The Orioles’ already narrow path to a postseason spot just got a whole lot slimmer.
The O’s suffered a 7-3 loss to the Blue Jays, who jumped all over a visibly fatigued Kyle Bradish for an early five-run advantage and used a cavalcade of eight relievers to shut down the Birds’ bats. As of this writing, the Guardians are trailing in Minnesota, which would keep the O’s three games behind Cleveland for the third wild card spot. But with only 13 games remaining, the math may already be too much to overcome.
Friends, this was not a happy birthday for Kyle Bradish. The newly 30-year-old O’s right-hander was pitching on his birthday for the first time in his professional career, and the only gifts the Blue Jays offered him were a bunch of runs and a whole bunch of hits. Not cool, Blue Jays. Not cool.
The trouble started immediately when Bradish walked the first batter of the game, Brett Bateman. Two batters later, the badly struggling Vladimir Guerrero Jr. — who recently has been getting booed at home even by the notoriously polite Canadians — ripped an RBI double to give the Jays the early lead, one they would never relinquish. Guerrero promptly scored on an Alejandro Kirk RBI single, making it 2-0.
Bradish ended both the first and second inning by fielding a comebacker and turning it into a double play, but his struggles arose again in the third. Bateman greeted him with a leadoff homer, his second of the series and his career. Later in the frame, after a George Springer single, Kirk followed Bateman’s lead with a two-run dinger to left-center to make it a 5-0 game. Bradish ultimately gave up two more hits in the inning before finally escaping.
Bradish didn’t return for the fourth, and frankly he shouldn’t return to the mound again this season. And I don’t mean that as a diss on Bradish. But the guy clearly is beyond gassed. He threw only 71.1 major league innings from 2024-25 combined, with Tommy John surgery in between. Now he’s up to 155 innings this season. It’s been obvious for nearly a month now that Bradish’s pitch movement and command have declined significantly as his innings count has escalated.
It’s understandable that Bradish might be having trouble adjusting to a full season’s workload after missing so much time in the previous two years. What’s less understandable is why the Orioles keep putting him out there. I suppose they’ve felt that they couldn’t afford to shut Bradish down while the O’s are technically within shouting distance of a playoff spot. But come on, guys. Enough is enough. You’re doing a disservice both to the Orioles and to Bradish himself by continuing to pile onto his workload when he’s showing visible signs of fatigue. Why would you sign this guy to a $90 million extension and then be so reckless with his arm? Shut. Him. Down.
The game didn’t get any more interesting after the Orioles fell into their early deficit. Relievers Anthony Nunez and Cam Sanders allowed a run apiece to extend Toronto’s total to seven, while the O’s offense failed to replicate their dynamic performance from the previous night.
The Jays went with a bullpen game today, and for some reason, that’s been the kiss of death for the Orioles’ offense all season long. They just can’t seem to hit when the other team doesn’t have an actual starting pitcher. Could it be a lack of preparation? A lack of focus? Or just bad luck? Whatever the case, every Orioles opponent for the rest of the year should just skip their starters and cycle through random relievers to pitch every game. They’d beat the Birds every time.
Spencer Miles was the opener, and while the O’s worked him for 31 pitches in the first, they came up empty when Christian Encarnacion-Strand lined out to right with the bases loaded. Miles then struck out the side in the second, so clearly the Birds’ signs of life in the first were short-lived. Lefty Joe Mantiply tossed a scoreless third, and Spencer Arrighetti gobbled up the next 2.2 innings, allowing just an unearned run on a Kazuma Okamoto throwing error that plated Gunnar Henderson in the fourth.
The only O’s batter to actually drive in a run — two of them, in fact — was Pete Alonso, who bashed his 299th career home run in the seventh off his former Mets teammate Paul Sewald. Good old Pete. Unless he homers tomorrow, Alonso has a good chance of hitting his 300th career homer at his longtime home ballpark, CitiField, where the O’s play the Mets from Monday to Wednesday. The Polar Bear’s dinger temporarily brought the Orioles within three runs, but it never felt that close.
They didn’t score again. The Blue Jays’ shutdown late-inning duo of Tyler Rogers and Louis Varland retired all six batters they faced in the eighth and ninth, and that was that. The O’s took the loss, one of the precious few they can afford for the rest of the season if they intend to stay in contention. It’s nearly time to run the table or go home.
