It Happened Again

By Mike Rifkin

The Baltimore Orioles were swept this weekend by the Washington Nationals. For the Orioles, they’ve now dropped six in a row and are 2-8 in their last 10 games played. Furthermore a team that had such lofty expectations at the beginning of the season has the fourth worst record in all of baseball. On Saturday the team announced it was firing manager Brandon Hyde. Hyde became the third manager in about a week to get canned following Derek Shelton of the Pirates and Bud Black of the Rockies. 

There’s a major difference between the Orioles and the other two franchises mentioned above, and that is the Orioles had high hopes to make the playoffs for a third consecutive season. So why are the Orioles so bad in 2025? The answer is simple: the Orioles starting pitching has been dreadful. If you look at stats the Orioles are at the bottom of most pitching metrics including ERA, Opponent’s Average and OPS, etc… So what separates good teams from great ones? An ace at the top of the rotation. The Orioles last season had that in Corbin Burnes, but they let him walk in free agency. But the Orioles have this farm system that is supposed to be the envy of everyone else in baseball and yet their front office continues to hold onto their prospects and they create a dilemma with players who are already trying to establish themselves in the big leagues. So there is no reason why Corbin Burnes isn’t in Baltimore or Garrett Crochet or Dylan Cease. But the other thing is now there’s new ownership in Baltimore so money shouldn’t be an issue either. 

The Orioles were banking on Grayson Rodriguez taking a step forward in development, but he hasn’t thrown a pitch this season. Zach Eflin has also missed time due to a lat injury. The starting pitcher the Orioles did sign Charlie Morton is 0-7 with an ERA of 7.68 and has been  moved to the bullpen.

The Rockies and Pirates will cry about being poor ( they shouldn’t) The Orioles don’t have that luxury with a new owner. The Orioles have this young and extremely talented nucleus and yet sit in last place in the AL East and MLB and that’s unacceptable.