They had a chance to add some good vibes this weekend and overall they failed.
Hello, friends.
There’s one ongoing story of the 2025 Orioles season and it’s this: They refuse to do anything that might actually let anybody feel good about them for any length of time. This manifests in a wide variety of ways that would be impressive if they weren’t, you know, our favorite baseball team.
The just-concluded weekend series against the Royals was an improbable bit of failure in the way that they kept giving up home runs against a team that had, until yesterday, really, really stunk at hitting home runs. Instead, the Orioles got whipped by Kansas City, dropping an 11-6 game where they allowed the Royals to set a new franchise record with home runs in a single game. Seven home runs! Check out Tyler Young’s recap of the game for more of the not-so-lovely totals.
This weekend was an opportunity for the Orioles to actually sustain some good vibes, following on the heels of last week’s series victory against the Yankees. It looked like they might just be able to do it, too, after winning the opener on Friday night. Then they got shut out by a pair of lefties on Saturday, wasting a gutty rain-interrupted start by Tomoyuki Sugano, and on Sunday, they wasted an uncommonly strong effort by the offense by having the pitching completely stink.
The one thing that the Orioles couldn’t manage to do was hit home runs with any men on base. Four home runs in a game is cool, and it’s good that Jackson Holliday had separate homers to left field and right field. Yet even with that, the team went 1-10 with runners in scoring position and they blew a lot of opportunities. With modestly competent pitching, it might have gone differently. Then even the til-now good relievers laid enough of an egg that the bad relievers were summoned and they were bad too.
The Orioles are back down to a season-worst seven games below .500 at 13-20. A lot of baseball games remain, but the math gets tougher the longer they kick around near the bottom. At this point, just to reach the 86-win threshold that was good enough for an AL wild card a year ago, they’d have to go 73-56 the rest of the way. That’s a 92-win pace over a full season. Maybe 86 won’t be enough, and they’ll need an even better pace. It’s hard to believe in that happening until the twin problems of the starting rotation and the substantial underperformance of so many hitters are resolved.
Here’s some good news: The Orioles won’t lose today. They’ve got the day off to accommodate travel from Baltimore to Minneapolis, where they will play the Twins starting tomorrow night. Do the best that you can to do something other than spend all day angsting about the O’s. That’s for my sake as much as yours because the flood of miserable comments aren’t fun.
Orioles things you might have missed
Adley meets Bradley: 4-year-old superfan, viral on TikTok, introduced to Rutschman (Orioles.com)
I’m honestly a little bit envious of the four-year-old fan who has absolutely no possible way to contextualize how bad the Orioles are.
Injury timelines for all of the MLB-leading 14 Orioles players on the injured list (The Baltimore Sun)
The Orioles need some of these guys more than others, and some will be returning sooner than others. The overlap of those two circles may help influence how good (or bad) their May record ends up. Good news: Zach Eflin had a rehab start with Aberdeen yesterday and maybe it will be the only one that he needs.
Maybe Mayo can make the Orioles more competitive against lefties (School of Roch)
Two games and a handful of plate appearances into his 2025 season, this hope has not yet been validated.
Birthdays and Orioles anniversaries
Today in 2021, John Means threw his no-hitter against the Mariners, a 6-0 Orioles victory. As the only thing stopping him from a perfect game was Pedro Severino dropping a third strike and allowing a runner to reach base, it was unique even among no-nos. This halted a solo no-hitter drought for the franchise that had dated to Jim Palmer’s 1969 no-hitter.
One lone former Oriole was born on this day. Happy 31st birthday to Beau Sulser, brother of another former Oriole, Cole. Beau pitched in six games for the 2022 O’s.
Is today your birthday? Happy birthday to you! Your birthday buddies for today include: philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813), world-traveling journalist Nellie Bly (1864), actor Henry Cavill (1983), and singer-songwriter Adele (1988).
On this day in history…
In 1789, the Estates-General of France convened after being summoned by King Louis XVI, the first time this body had been called since 1614. Things didn’t go how the king expected and this proved to be a precursor to the French Revolution.
In 1821, the former French emperor Napoleon, who came to power as part of the chaos surrounding that revolution, died after about six years of exile on the island of Saint Helena in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
In 1862, an outnumbered Mexican force led by Ignacio Zaragoza defeated the invading French in the Battle of Puebla. This victory is what is celebrated in the Cinco de Mayo holiday.
In 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American to travel into space with his Mercury-Redstone 3 mission, which lasted for 15 minutes and 28 seconds.
**
And that’s the way it is in Birdland on May 5. Have a safe Monday.