.
So this is it: the last weekend of Orioles baseball in 2026. That may be a relief.
A few other Orioles notes surfaced around the season’s final stretch. The Baltimore Banner ran a piece on the Orioles beating themselves too many times, with a list of the most maddening examples.
BaltimoreBaseball.com asked whether the team should re-sign Trevor Rogers, and the answer in the source material was a firm yes. MLB Trade Rumors reported that the Orioles selected Albert Suarez, who is now in his sixth stint with the club this year.
There was also a quick Gunnar-related reminder that, well, if Gunnar says he can do it, then that’s all it takes, right?
And on this date in Orioles history, there’s a pair of moments worth noting. On Sept.
25, 1987, Baltimore dropped its seventh straight game, an 8-4 loss to the Yankees at Memorial Stadium. Don Mattingly hit a grand slam, Dave Winfield followed with a homer, and rookie starter José Mesa was charged with six runs in 1.2 innings in just his fourth big league appearance.
Mesa would go on to spend 20 more years in the majors and finish with 321 career saves.
On Sept. 25, 1983, the Orioles clinched the AL East with a 5-1 win in Milwaukee. Jim Dwyer’s three-run homer and Joe Nolan’s two-run shot gave Baltimore the early edge, and Storm Davis and Tippy Martinez handled the rest as the Orioles improved to 96-59 and punched their ticket to October.
There’s also the day in 2014 when Baltimore gave Derek Jeter a storybook finish at Yankee Stadium, allowing him to deliver a walkoff single in his final home game. The Orioles had already clinched a playoff spot, came back from three runs down in the ninth on homers by Adam Jones and Steve Pearce, then watched Evan Meek struggle through the bottom half before Jeter ended it with an opposite-field hit.
In Other News...
Orioles May Have Their Future Shortstop If One Question Holds Up
Wehiwa Aloy has moved quickly enough to make the Orioles think seriously about what comes next at shortstop. After being taken 31st overall in the 2025 draft, he put together a strong 2026 across High-A and Double-A, posting a .288/.358/.506 line with 25 home runs and earning the Brooks Robinson Minor League Player of the Year award in the organization. For a club that always seems to be balancing the present with the pipeline, that kind of production is the sort that gets attention.
The question now is less about whether Aloy can drive the ball than whether the rest of his game holds up well enough to keep him on a shortstop path. Strikeouts remain part of the evaluation, even as scouting reports point to a player who projects as at least an average defender at the position. If that defensive baseline proves real, the Orioles may have something more than a power-hitting prospect - they may have a long-term answer at one of the games most important spots. [Read more 🡒]
Pete Alonso Just Gave Orioles Fans A Reason To Twist The Knife
Pete Alonso is settling in with Baltimore in a way that would have been hard to imagine not long ago, and hes not shy about saying it. After the Mets decided not to bring him back, the franchises all-time home run leader signed a five-year deal with the Orioles and has been productive for his new club, even as the season has gone sideways for both teams.
Alonso recently said he believes he was always meant to be an Oriole, and he made a point of thanking Baltimore fans for sticking with him through a difficult year. For Orioles supporters, its the kind of comment that feels both flattering and just a little sharp, especially with the sting of missing the postseason still fresh and the sight of Alonso doing well in orange and black now impossible to ignore. [Read more 🡒]
Orioles Could Be Headed For A Painful Offseason Shakeup
The Orioles are already staring at a winter built around tough calls, with the roster carrying several players whose situations could quickly force the front offices hand. Pending free agents and arbitration-eligible pieces have put the club in a familiar spot for a team trying to balance immediate competitiveness with longer-term flexibility, and the names floating through that conversation underscore how much can change in a single offseason.
Chris Bassitt, Andrew Kittredge, Leody Taveras and Zach Eflin are all among the players viewed as likely to be on the move after the 2026 season, depending on performance, contract status and where Baltimore sees itself going next. None of that is a final verdict from the organization, of course, but it does frame the kind of shakeup that can catch a contender in between eras if the results and the spending dont line up just right. [Read more 🡒]