Orioles Defense Fails Again, And They Can't Score With Season On The Line In Loss To Brewers

If someone had told you eight seasons ago that your reward for watching bad AAA outfielders like Dwight Smith Jr. and DJ Stewart butcher balls in 100-loss seasons would be to watch bad AAA outfielders like Leody Taveras and Rece Hinds do the same in a sub-.500 season, would you have believed them?

What it they told you that along the way, head baseball exec Mike Elias would remain in charge of the Orioles the entire time despite no playoff wins, getting to hire three managers (none with a winning record), declare “liftoff” in 2022, fall flat on his face at every trade deadline, get a huge and covert promotion from a new ownership group that didn’t even hire him, and, on a September day when his team was 21st in MLB in winning percentage since June 21, 2024, he’d be allowed to crow to the media about returning in 2027 along with the most inept of the three puppet skippers he has hired?

And what if someone would have suggested way back in 2018, ahead of all those 100-loss seasons, that mere hours later, on that very same day, Hinds would utterly misplay a routine liner into a triple for the only run in the game (it was ruled a hit, so it didn’t increase Team Elias’s runaway lead in unearned runs). Because yeah, the lineup Elias bragged and boasted about all winter remains once of the bottom eight in MLB, the nightly product remains largely garbage and devoid of any sound fundamentals and the grifters in the marketing department are already pushing 2027 Birdland Memberships.

“He didn’t have sunglasses at all when the sun was in right field,” manager Craig Albernaz opined of Hinds's misadventure. “Pretty frustrating.”

Try paying to watch this crap, skip. You have no idea. Hinds being on this roster should have them all fired. Albernaz letting him play the rest of the game, then talking tough after the game after defending these types of stunts all season tells you what a fraud he is. But, hey, run it back. Maybe we'll get a Rece Hinds bobblehead next year.

That’s what private equity billionaire David Rubenstein – who went from throwing hats at people to hiding like a coward – thinks of you, his fanbase. That’s all you deserve, and that’s all you get.

Another loss while pretending to contend for the final Wild Card spot where they acquiesce, 1-0, to the Brewers at Camden Yards. At 75-80 (35-49 vs teams .500 or better), they are now four out with seven to play, effectively done. They are also below .500 at home (Elias twice butchered the left field wall helping opponents more than his own team but that doesn’t seem to matter, either).

This was a perfect encapsulation of the teams Elias has constructed for three years running, and he and rookie manager Craig Albernaz concocted a lineup so craven Saturday it almost felt like trolling the people who continue showing up to support this team. It begged for an outcome like this; the baseball gods rarely miss a chance to kick Elias in the shins.

And his bosses never miss a chance to show how little they care about any of it.

The Elias Way

It was the typical nonsense in the batter’s box (2-for-20 with RISP in this series).

In the seventh Hinds doubled off tiring starter Robert Gasser (seven shutout innings), then Franklin popped up and rookie Samuel Basallo did the same. It’s been like this all season, the Orioles don’t hit starting pitching, they are bottom three in strikeouts and they chase homers above all else – The Elias Way.

One inning prior they had the bases loaded and one out and Christian Encarnacion-Strand hit into a double play. Even at their best the Orioles (17-24 in one-run games) don’t usually hit until they get to relievers. It’s a constant.

After defending a garbage approach at the plate that Albernaz clearly condoned all season, the manager chose Saturday to start riffing on “some interesting swing decisions,” clearly feeling himself knowing he’s back in 2027. Next year is going to be even more intolerable, folks.

Elias’s vaunted lineup wasted a bounce back effort from starter Trevor Rogers, and perhaps his last as an Oriole at Camden Yards.

The lefty had been struggling since early August like the rest of this rotation but pitched into the eighth Saturday. A change-up that he rode to an anomaly of a season in 2025, and has been MIA all of this season with the league batting .330 off it, showed up in this one and Rogers was dazzling.

Whether the Orioles bring him back as a free agent remains to be seen – the rotation will need serious work – but I wouldn’t be surprised if Elias re-signs him and gets burned badly for it. Rogers is a league average starter at best, but Saturday he was electric with 10 strikeouts in eight innings, walking just one and giving up three hits.

That’s including the routine drive to Smith Jr. in the second inning, I mean Hinds. One that Stevie Wilkerson surely would have caught. At least those teams were kinda fun, and played under the illusion of hope for the future that's long been extinguished.

Bird Seed

The Orioles added former closer Felix Bautista to the active roster in his return from succesuve surgeries. They moved oft-injured and high-overpaid outfielder Tyler O'Neill to the 60-day IL amid a flurry of transactions Saturday.

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