There are no silver linings from this game.
The Orioles still suck. Nothing has changed overnight. The players from yesterday are the same players as today. They were not good enough to win either of the two games played yesterday. They were not good enough to win today. They should be better than this. It is repeated daily and it is still true. They should be better than this, and they are not. They lost to the Twins on Thursday afternoon, a 4-0 defeat that seals an 0-6 season against the Twins.
Thursday’s loss sends the Orioles to 15-27 on the season. You have to go back to the end of the 2021 season to find a point where the O’s were 12 or more games below .500. That’s what it’s come to. All of the promise of this team was whatever it was before the season, and if they don’t make some kind of radical change in direction with their winning percentage, they will be spoken of in the same breath as the years of tanking losers. The O’s are now on pace for a 58-104 record. It was not supposed to be like this.
They did not hit again. Perhaps they cannot hit. How else does one explain getting worked over by Chris Paddack? Getting just six hits and one walk in the whole game, going 0-6 with runners in scoring position? Scoring ZERO runs across three games against the Twins bullpen? This is pathetic stuff that is happening. It is not stopping just because we do not like it. It will not stop until the players, coaches, and front office collectively figure it out.
With the offense being what it is, the margin of error for starting pitcher Tomoyuki Sugano was zero. Sugano has been pretty good for the Orioles up to this point. He has not been good enough to overcome zero margin for error.
Even if Sugano had somehow thrown nine perfect innings, the O’s would still have to score a run to win the game. They would not hit water if they fell out of a boat. They cannot hit their way out of a wet paper bag. They could not find their butts with both hands.
In the event, Sugano was not perfect. He ended up failing in what has become another strange subplot of the 2025 Orioles sob story, in which the O’s are repeatedly burned by bottom of the lineup hitters from other teams. After two perfect innings – only seven short of nine – Sugano allowed a single to Royce Lewis as he led off the third inning. One out later, #9 hitter DaShawn Keirsey Jr. homered onto the flag court over right field. This was Keirsey’s first home run in 36 plate appearances this season. Of course it was.
On MASN, broadcasters Kevin Brown and Ben McDonald noted that this fits the pattern of stinking it up against the other team’s worst hitters. Here are some batting slash lines for comparison, with numbers not including today’s results:
- #7 hitters (all MLB): .247/.312/.393 (.705 OPS)
- #7 hitters (vs. Orioles): .305/.364/.570 (.933 OPS)
- #9 hitters (all MLB): .239/.302/.350 (.652 OPS)
- #9 hitters (vs. Orioles): .285/.359/.431 (.790 OPS)
Like so many other things to do with this team, it is almost unbelievable. To be sure, the Orioles pitchers are also collectively stinking it up against leadoff hitters, #2 hitters, #3 hitters, and cleanup hitters. Twins leadoff man Byron Buxton homered on the very next pitch after Keirsey’s homer for another reminder of this wider struggle, giving the Twins a 3-0 lead. They did not need the extra run, nor did they need the fourth run that they scored as the O’s tried to push Sugano, already beyond 90 pitches, into and through the seventh inning.
Struggles against top of the lineup hitters are, at least to some degree, more understandable. You would expect those players to be good hitters, not that the O’s lineup most nights supports that expectation. But the bottom of the lineup is roasting them horribly.
What the heck is that even about? Just like… why? What is going on that is within the control of the Orioles to overcome this? I have no answers. It seems that they do not either. I am sure that they are looking. I’m not so sure that they’re looking in the right places.
With each passing loss, it seems like someone must be fired as a kind of sacrificial lamb. The Orioles are averaging three runs per game through 12 May games. That sucks and it can’t go on with the current mix of player and coaching personnel. Mike Elias, for reasons he would never publicly say, has resisted the idea of the necessity of any internal changes up to this point. Given that no one has been fired while I wrote this recap, it seems he is resisting it for one day more. Another day, another destiny.
The Nationals, another disaster of a baseball team, await tomorrow night at 7:05. This crummy Orioles lineup will go up against the decidedly not-crummy pitcher MacKenzie Gore. He’s a lefty. Abandon all hope! Which should be double abandoned because the Orioles starter is Cade Povich, who brings a 5.55 ERA into the game.