For the first month of the season, it seemed like the Orioles were comfortable treading water. But now, in the midst of a four-game losing streak, including three at the hands of the rival Yankees, it feels more like the team is drowning.
A club with a rookie manager and an influx of veteran talent was always going to be a work in progress. Pair that with some unhelpful injuries early on, and that likely forms the understanding that the Orioles were OK with hovering around .500 to this point rather than sprinting off the line.
But given how much money the team spent over the winter, and the way in which President of Baseball Operations Mike Elias spoke about expectations coming into this season, it’s impossible to view these first 34 games as anything other than a failure. The team is 15-19. That is only two games better than they were at this point in 2025 (13-21). That start was so bad that we are now just two weeks away from the one-year anniversary of Brandon Hyde being fired as manager of the team.
It is somewhat reasonable for the Orioles to point at injuries as an excuse for some of their struggles. The team is currently missing their starting second second baseman, starting third baseman, staff ace, fifth starter, sixth starter, and their closer. If all of those players were healthy, the team would probably have a slightly better record.
But it’s not as if that collective has missed the entire season. Trevor Rogers and Ryan Helsley just went on the IL this past week, and neither one is expected to miss much time. And while Jackson Holliday has been on the shelf since spring training, his replacement, Jeremiah Jackson, was keeping the team’s offense afloat earlier in the year. For now, those injuries don’t feel like they have had a massive impact on the team’s overall direction.
The lack of Jordan Westburg, Zach Eflin, and Dean Kremer have proved much harder to replace. Third base has been an offensive black hole (38 wRC+ as a group) with Coby Mayo not having the sort of bounce-back the club seemed to be banking on. Brandon Young, Cade Povich, and now Trey Gibson have stepped into big league starter roles and done their best. But the team wasn’t built with the expectation that one or two of them would be part of the regular rotation in early May.
That’s not to say the players that have stayed healthy have been just fine though. Kyle Bradish, Shane Baz, and Chris Bassitt all have ERAs of 4.50 or worse. Mayo, Colton Cowser, Dylan Beavers, and Tyler O’Neill are all hitting below league-average, some of them well below. And neither Gunnar Henderson (101 wRC+) nor Pete Alonso (109 wRC+) are playing the like the MVP-caliber talents they are supposed to be.
Instead, the team is being buoyed by a surprisingly solid bullpen, their two catchers, Taylor Ward doubles, and Leody Taveras playing above his head. Everything outside of that is a problem.
With such widespread struggles, the questions around the club must all come back to Elias and his theory around team building.
The rotation needed an ace and depth. That was the perspective of basically the entire fan base, and the front office acknowledged it. Elias got them depth and took a big swing that Baz would become an ace. So far, it’s not working. The depth is being exposed and Baz is looking more like a mid-rotation piece than a future Cy Young winner.
The need for starters is a byproduct of the organizational philosophy of not over-investing in young pitchers, whether that is in high draft picks or big signing bonuses. That has required them to look elsewhere for upgrades to their rotation. Some of those moved have worked, like the trades for Rogers and Corbin Burnes. Many other times they haven’t.
There has long been a desire from fans to package up some of the club’s better prospects and turn them into proven big leaguers. For the most part, Elias has resisted that urge, seeming to prefer for those youngsters to become cornerstones in Baltimore. That worked early on with the emergence of Henderson and Adley Rutschman. But outside of Samuel Basallo, that hasn’t happened in recent years. Mayo, Cowser, Beavers, and Heston Kjerstad all look like they have withered on the vine. Maybe that gets better, but they certainly aren’t helping a 2026 Orioles team that was supposed to have postseason ambitions.
Where Elias seems to have the most success is on the fringes of an MLB roster. He does a nice job finding promising bullpen options, or bench bats with intriguing traits. The addition of Taveras this offseason looks shrewd, and the way the club has turned Jeremiah Jackson from a minor league free agent into a big league contributor is admirable. Guys like Ryan O’Hearn and Jorge Mateo were good examples in prior seasons.
But the fringe moves only really matter if the core of the team is solid and putting the club in a position where incremental improvements can move you from wild card team to contender. This current iteration is praying that guys like Jackson, Taveras, and Weston Wilson can hold things together long enough for their “stars” to realize their potential. That is not usually a winning formula.
So, where do the Orioles go from here? Well, it’s May. There are no real choices to make. This team was supposed to win. Firings of coaches or executives mid-season would likely do nothing to advance that goal in the short term. There are also no massive trades to be made at this point in the year, so any sort of talent improvement will need to come internally.
At the same time, the team cannot simply stand pat and watch it all burn down. Another mid-May spiral would likely mean yet another wasted season and force the organization to dig deeper into their flaws. That wouldn’t mean Elias is fired on the spot, but that could come in the offseason. And once the head guy is out, just about every other person might be on the way out too, even a rookie manager that probably doesn’t deserve much blame.
A roster shuffle of some kind feels like a baseline expectation. Gibson getting a chance so early feels like a sign of things to come. Cowser is barely playing, so why is he on the roster? Giving him everyday at-bats in Norfolk might help him find his footing. It doesn’t feel like Mayo is building much confidence with his .540 OPS. The team seems to be waiting for these two to finally realize their potential and start carrying the offense. But that feels so far off from their current level of performance. Giving everyone a change of scenery could help.
Look, the season is still somewhat young. The Orioles are only one game back of a wild card spot in a mediocre American League, and there is reason to think that things can only get better from here. But this weekend in the Bronx should have been quite humbling for the club. They looked like the junior varsity. And we learned last year that a season can get away from you pretty quick if you’re not careful.
