Orioles Once Again Can't Produce With Men On Base, Drop Game And Series To Padres

There is a distinct sense whenever the Orioles play baseball that the best of whatever they have to offer in 2026 – one fleeting run where they looked like a half-decent MLB team for a homestand – is behind them.

This just-completed series against the Padres, including a lazy, 5-2, loss on another sweltering afternoon at Camden Yards, featured so many hallmarks of The Elias Way (crappy baseball of the ilk this fraudulent baseball czar seemingly craves). It ran the O’s record to 6-7 since that mirage of a 7-3 homestand back in May, another considerable sample pointing to them just not being any good.

Gunnar Henderson remains one of the most maddeningly-enigmatic and under-performing talents in the world, continuing to be useless with men on base and lost at shortstop (committed errors on successive chances in the 9th inning; one fielding and one throwing). He is a below-average MLB player in his totality and by any individual measure (terrible in the field, a threat to be picked off whenever he does get on a base and with a .715 OPS that is well below average).

Their staff gets bludgeoned by No. 9 hitters and back-up catchers. The bullpen is cracking. The rookie manager is overmatched. We are now creeping toward the midpoint of the season and the Orioles are five-below .500 (34-39) and they have been woeful on the road (12-20) and 15-24 against winning teams are about to play 10 games on the West Coast.

Among all that went wrong on this latest homestand against Seattle and San Diego – and there was plenty – they continue to strand runners on base at an alarming rate in the middle of the lineup – with struggling starter Walker Buehler in trouble throughout his start but leaving four on base in the first three innings alone (eight in the game). Elias pretended he built an elite lineup, but they cannot handle junk-ballers and low-velo guys and can’t sustain any alterations in their feast-or-famine hitting approach for long.

“There’s a couple of spots there we wish we could’ve pushed a couple across,” skipper Craig Albernaz said in what has become a broken record. “I think we were 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position. If we cash in it might be a different game there.”

This guy is the king of ifs and buts, but few adjustments get made and he' s been incapable of a meaningful winning streak to this point.

Baltimore had two on to open the third and Henders, Aldey Rutschman (still not catching with his hamstring tightness) and Pete Alonso unable to come through; Rutschman just doesn’t play all that often and Henderson and Alonso have been bad with runners in scoring position all season – HYER. They has second and third with one out in the sixth, but Colton Cowser and Jackson Holliday (who pinch hit for Jeremiah Jackson who hit a solo shot) both struck out.

Trevor Rogers Was Actually Good

The Orioles love to hype up starter Trevor Rogers (and, hey he did lower his season ERA below 6.00 today!) and Sunday he actually deserved it. He got hit hard in the first inning but everything was right at someone, then suffered from had bad bounces in the second inning – including a groundball off second base to score a run. Rogers buckled down and managed to earn his first quality start since early April by going six and allowing just two runs.

Problem is, Albernaz decided to use high-leverage guy Rica Garcia, who is struggling bigtime lately, in a weird spot in the sixth and Padres No. 9 hitter and backup catcher Rodolfo Duran kept up his career series with a two-run bomb. Henderson committed his decathlon of errors – with Holliday getting in on the act on the same play as the throwing error – to gift the Padres their fifth run.

It’s difficult to feel particularly bullish about anything this baseball team does as it heads back on the road. That’s just who they are.

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