Kyle Gibson also got worked over by Angels hitters.
No one is allowed to feel good about the 2025 Orioles for more than two games at a time. All too often, this good feeling is limited to one single game at a time. So it was again on Saturday night against the Angels, with the O’s having a chance to follow up on a nice win the previous night and string together a little positive momentum. Instead, they turned in one of the sad and lifeless games that have become their signature this season, ultimately losing, 5-2.
The Earl Weaver aphorism is that momentum is the next day’s starting pitcher. Enter Kyle Gibson and his 14.09 ERA. The man was a font of good vibes and apparently also team-building while pitching not particularly well (but, crucially, as often as a five-man rotation dictates for about six innings per game) for the 2023 Orioles. He has just within the last couple of days been credited for making a nice rallying speech to the team after they got their butts swept out of Minnesota.
As for the pitching part, did I mention the 14.09 ERA? Let’s start with some good news for Gibson. He lowered that ERA on Saturday night. We can now follow swiftly with the bad news: Gibson only lowered his ERA to 13.11 because he gave up five runs in four innings. In three games, he’s finished only 11.2 innings.
Less grumpy people than me might fairly observe that Gibson, who signed late, is not due to be in season form for another couple of starts. Grumpier people than me might feel that the Orioles reaching a point where, late in spring training, they felt the need to add Gibson into the mix is a damning indictment of the pitching depth that Mike Elias had assembled for the 2025 season.
On this particular Saturday night in California, Gibson was bad right out of the gate, with the first three Angels batters all reaching base from hitting singles. The Orioles were losing before Gibson had ever recorded an out. A second run crossed when the Angels were able to capitalize on having a man on third with nobody out by hitting a sacrifice fly. Somebody please remind the Orioles batters that things such as this can be done.
This turned out to be all the runs that the Angels would need in the game. The Orioles, despite facing an Angels starting pitcher, Jack Kochanowicz, who brought a 5.79 ERA into the game, and then facing an Angels bullpen that is far and away the worst in the American League (6.99 ERA, with the Orioles, ouch, at 5.29), could only muster two runs.
It’s not surprising any more, but it still sucks. They had nine innings to swing their bats and they got a total of six hits. Pretty much everybody was bad except for Jackson Holliday (hit and a walk), Ryan Mountcastle (two hits), and Ryan O’Hearn (two walks). Last minute credit to ninth inning pinch hitter Ramón Laureano, who hit a home run literally as soon as I finished typing the previous sentence.
Adley Rutschman, with an 0-4 in this game, has now had his average drop below .200 for the season. He’s down to .195. That hurts. So does Cedric Mullins falling down to earth hard. Mullins is hitless in his last four starts and has picked up exactly one hit in seven May starts. It is exceedingly difficult to have an Orioles team succeeding while these things are going on, and not shockingly, they are not succeeding.
Gibson gave up two more runs in the fourth inning, then opened up the fifth by allowing the Angels to load the bases with nobody out. After a single, he walked the next two guys, seeming to be gassed with no command. He was yanked at 75 pitches. Colin Selby entered in relief, tasked with limiting the damage as much as he could, and he managed this as well as could be hoped, with only one of the inherited runners coming in to score.
The Orioles scratched out their first run with a two-out rally in the sixth. Gunnar Henderson made it on base with a single, then was driven in as Mountcastle hit a double. O’Hearn added one of his walks to put two men on base, but the ice cold Mullins could not keep the chain going.
Kochanowicz ultimately allowed just one run to the Orioles over 5.2 innings. They had some guys on base! He walked four guys and gave up four hits. They just couldn’t string anything together. It’s one of the 2025 Orioles stories. Against that bad Angels bullpen, they added only one more run – Laureano’s homer – for the final 3.1 innings. There’s no reason to get worked by these guys. They keep doing it anyway.
A cheerful, if ultimately meaningless coda to the game: Laureano, after hitting his pinch hit homer, donned a pirate hat for his dugout stroll down to the homer hose. The MASN broadcasters speculated that it may have come from a trip to the Pirates of the Caribbean area of nearby Disneyland. The sequence of events also included Jim Palmer hilariously repeating the word “defecated” from an anecdote about Kevin Brown having a bird crap on him.
If nearly every key player to the team’s fortunes wasn’t stinking righteously, Laureano’s antics would be a thing that elevates the vibes to legendary. Without that, he cannot save the vibes from being rancid.
The latest “Maybe this will help save the season” moment approaches on Sunday, with Zach Eflin set to return from the injured list. He last pitched on April 7. Lefty Tyler Anderson is on the mound for the Angels. Great. The game is set to begin at 4:07. Don’t let your mom spend her Mother’s Day watching it.