Yet another ugly loss in this nightmare of a season for the Baltimore Orioles.
Make it six losses in a row. Zach Eflin turned in a rare poor start and the Orioles suffered yet another blowout loss. This time it was a 10-4 defeat at the hands of the visiting Nationals to clinch a second straight series sweep.
This was your standard 2025 Orioles loss. The starting pitcher was bad. The offense relied almost entirely on home runs to score. And the team lost by a lot. Not a playoff formula, eh?
One unique part of this loss was the specific pitcher that struggled. Zach Eflin has been one of the few sure things on the Orioles pitching staff dating back to last July. He entered the day with a 2.76 ERA as an Oriole over 13 starts, and had never allowed more than three runs in any one outing. That made today’s performance his worst—by far—in an Orioles uniform.
Home runs were the issue for Eflin. He gave up four of them, and that started on the very first pitch of the game.
Eflin tossed an 89 mph cutter towards home plate to begin the game, and CJ Abrams blasted it onto the flag court in right field for an immediate 1-0 deficit.
In the second inning, Eflin was ambushed yet again, this time on the second pitch of the frame. Luis García Jr. launched an 87 mph changeup for another solo shot and a 2-0 advantage for the visiting Nationals. He would be followed later in the inning by a three-run shot from Dylan Crews, and then another one-run dong for Abrams. Keibert Ruiz drove in the final run of the inning with an RBI single to score James Wood and make it 7-0.
To Eflin’s credit, he did stick around long enough to eat innings and save the Orioles bullpen, who have had a long weekend. He gave up his eighth run of the afternoon in the fourth inning, and stayed in to toss 5.2 innings in total. The poor outing exploded Eflin’s season ERA from 3.13 to 5.08. Man, even this team’s “good” pitchers stink on paper now.
From the third inning on, the Orioles actually outscored the Nationals, 4-3. Unfortunately, runs scored in the first three innings count just as much as those scored later, so it was a loss just the same.
The Orioles offense on the day consisted of little besides solo home runs. Cedric Mullins hit his ninth homer of the season in the fifth inning. Gunnar Henderson went deep for the seventh time in the sixth inning. And Jackson Holliday smacked his sixth long ball of the year in the seventh inning.
Mullins also had a hand in the O’s only non-home run RBI. In the sixth inning he doubled in Ryan O’Hearn, who had doubled himself earlier in the frame.
The closest the Orioles ever got was an 8-4 gap going into the eighth inning. But the bullpen couldn’t hold things further. Bryan Baker gave up a solo homer in the eighth. Kade Strowd made his debut in the ninth, and also gave up a run to give us the 10-4 final score line.
Here’s the good news: I have Abrams on my fantasy team. That kind of performance on a Sunday is huge for me. It’s a matchup changer.
On the Orioles side of things, it’s good to see Holliday stay hot like this. Even if the season continues to nosedive, they need him to be the sort of star he was projected to be. Between him and Henderson, they should at least have the top of the order sorted out moving forward.
Strowd’s debut was interesting to see. He threw the hardest pitch of the game (97.6 mph) and forced five whiffs on just 15 swings. His 7.47 ERA down in Triple-A this season does not instill a ton of confidence, but the 27-year-old has an intriguing repertoire. We are grasping at straws lately, folks. We will take “interesting” over just about everything else we have watched for two months.
There isn’t much else to take away here. This team is bad. Bad teams lose games like this, and they lose a lot. The Orioles are checking all of those boxes.
The next stop for the Birds is Milwaukee. They start a three-game set with the Brewers on Monday night at 7:40. Dean Kremer (3-5, 5.36 ERA) starts against Quinn Priester (1-2, 4.59 ERA). Tune in! Or don’t. I do not blame you if there are better things to do with your time.