If someone could kindly inform the Orioles that the 2026 season began a couple of weeks ago, I’d greatly appreciate it.
The O’s continued to stumble out of the gate in the new season, putting themselves hopelessly behind after two innings en route to an 8-2 loss and a series sweep by the Pirates. Chris Bassitt had another horrendous performance, the offense again failed to show up, and the Orioles limped out of Pittsburgh as a 3-6 team with a lot of questions and very few answers.
With the Orioles
heavily using their relievers in the first two games of the series and likely to use a bullpen game tomorrow, Chris Bassitt came into this contest with two main tasks. #1: Eat up a bunch of innings, and #2: Keep the Orioles in the game. I regret to inform you that he failed spectacularly at both tasks.
Bassitt’s second Orioles start was even more miserable than his rough debut last week, and by the second inning the Pirates were well on their way to the sweep. Right from the get-go, the control-challenged Bassitt seemed to have no idea where the ball was going. He set an ignominious tone by plunking leadoff man Oneil Cruz on an 0-2 pitch. Despite catching a lucky break on a scalded Brandon Lowe liner to first that became a double play, Bassitt failed to take advantage. He walked Bryan Reynolds on four pitches, then threw three straight balls to Ryan O’Hearn.
With the count 3-0, MASN analyst Ben McDonald commented, “I would be real careful right here.” Alas, Bassitt failed to heed Big Ben’s advice and instead grooved a 91-mph fastball right down the middle to O’Hearn, who blasted it 402 feet to dead center for a two-run dinger. It was the first Pirates HR for the former Oriole O’Hearn, who is off to a scalding start for his new club. I miss him. I’m glad he’s getting to play for a more competent team, which is a weird thing to be saying about the Pirates, but here we are.
Bassitt ended up throwing 28 pitches just to finish the first inning, and things only got worse in the second. Facing the bottom of the Pirates lineup — which, as McDonald pointed out, is full of sub-.200 hitters that any pitcher should easily attack — the veteran righty melted down. All nine Pittsburgh batters came to the plate before all was said and done. The inning began with another four-pitch walk, followed by a pair of singles. The second of those came on a bunt, when second baseman Jeremiah Jackson (covering first on the play) failed to put his foot on the bag when receiving the throw. There’s that Orioles defense, baby. Can’t get enough.
With the bases loaded, Cruz scalded a line drive that deflected off the back of Bassitt’s leg for an RBI infield single. The trainers checked on Bassitt, who deemed himself ready to continue. Health-wise, maybe he was. Performance-wise, not so much. With one out, Reynolds lofted a sac fly to the wall in right, making it 4-0, and O’Hearn ripped a double to left-center that brought home two more. Bassitt added a HBP to his ugly afternoon before finishing the inning. He didn’t return for the third.
Bassitt’s final pitching line: 2 IP, 6 ER, 6 H, 2 BB, 1 HBP. He threw just 32 of his 62 pitches for strikes and didn’t strike out anyone. He has a 14.21 ERA through two starts. It might technically be too early to throw him into the Charlie Morton/Kyle Gibson category of “ancient free agent SPs who turned into duds the second they joined the Orioles,” but it doesn’t feel too early.
Down 6-0 after two, all hope was pretty much gone for the Orioles, and it doesn’t help that their offense put up the kind of phoning-it-in performance that’s become all too familiar. They allowed Pirates starter Braxton Ashcraft to set a career best in strikeouts with eight, and didn’t manage their first baserunner until a Taylor Ward double to lead off the fourth. Pete Alonso’s RBI double that inning was the only run that Ashcraft allowed. Jeremiah Jackson added an RBI single off reliever Mason Montgomery in the seventh, but that was all the O’s offense scraped across on this day.
Manager Craig Albernaz didn’t stick around long in this game, getting ejected for the first time in his career in the top of the third. Albernaz barked at home plate umpire James Jean after the ump didn’t grant Blaze Alexander a timeout on the first pitch. Seems like a trivial thing to argue about, but maybe Alby was looking for an excuse to leave early. Who can blame him?
If there’s one positive takeaway from this game, it’s Cade Povich, who ate up 5.2 innings of long relief. He didn’t look great, walking three and coughing up a Cruz two-run homer, but he managed to save the bullpen ahead of the Orioles’ series opener against the White Sox tomorrow. Albert Suárez figures to start that game but the O’s will probably need to go through a lot of arms.
There you have it. The Orioles are 3-6 and just got swept by the Pirates. Any hopes of the O’s bursting out to a hot start in 2026 have evaporated, and now they’re going to have to play catch-up, something they were utterly incapable of doing last season. It’s not great.
