The 2026 Orioles Are Officially Worse Than Morbid 2025 Edition After 9-7 Loss

If you thought the Orioles stunk a year ago, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

This 2026 edition, even with their middling offseason acquisitions that failed baseball czar Mike Elias proclaimed would have them challenging for the AL East title, is out to be even more listless and even more unsound and even more hellbent on embarrassment – with twice the gaslighting that Elias offered a year ago!

Are you fired up for a few more months of this garbage, Birdland?

No wonder there are about 15,000 people in Camden Yards these days, including Wednesday night and most appear to be rooting for the other team. And, hey, that other team, the Chicago Cubs, put on quite a show at the Orioles expense, this time, in a 9-7 win. So the 2026 Orioles, at 42-51 (tying their season low), are now a game worse than last year’s edition at this point, you know the one that was going to prompt all that change and soul searching (sorry Mike, gotta have a soul first!) from the front office after they whacked manager Brandon Hyde before Memorial Day because they started the season so poorly.

And now we get this nightly ridiculousness from rookie skipper Craig Albernaz with his team worse than that one: "They don’t quit, they don’t give in," he uttered during his post-game press conference, a sad rallying cry for him all season long. Well skip, they also don't win.

Remember, Elias got promotions for himself and 16 other people after years of utter failure here, and now we get to watch an even worse product, with an even more befuddled skipper at the wheel, careen toward the All Star break and another inevitable firesale at the trade deadline with 1983 feeling like 1963 to those of us old enough to remember that last World Series parade.

How Bad Did It Get Wednesday?

Well, the bats woke up, finally, but only after falling behind 9-3, first, and only because they finally starting hitting the longball again (then entered this game 20th in homers since June 1, a big part of their prolonged offensive funk.

Part of that might have something to do with them having a No. 3 hitter (Taylor Ward) with just four extra base hits (all doubles) and nine RBIS at home all season . And them refusing to put their hottest hitter since April 28th – and the best hitter for average in MLB since then (Blaze Alexander) above the 8 hole despite them coming into this game having scored three runs or less in seven of the last 10 games.

And they are married to Gunnar Hendseron – and an epic failure of a season that won’t ever rival Adley Rutschman’s 2025 but man it’s getting closer than I thought ever possible – in the top three in the lineup. And he brought a .699 OPS into the game and a .674 OPS with RISP and an unfathomable .371 OPS with RISP and two outs … so no one should be surprised when he hit into a double play with two on and no outs in the third (one run scored) and then grounded into another double play in the fifth.

Henderson is beyond reproach and he doesn’t even get criticized or disciplined when he gets picked off twice in a game. They save all that tough love for a kid having the best under-22 hitting season by a catcher in MLB history.

But hey, I’m no baseball genius like Elias and Albernaz. Surely they know better (or maybe not with the seventh-worth record in MLB since June 21, 2024).

So a run scored on Henderson’s first double play and Pete Alonso hit an opposite field homer to make it 3-1, and Chicago took over from there.

Kremer Got KOd

Dean Kremer was masterful in his first start back from the 60-day Injured List time out, but the Cubs have a potent lineup and he kept throwing balls in some of their happy zones.

Kremer managed to give up four solo homers in five innings of work. Pete crow Armstrong, doing more damage than any hitter in MLB since May 1, likes the low ball and twice he took Kremer deep in his happy zone. In the third inning Kremer gave up three homers, including on consecutive pitches to Michael Conforto (right field) and Carson Kelly (left field) before PCA hit his second.

"I felt like I executed the game plan very well," Kremer told the media after the game.

Obviously, the Orioles didn’t pay enough attention to our pre-series scouting report).

The bullpen continued the meltdown from there, because that is exactly what they were constructed to do.

Rico Garcia continued his total collapse from his first 15 or so appearances, giving up a run in less than an inning of work and Albernaz went to Grant Wolfram – who is going to be exposed in high leverage – with two on; he walked PCA to load the bases and then we got peak Elias Ball.

A sac fly, then a walk, then a wild pitch that Rutschman (O's are 21-27 when he catches) still should have caught and then a 401-foot blast from Seiya Suzuki made it 9-3 (a real manager would have gone to righty in this spot, but Alby was surely thinking how Wolfy has been better against righties this season).

'They're not going to be flawless all the time," Albernaz said of his bullpen, noting once again that walks will keep hurting this ballclub.

The Orioles cut it to 9-5 and Alonso was up with two on and two out in the 7th, and he popped out. Tyler O’Neill homered twice off the bench – including a 430-foot bomb – and Coby Mayo homered off the bench to the second deck in left (this team does mash bad bullpens). Jackson Holliday (four hits to end a long slump) nearly homered, too, in the 8th, doubling with two outs and Henderson came up with a chance to tie the game.

He scorched the ball, but fellow shortstop Dansby Swanson had him shaded perfectly, and his diving catch ended Baltimore’s final rally.

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