What a weird day. The MASN TV feed started with shots of dazed-looking Orioles players reacting to the Saturday morning firing of Brandon Hyde. Many of them have never known another O’s manager, and it seems that all were totally blindsided by the news. We’ve talked a lot and will keep talking about Brandon Hyde’s responsibility for the dumpster fire that is the 2025 Orioles season, but today’s 10-6 loss shows primarily one thing: the Orioles front office has screwed over the team by skimping on pitching.
Kyle Gibson is many things—a clubhouse leader, veteran mentor, and all-around decent guy—but he’s only pitching in the bigs at all now because the Orioles’ Plan A for the rotation has failed spectacularly. Summoned out of retirement this spring after a bunch of injuries to the Orioles’ staff, I’m sure the 37-year-old is thinking hard about retirement now.
Much to the dismay of a stunned Camden Yards crowd, Gibson looked like a batting practice pitcher today. The righty allowed four runs before he even made an out, the first six Nationals going 5-for-5 with a walk. True, the home plate umpire was squeezing Gibson a bit, and the defense did a few stupid things to prolong the inning. A ball that sailed over Cedric Mullins’ head, the center fielder totally misreading the ball off the bat, went for a double. DH Josh Bell took an extra base when right fielder Heston Kjerstad overthrew the cutoff man. Kjerstad also bobbled a line drive into a run-scoring triple.
But that doesn’t mean Gibson is pitching well these days, either. He gave up all of six runs on 47 pitches and got just two outs. In four starts, he’s now allowed 23 runs in just over 12 innings. The vibes are not good, my friends, they are not good.
You figure Tony Mansolino probably didn’t imagine his first game as interim manager would see him make a call to the bullpen with two outs in the first inning. For that matter, the veteran pitcher Charlie Morton probably didn’t wake up today thinking he’d be pitching in the first inning, either.
But you know what? It worked. The 41-year-old Morton, recently demoted to the bullpen after a series of feckless starts, had a superb outing today. With 4.1 innings of one-run ball, Morton not only provided the length the team needed, he also looked like a major league pitcher again. He struck out six hitters and allowed practically no hard contact, hit 95 mph with his fastball—and located it!—and showed movement on his curveball.
Morton entered with two outs in the first and got a swinging strikeout of CJ Abrams to close the book on Gibson’s miserable outing. He allowed a seventh Nationals run to score in the second inning on a walk and a two-out double, but thereafter he limited the damage and kept Nats hitters swinging awkwardly. His stuff looked noticeably sharper. After one nasty Morton curveball, MASN’s Ben McDonald spun one of his typical folksisms, “Wow. The way that thing turns, it ought to have a blinker on it.” McDonald added, shortly after the veteran’s sixth K, “Charlie Morton is back.” Morton was the highlight of the day for me—it stands to reason he takes over Gibson’s slot in the rotation.
From the School of Silver Linings also comes a good report card for Cionel Pérez and Yennier Cano, who pitched 2.2 and 0.2 scoreless innings, respectively. Pèrez, whom Ben McDonald described today as looking “fresh as a daisy,” struck out three and walked none. It’s been an up-and-down season for the lefty, but over his last seven outings, he’s got a 1.08 ERA. Yennier Cano also looked sharp, allowing one earned run and pulling off a nasty pickoff move to nab Washington’s Luis García.
Too often this season, O’s starters have dug a hole, O’s hitters have showed little fight in tunneling out of it, and back-end O’s relievers have added to the deficit. Despite the efforts of Morton/Pérez/Cano, it was like that today. Seranthony Domínguez could not keep the line moving, and allowed three more Nats runs in the ninth. Domínguez entered with one out and a man on in the ninth, got a flyout, was directed to intentionally walk James Wood, then gave up a two-run double and an RBI single. There’s no hiding the fact that both hits came on hittable pitches.
Roster construction, not just bad coaching, is partly to blame for the Orioles’ current failures, and it feels like only questionable roster construction explains why Seranthony Domínguez keeps getting chances to dig a hole for his team.
Then there’s the hitters. The line here is simple: too little, too late. Washington’s Jake Irvin is a below-average MLB pitcher who kept the O’s off-balance for the better part of seven innings. Hitters kept offering at Irvin’s high fastballs, making only weak contact. They swung futilely through curveballs. Over six innings, the Birds had just a Heston Kjerstad single, a Ryan O’Hearn walk and a Jackson Holliday ground-rule double to show for it.
Orioles bats woke up for the seventh but despite some good hard contact, they couldn’t crack this game open against Irvin, still out there hoping to spare his bullpen. Adley Rutschman doubled off the scoreboard at 111 mph, one of the hardest-hit balls of his career, and scored on a fine piece of hitting by Ramón Urías. An error and a deep Ramón Laureano double later, and the game was 7-2, with runners on second and third. Tony Mansolino made a good move, pinch-hitting Emanuel Rivera for light-hitting catcher Maverick Handley. But Rivera’s 99-mph line drive went straight at the second baseman, and Jackson Holliday’s worm-burner ended the rally.
If the current Orioles position players truly do feel that they let former manager Hyde down, they could have done better than the squalid effort they put up today at the plate over the first six innings. Hitting like they did in the seventh shows a small bit of gumption, and so did their work in the ninth against Washington reliever (and superb Scrabble word) Zach Brzykcy. Out of the 7, 8, and 9th spot came consecutive hits before Jackson Holliday (2-for-5 today, 2B, HR, 3 RBI) delivered with a three-run dong that closed the gap to a still out-of-reach 10-6.
It was nice to see the Orioles put up some collective fight today but it wasn’t enough. The Orioles’ problems run deeper than their ex-manager, and there’s a lot of digging to do if they’re to turn this disappointing season around.
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