The Orioles spent too much of this season finding new ways to lose.
That was the frustrating theme running through a long, messy year: errors, strikeouts, blown chances and the occasional full-scale collapse. In a wide-open American League, those losses loomed even larger.
The door was there. Baltimore just kept kicking it shut on itself.
Infielder Jackson Holliday put it plainly: “For a little bit, we would just find ways to kind of lose games,” he said, “whether it was a stupid error or dropped pop-up, dumb things that can’t happen when you’re trying to win games.”
This isn’t every painful moment, not even close. But these 10 games stood out as the ones that kept coming back to mind, the ones that felt like they could have changed the season if Baltimore had simply made the routine play, gotten the big hit or avoided the one inning that blew everything open.
The first one came quickly, on April 4 in a 3-2 loss to the Pirates. The Orioles had spent the offseason and spring talking about defensive sharpness, then opened the year with the kind of mistake they were trying to eliminate.
With a runner on third in the eighth, Anthony Nunez failed to handle a dribbler to the left of the mound. That error let the tying run score, and Ryan Helsley later gave up the walk-off hit in the ninth.
A few weeks later, on April 25, the Orioles were buried 17-1 by the Red Sox. Trevor Rogers couldn’t get out of the second inning, Baltimore committed two errors that led to four unearned runs off Albert Suárez, and Boston turned the game into a rout with a 10-run ninth against Keegan Akin and infielder Weston Wilson. The final margin was 16 runs, and it came in front of one of the biggest home crowds of the season.
May brought another gut punch. On May 4, the Orioles fell 12-1 to the Yankees to finish a sweep in New York, and the loss felt like a turning point in all the worst ways.
Lou Trivino gave up six runs in the eighth, with Wilson finishing the inning, but the game had already gone bad before that. It was the kind of defeat that deepened the sense that Baltimore was swimming upstream and never really found the shoreline again.
Then came the sort of loss that sticks because it was so close. On May 7 against the Marlins, the Orioles were one out from extra innings when Andrew Kittredge got the ground ball he needed.
Coby Mayo then threw it away, and Miami walked it off. Mayo has since become a capable hitter and shown defensive improvement, but this one still landed as a “gut punch,” as manager Craig Albernaz called it.
The game against the Blue Jays brought one of the strangest sequences of the year. Gunnar Henderson booted a ball, then Ernie Clement seemed to leave the baseline while trying to avoid Henderson’s tag.
The umpiring crew ruled Clement had not left the baseline, and the Orioles unraveled after that. Crew chief Hunter Wendelstedt explained it this way: “It actually is a very gentlemanly thing to do.
He was getting out of the way to allow the fielder to make the play towards first base.”
On June 19, Baltimore lost 6-5 to the Dodgers in a more ordinary but no less painful way. Trey Gibson kept Los Angeles in check, and the Orioles had chances but stranded two runners while scoring only three runs.
Then Ryan Helsley blew the save, giving up a game-tying homer to Mookie Betts with one out in the ninth. After that, he walked two batters, the first came around to score on a single to Tyler O’Neill, and O’Neill’s throw home to Samuel Basallo got away for the game-ending error.
Five days later, the Orioles found a way to make things even uglier. In a 7-6 loss to the Angels on June 24, Nolan Schanuel hit a ground ball that looked like it should have ended the game.
Jeremiah Jackson fielded it cleanly, but Pete Alonso was too far from the bag. Akin, sprinting over to cover, couldn’t handle the toss.
The ball kicked down the line, Schanuel reached third, and Baltimore later lost on a dribbler down the third-base line. It was hard not to shake your head at how much went wrong in such a short span.
The Red Sox showed up again later with another one that fit the season’s script. Baltimore committed four errors in a walk-off loss, and Jackson’s view of it summed up the problem: “That’s a game we could have won, and probably should have.” The Orioles and Red Sox traded runs, but only three of Boston’s six runs were earned.
The September stretch hurt because of where the team was and how close it had been. On Sept. 1, after Colton Cowser’s remarkable game-saving catch helped get Baltimore to .500 at 69-69 for the first time since April 24, the Orioles were still hanging around the playoff race.
Then Holliday tied the game in the seventh against the Rockies, only to drop a pop-up in the bottom half with rookie Luis De León making his major league debut on the mound. Two batters later, TJ Rumfield hit a hanging slider for a homer, and the Orioles never got back on track.
Instead of extending a winning streak to five, they dropped six straight.
Three days later, the Red Sox dealt another blow. On Sept.
6, Baltimore tried to avoid a sweep and stay connected to the wild-card chase. Christian Encarnacion-Strand doubled in a first-inning run, but Henderson’s two-out error in the second opened the door for Eli White’s three-run homer on the next pitch.
Kyle Bradish and the bullpen held up after that, but the Orioles managed only three more baserunners and struck out a season-high 17 times.
That was the story too often: one mistake, then another, then another. And by the end, the season had slipped away on exactly the kind of nights Baltimore kept creating for itself.
In Other News...
Orioles Doubleheader Featured A Baseball First Few Fans Ever Expected
A quirky bit of baseball history unfolded at Camden Yards during the Blue Jays-Orioles doubleheader, when identical twins Austin and Tyler Jones became the first twins to work the same umpiring crew in a Major League Baseball game. The siblings have shared crews before in the minors, but this was their first time doing it on the sports biggest stage, a rare pairing that gave an ordinary April doubleheader a little extra texture.
Their families were there to see it, which made the moment feel even more personal in a setting usually defined by routine calls and fast pacing. For the Jones brothers, it was clearly more than a scheduling oddity, and for everyone in the park, it was the kind of baseball-first detail that tends to stick with you long after the final out. [Read more 🡒]
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Just Gave Orioles Fans More To Say About Toronto
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has made himself a familiar talking point in Baltimore over the years, and his latest comments only give Orioles fans more reason to keep one eye on Toronto. Speaking about his down season, Guerrero said his contract was built on what he had already done, not on a promise about what was still ahead, a reminder of how much weight follows a player with that kind of profile and expectation.
Guerrero did express regret about how this year unfolded, but he stood by the original remark and framed the whole situation as part of the pressure that comes with a major deal. He also said he is continuing to work hard to get better for next season, leaving the Blue Jays star with one more layer of scrutiny as Baltimore keeps tracking every turn in the division race. [Read more 🡒]
Orioles Fans Sent A Clear Message Despite One Worry Looming
The Orioles final home game of the season still drew a reminder of how quickly the mood around Camden Yards can shift. A rainout the day before left the stands thinner than usual for the doubleheader opener, but the second game brought back the kind of energy Baltimore fans have shown all year, with the crowd sounding more like a team still in the hunt than one wrapping up the calendar.
Pete Alonso also had the larger picture on his mind, even as the Orioles finished out their home schedule. With the leagues labor deal set to expire in December, there is already some worry about what comes next, though Alonso said he hopes negotiations are resolved without any games being lost, pointing back to the 2022 lockout as a warning sign. Craig Albernaz, meanwhile, noticed the support from the stands and had reason to appreciate it, even with the uncertainty hanging over the sport. [Read more 🡒]