The Orioles didn’t just lose again on Sunday. They spent the final game of their four-game set against Boston looking every bit like a team running on fumes, then walked off Camden Yards with a 3-1 defeat and a sixth straight loss.
Baltimore scored only once across the final three games of the series, and the Red Sox completed the sweep after back-to-back shutouts by scores of 1-0 and 5-0. The Orioles have now dropped six in a row since getting back to .500 at 69-75, and the offensive drought has become impossible to ignore. They’ve driven in eight runs in the first six innings of their last seven games, and they’ve scored 15 runs in their last 56 innings.
Craig Albernaz didn’t sugarcoat the situation after the game.
“Of all the blows we’ve taken this year,” said Albernaz, “this is by far the biggest … We have to move on and get ready for Cleveland coming in.”
Boston’s Payton Tolle had the Orioles chasing all afternoon. He struck out 12 over six innings, and Baltimore never really forced him into trouble. The only spark came in the first inning, when Coby Mayo and Christian Encarnacion-Strand hit back-to-back doubles to finally break an 18-inning scoreless stretch in the series.
“He’s going to shove the fastball down your throat,” Albernaz said of Tolle, “and you’ve got to be ready for it … We couldn’t get anything going against him, or pretty much all series.”
That was the story again: not enough traffic on the bases, not enough pressure on the pitcher, not enough offense to cover for the mistakes behind it. Baltimore’s strikeout issues were front and center once more, and the team’s approach never really changed.
The defense hurt them, too. Albernaz moved Gunnar Henderson back to fifth in the lineup, but he kept him at shortstop, where Henderson booted a backhand chance in the second inning with two outs. Kyle Bradish then left a slider over the plate to Eli White, who launched a three-run homer.
"Gunnar makes that play all the time," the manager said.
Henderson’s error was his 16th, and the Orioles kept adding to their MLB lead in unearned runs. They also had a rough moment on the bases when Luis Robert Jr., recently claimed off waivers, was placed on the Injured List with a hamstring issue that likely ends his brief run with the club. Rece Hinds got more at-bats as the latest AAAA player to be pushed into the mix during the rebuild, and he at least gave Baltimore a leadoff double in the fifth before being picked off second by former Orioles catcher Adley Rutschman.
Bradish’s afternoon was shaky from the start. He lasted four innings, walked four, threw 85 pitches to get 12 outs and did not get much swing and miss. It was the second straight reminder that his command has slipped, and Albernaz made the call to pull him before he could go back out.
"I couldn’t let him go back out with the pitch count," Albernaz said.
Bradish has now failed to complete five innings in five of his last eight starts, and Baltimore’s rotation, lineup and defense all showed their problems at once in a game that looked a lot like the rest of this series. The Orioles are now four games off the Wild Card pace, and the skid keeps getting uglier.
In Other News...
Orioles Late-Season Injury Picture Just Got More Complicated
The Orioles spent part of their series against the Guardians sorting through a late-season injury picture that keeps shifting around the edges. Keegan Akin and Ryan Mountcastle are both with the club, giving Baltimore at least a couple of familiar faces back in the mix, while the team also laid out where several others stand in their recoveries as the calendar keeps moving toward the finish.
Mountcastle will not play again this season because of an oblique injury, a reminder of how much attrition has worn on the roster, and the rehab updates do not bring a simple wave of reinforcements just yet. Luis Robert Jr. and Christian Franklin are working in Sarasota, Flix Bautista is at Triple-A Norfolk on assignment, and Kyle Bradish is being handled carefully after Tommy John surgery, with his workload watched closely as the Orioles keep managing one of the more complicated health charts on the board. [Read more 🡒]
Orioles Face Two Big Questions As Wild Card Push Gets Tighter
The Wild Card race has tightened enough that every little update matters, and Craig Albernaz had a familiar opponent in mind when he talked about the Orioles place in it. The Baltimore manager, who spent time on the Guardians coaching staff, knows how closely these two clubs are watching each other as the standings compress and the margin for error shrinks. For the Orioles, the late-season picture is being shaped not just by the schedule, but by the health of a roster that has had to juggle a few key moving parts.
Ryan Helsley, Tyler ONeill, Flix Bautista, Ryan Mountcastle, Keegan Akin, Luis Robert Jr. and Christian Franklin all figure into that evolving injury picture, and Baltimores recent stretch has made each of those updates feel more important. The club has been trying to keep pace while sorting through those absences and tracking its recent results, but with the Guardians right there in the mix, the bigger questions are starting to come into focus. How quickly those players can return, and how much they can help once they do, may decide just how long the Orioles stay in the hunt. [Read more 🡒]
Orioles Fans Just Got Another Brutal Reminder About This Rebuild
A rough week for the Orioles in Boston did not end with much comfort for anyone still tracking where this rebuild stands. The Red Sox completed a four-game sweep, and in the same stretch of bad news for Baltimore, former Orioles catcher Adley Rutschman was already making noise in his new home with Boston by leaving the yard against Angels pitcher Grayson Rodriguez, another familiar name to Baltimore fans.
Rodriguez, once a first-round pick the Orioles hoped would help anchor the next wave, is now with the Angels after being dealt last winter for outfielder Taylor Ward. His Baltimore exit followed a frustrating run of injuries and uneven performance, which only adds to the sting when ex-Orioles keep popping up in meaningful moments elsewhere. Baltimore did at least stop the bleeding with a win the same day, ending a six-game skid, but the bigger picture for fans remains hard to ignore. [Read more 🡒]