The Orioles were four outs away from staving off a sweep at the hands of the Rays and maybe fending off the feelings of impending doom around this team for a couple more days. They had a two-run lead, the tying run was only at the plate for the Rays, and then it all fell apart. The disaster was not averted. Almost before you could blink, the Rays had scored four runs to take a 5-3 lead, the Orioles were retired in order in the ninth inning, and the game was over, yet another stupid Orioles loss in the last
two seasons.
As is generally the case in these affairs, there is a lot of blame to go around. That’s not to say that every player deserves blame equally. Several Orioles played well today, starting with Shane Baz collecting what could have been a fun Revenge Game in his first start against his former team, the Rays.
Baz has been one of the Orioles problems in 30% of his starts to date. That wasn’t the case on Wednesday afternoon, with Baz allowing one run on two hits and three walks over six innings. Sure, the fact that the lone run he gave up was the first career MLB home run hit by Rays catcher Hunter Feduccia in his 71st career game is an annoying thing. That homer, hit in the second inning, gave the Rays a 1-0 lead in the second inning. Overall, Baz was good. We would all feel better about the trade made for and extension given to him if he was regularly putting up games like this.
The Orioles quickly tied up the game in the third inning, with Pete Alonso driving in Taylor Ward with a two-out base hit. Neither Ward nor Alonso deserves too much of the blame today either. The walk machine, Ward, picked up two more. Alonso and Samuel Basallo each homered in the sixth inning to give the Orioles a 3-1 lead that, for a little while there, looked like it might hold up. Baz was on the way to leading the team to a nice win. The bullpen happened instead.
Specifically, Anthony Nunez happened. The Rays game-winning rally started off innocently enough, with the same pesky Feduccia from earlier in the game dropping a bunt to the third base side of the field. The defense was shifted away from that location, enough that even with a slow catcher bunting, he could beat out the attempt to field and throw to first base. Nunez retired the next two batters, Taylor Walls and Chandler Simpson, though Simpson stayed on base as he grounded into a forceout at second.
All he had to do was get the next guy. Problem: The guy was Junior Caminero, one of the better young players there is in the game right now. He is what we wish Jackson Holliday was and what we hope Basallo will continue to be. Nunez got to a 1-2 count, failed to entice Caminero to swing at two pitches way outside of the zone, then left a hanger in the middle that Caminero sliced into right field for a single.
Even still: There were two outs and all Nunez had to do was get the next guy. Problem: The guy was Jonathan Aranda, a classic Rays late bloomer who broke out at age 27 last year and is keeping an OPS over .800 this year. Nunez got two strikes on him too and then couldn’t put him away, with Aranda fishing out of the zone for what was actually not all that bad of a changeup. Aranda launched a line drive that hit the gap in right-center.
Substitute Orioles center fielder Colton Cowser had to run a long way to get it, and once he got there, he bobbled it not once, but twice, before picking it up and throwing it back in. Let’s be clear: Both runs were always going to score on this play, no matter what Cowser did with that baseball. The game was going to be tied. Cowser just made the act of the game going from a 3-1 lead to a 3-3 tie look even worse than it already was. And this was the defensive replacement!
Nunez walked the next guy before he got the hook. Rico Garcia was brought in to try to hold things steady. Folks, he failed. Blame who you like. Towson product Richie Palacios got a go-ahead hit off of Garcia, just the fifth hit he’s allowed all year.
As far as the game’s outcome was concerned, that fourth run sealed it. Nothing else needed to happen and the Orioles would have lost. What they really specialize in for 2026 is the way they kick you, specifically you the fan who dares to believe in them even after everything you’ve witnessed since about July 1, 2024, after things have already gone badly.
Here’s what I mean on Wednesday afternoon. After Palacios’s go-ahead hit, the Rays had men on first and third. During the next at-bat, Palacios took off for second base, drawing a throw from Adley Rutschman. After Rutschman threw the ball, the man on third, Ryan Vilade, raced home. Jackson Holliday, who pinch hit, played third base, and later second base, came in to cut off the throw and made a high throw home. Vilade stole home as Palacios safely stole second.
They can’t even get the little things right. If it was just the Nunez meltdown, whatever. Relievers have bad days. It is perhaps even more likely that a reliever will have a bad day if he’s maybe not good enough to be an MLB reliever. There is a reason that the Mets made Nunez one of three players the Orioles received for Cedric Mullins last July, and the reason is not that he was guaranteed to be a good late-inning reliever for six years to come. Nunez now has a 5.16 ERA, the latest of Mike Elias’s bright ideas to not look all that bright.
It’s not even about Nunez. The Orioles have to get stomped on in ways that it’s honestly kind of embarrassing for a major league team. This is “cat playing with its food” territory from the Rays. They knew they could do something crazy and the Orioles didn’t have the wherewithal to execute something basic and stop them.
The Orioles are now a season-worst eight games below .500 at 21-29. Quotes about how they all know that they have to do better are meaningless now. They have to actually do better, or else this thing will be over only a week later than last year’s season was over. It continues to feel like the players assembled should be better than this. They continue to not be better than this. No one who has influence over their actions has been able to prevent this.
We all get a day off from the Orioles on Thursday before they’re back in Baltimore on Friday to face the Tigers. Chris Bassitt is scheduled to pitch. Tough luck for anyone who spent their money and that’s what they get. Good luck for anyone who doesn’t subscribe to Apple TV: You can’t watch the game and get at least two days off from these jokers.
