Hello, friends.
If the Orioles had been determined to do everything in their power to squander any good feelings or positive momentum from managing to win two out of three against the Yankees, the last two games against the Nationals would hardly have played out any differently. What was a close game yesterday got out of hand when Keegan Akin got involved and the team went on to get laughed out of the place in an 11-3 loss. Check out John Beers’s recap of the game for more of the not-so-lovely totals.
He’s not the biggest problem facing the Orioles roster by any means, but I wonder how much longer the team can try to remain patient with Akin around. He has appeared in nine games for the team and two of them were games that veered in an embarrassing direction entirely because of his poor pitching.
One of my beliefs of bullpens is that every year there’s some guy who just suddenly sucks now and you don’t know who it is until the season starts. All you can do is get rid of him as soon as you realize it’s him. Past Orioles teams have waited way too long to reach that point about Cionel Pérez. I think it might be time to realize that Akin is that guy for this year. Maybe so is Andrew Kittredge! They ain’t got it.
Elias cashed out on Kittredge at the perfect time last year and has blunted some of that advantage by bringing him back at the wrong time. Elias has made a lot of what seem to be poor decisions regarding this roster. It’s why the team is 20-26. Some of these are genuinely bad luck, like Zach Eflin blowing out his elbow in his first start of the season, or the injuries suffered by Jackson Holliday and Jordan Westburg. Whatever is going on with Gunnar Henderson probably isn’t bad luck, exactly, but it’s not something that Elias could have really foreseen or planned to have a backup option. So I don’t really blame him for that either. It’s not fun in the meantime.
Others don’t seem so much like bad luck either, but are decisions that were reasonably second-guessed at the time. A big one in this category is eschewing committing bigger money to a free agent starting pitcher in the belief that yesterday’s starter Chris Bassitt would be fine. He has a 5.44 ERA after nine starts. That’s not fine.
They’ve played 28.4% of the season now. There’s a lot of baseball left and it could get better, but it’s not going to get better if there is magical thinking that so many of their problems will suddenly improve. I don’t know what they should do about all of it. I guess they don’t either, or they would have figured it out by now. I have greater sympathy than ever for all the king’s horses and all the king’s men lacking the ability to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
These doofuses will try to avoid being swept by the Nationals in a 1:35 scheduled start time for the series finale. Brandon Young is set to start for the Orioles, while Miles Mikolas starts for Washington. Mikolas has a 7.00 ERA this season. As we saw on Friday night, this is no guarantee that the Orioles will do anything good with their bats today.
Orioles stuff you might have missed
Orioles add veteran Tommy Pham on minor league deal (Orioles.com)
One of the quickest paths to looking stupid is getting too worked up about guys signed to minor league deals. I don’t think it’s guaranteed we ever see Pham in Baltimore. There is a dark comic aspect to the possibility of having one of the apparently least-liked guys out there being brought in to a clubhouse where “everyone” is already worried about the chemistry mix.
The rise and stagnation of Mike Elias’ Orioles (The Baltimore Banner)
When one of the two non-team/league-owned mainstream media outlets in Baltimore that seriously covers the Orioles is putting out articles like this, I do kind of wonder how long Elias’s position remains tenable. If you’re on the verge of losing Andy Kostka and Jon Meoli…
The 2026 Orioles: Frustration present again as Orioles fail to build on Yankees momentum (Steve on Baseball)
Steve Melewski says, “The Orioles seemingly turn down momentum every time it presents itself.” That’s a great summary of what we’ve seen this year.
Helsley on track for “feasible” mid-June return (School of Roch)
The Orioles did not act like Ryan Helsley would be out for six weeks when he first landed on the injured list, but now that two weeks have gone by they’re hoping he’ll be back in a month. At least blowing late-inning leads hasn’t been too much of their problem.
Without Westburg, Orioles need Holliday to take next step (The Baltimore Sun)
Yeah, well, we all need a lot of things we’re not likely to get.
Birthdays and Orioles anniversaries
In their 46th game last year, the Orioles lost to the Brewers, 5-4, their seventh straight loss of what ended up being an eight-game losing streak that saw manager Brandon Hyde fired in the middle of it. They were 15-31 after this loss. This year’s O’s are currently 20-26. That’s five wins better than that disaster, which is good. Even at 20-26, they’re only two games out of a wild card spot. It’s not over yet. It’s just that things are going to have to get better for it to not be over, and it’s hard to see where that “better” comes from right now.
There are a few former Orioles who were born on this day. They are: 1992-95 infielder Jack Voigt, 1959-62 pitcher Billy Hoeft, 1962 one-game pinch-hitter Ozzie Virgil, and 1955 pitcher Jim McDonald.
Is today your birthday? Happy birthday to you! Your birthday buddies for today include: baseball Hall of Famer Cool Papa Bell (1903), author Gary Paulsen (1939), actor Bill Paxton (1955), boxer Sugar Ray Leonard (1956), singer-songwriter Enya (1961), and musician Trent Reznor (1965).
On this day in history…
In 1536, the marriage between England’s King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn was annulled. Things got worse for Anne from there as she was executed two days later.
In 1756, a conflict that became the Seven Years War began when Great Britain declared war on France. Part of this conflict played out as the French and Indian War in what is now the United States.
In 1954, the Supreme Court’s unanimous Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas outlawed racial segregation in American public schools.
In 1977, Chuck E. Cheese’s Pizza Time Theatre opened in San Jose, California. There are 677 Chuck E. Cheese locations today.
**
And that’s the way it is in Birdland on May 17. Have a safe Sunday. Go O’s!
