Whatever else can be said about the 2026 Orioles, you’ve got to give this to them: They’re really committed to the bit. The problem for everyone who would prefer if they win games is that the bit the Orioles are committed to is the steadfast refusal to ever go on any kind of extended winning streak. The Orioles failed at their latest attempt – their sixth attempt! – to turn a three-game winning streak into something more with a 5-1 loss at the hands of the Angels on Tuesday night.
This one might have
been the most ridiculous of the failures so far. The Angels, who are at a desperation point of “throw any warm body into the rotation,” sent 23-year-old righty Ryan Johnson to the mound for the game. Johnson notably brought a 12.83 ERA into the game after five outings so far this season. Yes, that is an ERA in the double digits.
Or at least, it was in the double digits, because by the time the Orioles offense had their say, or perhaps rather their lack of say, Johnson had taken a no-hitter into the sixth inning. He struck out a career-high eight batters. The Orioles drew only a single walk in addition to their lone hit in the six innings that Johnson was in the game. This should have gone much better, and it did not, for no apparent reason. This is a regular feature of the 2026 Orioles.
To give the Orioles a chance to win in the face of that futility, the O’s own starter, Shane Baz, would have had to be perfect. He wasn’t perfect. Three batters into the bottom of the first, the Angels already had all of the offense they would need to win the game. Their shortstop, Zach Neto, led off with a single, and with one out, first baseman Nolan Schanuel hit a “that was barely a home run” kind of home run. Those still count, too, even the ones that are only a home run in 3/30 ballparks, as long as you’re in one of the three.
If this was the only blemish on Baz’s night, you could credit it as a tough luck loss. It was not the only blemish. Although Baz rebounded and kept the Angels off the board for a few innings, he ran into trouble again in the fifth. The trouble is just that he suddenly couldn’t get anyone out. The Angels jumped on him for four hits in a row… wait a minute, four in a row? Why does that sound familiar? Anyway, four hits in a row capped off by a sacrifice fly at the end brought three more runs across for the Angels.
That’s a clunker on the season tally for Baz. Five runs allowed on eight hits and a walk. His ERA is up to 4.31. Baz has had some good games along the way, but I hoped for much better after the Orioles gave up such a haul of prospects for him and then gave him a five-year contract extension before he ever threw a pitch for the team. He had been better recently. He wasn’t good enough last night.
That is the story of the Orioles season. They just aren’t good enough. They are now at the halfway point of the 2026 season and they are on a pace to win exactly one more game than the 2025 Orioles did. All of the moves that were made, all of the noise they made about how they would be better, and that’s the pace they’re on. They’re not better. If they finish in the vicinity of 76 wins, there should be changes not only to the roster but to the front office that sets the roster.
Some of the reasons the Orioles are failing are familiar and others are new. A number of things are going right but many more are going wrong. Getting three hits in a game that was started by Ryan Johnson is just one more example of games where it’s the wrong stuff that is dominant. This is a mess. Manager Craig Albernaz actually deployed a variant of one of my all-time least favorite loser lines in his post-game presser with reporters, saying, “Sometimes you have to give credit to the opposing pitcher, and he was on tonight.” He pulled out this line about Ryan Johnson. I’m experiencing second-hand embarrassment.
The west coast road trip comes to a close with one final game on Wednesday afternoon. The Orioles and Angels are scheduled to start their series finale at 4:07 Eastern time. If the Orioles pull off a win, we can maybe talk ourselves into feeling okay about a 5-4 road trip. If they don’t, then they’ve once again squandered the opportunity to build on a small stretch of success. Trey Gibson and José Soriano are the scheduled starting pitchers. Soriano has actually been good this year. It won’t be easy for the Orioles hitters.
