Baltimore’s long baseball nightmare is far from over.
Another postseason sweep, an underwhelming offseason, an awful April and an even worse May all primed this powder keg ahead of its explosion this weekend at Camden Yards. Sunday’s 10-4 loss to the Nationals — the Orioles’ sixth straight and second of the post-Brandon Hyde era — capped off the worst week of Baltimore baseball since the rebuild.
The Orioles are engulfed in quicksand, too weak or too sullen to climb out. For the team, its fans and this city, there is no waking up from this scary dream. This is just reality:
The Orioles are 15-30 and one of the worst teams in Major League Baseball.
For the second straight contest since Baltimore fired Hyde as its manager Saturday, the Orioles came out lifeless and sustained a large early deficit.
Saturday, Kyle Gibson surrendered six runs in the first inning, a fitting opening as the veteran righty (who was designated for assignment Sunday) was a representation of the failure that was the Orioles’ offseason. Sunday, Zach Eflin allowed seven runs in the first two frames — a surprise from a pitcher who had been one of the lone sources of consistency this season — as the announced 37,264 fans watched befuddled, wondering what happened to their favorite team.
When Hyde was fired on Preakness Day, it showed just how much has changed in only a few years. Three Preaknesses prior, the rebuilding Orioles called up Adley Rutschman to make his MLB debut, injecting optimism in a starved fan base and life into a struggling ballclub. Rutschman’s debut is retrospectively seen as the day the rebuild ended.
From that point through the 2024 season, the Orioles won about 58% of their games with three straight winning seasons and two consecutive playoff appearances. Across the span of 153 series, the Orioles were swept only three times. They’ve now been swept in four of its past seven series. This six-game losing streak is Baltimore’s longest since, of course, the two series preceding Rutschman’s debut.
To open Sunday’s matinee, the Nationals wasted no time showing they’re the big brother in this rivalry — at least this year. On the first pitch from Eflin, Nationals shortstop CJ Abrams launched a solo homer to right field. Three more Nats smacked long balls in the second: a solo shot from Luis García Jr., a three-run blast from Dylan Crews and another solo bomb from Abrams. Keibert Ruiz’s RBI single capped off the frame’s scoring. Josh Bell homered off Bryan Baker in the eighth, while James Wood hit an RBI single off Kade Strowd, a reliever making his MLB debut, in the ninth.
Eflin made it through 5 1/3 innings, allowing another run on a sacrifice fly by Wood. The eight earned runs allowed tie a career-high for Eflin, which he first set in May 2017 when he was a 23-year-old with the Philadelphia Phillies.
Like Saturday, when the Orioles’ offense came to life in the later innings, Baltimore was able to provide some offense Sunday. The rotation has been this team’s biggest issue, but the lineup isn’t far behind.
Cedric Mullins smacked a solo homer — his ninth of the season — in the fifth and then hit an RBI double in the sixth. Gunnar Henderson launched his seventh homer of the year in the sixth, while Jackson Holliday continued his second-year breakout with a solo homer in the seventh.
This article will be updated. Have a news tip? Contact Jacob Calvin Meyer at jameyer@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/JCalvinMeyer.
