It’s been mentioned on this site countless times before, but one thing about the Orioles is that they never let you feel good about them for very long.
The O’s followed up Friday’s easy win with an excruciating, 4-3, 10-inning loss to the Nationals. The Orioles put themselves in an early hole through repeated defensive blundery, and while they briefly gave themselves hope with an eighth-inning comeback, they fell behind for good in the top of the 10th, then failed to score the tying run against a reliever
with an 8.04 ERA. Your 2026 Orioles in a nutshell, ladies and gentlemen.
Tonight’s game was eerily similar to a maddening loss to the Nationals last year — which also featured the Nats scoring in their final at-bat and an identical 4-3 final score — that prompted the Orioles to fire manager Brandon Hyde the next morning. I don’t think the same fate will befall Craig Albernaz, and I’m not saying that it should. But this 2026 club, like that doomed 2025 squad, is rife with problems that threaten to torpedo the Orioles’ season, if they haven’t already.
Let’s start with the big one: guys, the Orioles’ defense is atrocious. They’re, like, really bad. The O’s can talk all they want (and they have) about how they’re confident in themselves and how they have the talent to go on a hot streak and all that, but they’re simply not going to do so unless they figure out how to field their positions like competent big leaguers. Tonight was not that night.
It’s too bad, because Brandon Young pitched another whale of a game, only for the Orioles’ sloppy defense to muck up his outing. It began in the second inning, when Daylen Lile lofted a fly ball to deep left. Taylor Ward took a terrible route to the ball, and it sailed over his head for a gift double. Jorbit Vivas followed with an RBI single to left to give the Nationals a 1-0 advantage. Ward didn’t cover himself in glory on that play, either, making an ill-advised throw home that allowed Vivas to take an extra base, though the runner was left stranded.
The O’s were up to their antics again in the third. With one out and a runner at first, José Tena grounded a potential double play ball to short. Gunnar Henderson flipped to Jeremiah Jackson, but the Orioles second baseman dropped the ball on the transfer, allowing the inning to continue. That forced Young to throw 11 extra pitches before escaping the jam.
Young wriggled his way out of trouble again in the fourth, racking up huge strikeouts of Drew Millas and James Wood with two runners in scoring position. In the Wood at-bat, Young threw six consecutive splitters, fanning him on the final one to complete the K. It was par for the course on this night for Young, who racked up 23 swings-and-misses in five innings, the most by any Oriole in a five-inning performance in the pitch-tracking era (since 2008). He racked up 11 of those whiffs on his nasty splitter. But the Orioles’ defensive clownery made him throw 93 pitches in five innings, and he left the game trailing after coughing up a Luis García Jr. leadoff homer in the fifth.
And then that awful O’s defense reared its ugly head again in the sixth. With Rico Garcia pitching, Vivas led off with a routine grounder to third. But Blaze Alexander booted the ball, then made a panicked throw to first and airmailed it, giving Vivas second base. Alexander was charged with the rare — and brutal — double error, one allowing Vivas to reach first and the other allowing him to advance to second.
Naturally, that free baserunner came around to score, as the struggling-of-late Garcia coughed up an RBI single to Drew Millas, who entered the game with a .527 OPS in 130 PAs. This is not the type of hitter who should be beating you, Rico! Garcia has now been scored upon in six of his last nine outings, inflating his once impeccable 0.68 ERA to 2.62. The damage would have been worse if not for the O’s throwing out Millas at the plate on a Garcia Jr. double to right, a rare gem by the Orioles defense.
For a while, it appeared those three runs would be enough for the Nats, as starter Foster Griffin simply dominated the Birds. The southpaw worked seven innings and threw 112 pitches,, just two shy of the MLB season high of 114 (by the Twins’ Taj Bradley on April 29). The Orioles scored only one run against him, and it was an unearned one at that, as the Nats made a throwing error in the second that set up a surprising two-out RBI single from third catcher Chadwick Tromp. It was Tromp’s first at-bat with the Orioles in almost exactly a year (June 30, 2025), and he certainly made the most of it.
Other than that, the O’s simply had no answer for Griffin, the former first round pick, who’s been better than ever in his return to MLB after a three-year stint in Japan. He allowed only three hits and two walks while striking out nine Orioles tonight, lowering his season ERA to 2.93. Gotta hand it to the Nationals — signing a live arm who rehabilitated his career overseas has paid dividends for them. Meanwhile the O’s keep signing the Chris Bassitts of the world, which is going great. Anyway, Griffin left the game after seven with a 3-1 lead.
Unfortunately, he then had to turn the game over to a sad-sack Nationals bullpen. Yikes, these guys are going through some stuff. The Washington relief corps is coming off a horrific series against the Phillies in which they blew three consecutive games in heartbreaking fashion, becoming just the second team in MLB history to give up go-ahead home runs in the ninth in three straight games.
This time it was the eighth inning that ruined them. Lefty PJ Poulin was the first to pitch, and once again it was Chadwick Tromp who sparked the rally with a bloop single to lead off the inning. Not bad for a guy who I’d totally forgotten was on the roster before today. Poulin then uncorked a wild pitch but retired the next two batters before ceding to righty Orlando Ribalta, and that’s when the O’s feasted.
Pete Alonso came through with a clutch hit, smashing an RBI double to left to make it a 3-2 game. Craig Albernaz then deployed Samuel Basallo as a pinch-hitter, which proved a stroke of genius. Basallo jumped on Ribalta’s first pitch and lashed it up the middle for a game-tying RBI single, scoring a fired-up Alonso. Tie ballgame! Oh, that Nationals bullpen has done it again.
Unfortunately, the O’s didn’t sustain the good vibes. After Andrew Kittredge and Clayton Beeter traded scoreless ninth innings, Ryan Helsley struggled in the 10th. Lile greeted with a sharp single to right, scoring the automatic runner to reclaim a 4-3 lead for the Nationals. The next batter also reached base before Helsley settled down and retired the next three, keeping it a one-run game.
The desperate Nationals turned to veteran Justin Lawrence, whom they claimed on waivers earlier this week, to make his team debut in the 10th. Here’s the thing about Lawrence: he has pitched in 30 games for two other teams this year and has an 8.04 ERA. That’s not a typo. He’s given up 25 earned runs in 28 innings. The Orioles should destroy this guy. Tying the game should be a given; walking it off shouldn’t be too hard, either.
I’ll give you one guess as to what actually happened. Yup. The O’s failed to score a single run against him, and lost the game. Jackson Holliday’s grounder to first moved the automatic runner, Jackson, to third base with one out. But on a Ward grounder to short, the O’s did the stupid run-on-contact play that never, ever works, and — surprise! — it did not work. CJ Abrams threw to the plate to cut down Jackson by a mile for the second out.
The O’s valiantly tried to continue the rally on a Henderson single and Alonso walk, loading the bases for Basallo. But Samuel hacked at a 1-0 sinker and grounded harmlessly to second base for the final out of the game. Sigh. What a letdown of an inning and a disappointment of a game.
This Orioles team has problems, folks. And they’re not going away anytime soon.
