Clinging to ever-fainter AL wild card hopes, the Orioles are back in Baltimore to play the MLB-best Brewers over the penultimate weekend of the 2026 regular season. No big deal or anything, but the Orioles probably need to sweep this series, and definitely need to at most lose a single game, to hold on to that tenuous hope.
It’s not an impossible task. The Orioles have had some good baseball against good teams at times this year. They are capable of playing well. They are also fully capable of not playing well,
reflected in their records against teams like the Yankees (2-8) and Red Sox (4-9). Not being competitive against two of their AL East rivals is one reason why they are where they are.
Scoreboard watching is almost entirely irrelevant. The Orioles have to win enough to get themselves to 83 wins and then see what happens. If the Orioles do win tonight, the best thing for their slim chances beyond that would be if the Guardians beat the Athletics and the White Sox lose to the Tigers. It’s better for the Orioles if the White Sox are the third wild card team rather than the Central leader because the O’s have the head-to-head tiebreaker over Chicago, which they don’t over Cleveland.
Again, though, it doesn’t matter if the Orioles don’t go 8-1. Maybe they could go 8-1 and it still wouldn’t matter! That’s the problem with how many games they’ve blown that they should have won this year, such that they now face a three game deficit with nine games to play. They have had some bad luck this year, to be sure, but mostly the players who were supposed to play well have not played well, with the exception of Pete Alonso. I like that guy.
Orioles lineup
- Dylan Beavers – LF
- Pete Alonso – 1B
- Gunnar Henderson – SS
- Coby Mayo – 3B
- Samuel Basallo – C
- Christian Encarnacion-Strand – DH
- Colton Cowser – CF
- Jeremiah Jackson – 2B
- Leody Taveras – RF
Cade Povich has been recalled to make the start for the Orioles. I am on the record as a Povich disliker, chiefly because of his poor last two seasons in the majors, when he had a 5.21 ERA. Through seven games of this season, he’s done much better at a 4.05.
The Brewers are a bit worse against lefties as compared to righties, at least in terms of their team OPS. Perhaps in tonight’s game, Povich will be a good enough lefty to capitalize on that platoon advantage. That’s not to say it will be easy. Even with that weaker split as a team, the Brewers have gone 33-14 in games started by lefties. Wow! The Orioles, if you are wondering, while much better than they began the season, are 24-25 in those games.
Brewers lineup
- Jackson Chourio – LF
- Brice Turang – 2B
- William Contreras – C
- Andrew Vaughn – 1B
- Christian Yelich – DH
- Joey Ortiz – 3B
- Garrett Mitchell – CF
- Luis Lara – RF
- Cooper Pratt – SS
The Brewers starting pitcher, Dustin May, began the season with the Cardinals, where he posted a disappointing 4.38 ERA (89 ERA+). Milwaukee acquired him at the trade deadline and he’s been worse for them (4.91 ERA, 85 ERA+). Orioles fans are well acquainted with the fact that this means little for how the team’s hitters will perform against a particular pitcher.
