Tuesday's Debacle Is Further Confirmation - Craig Albernaz Needs To Go When Orioles Season Ends

The Orioles’ overmatched manager is going to prevent them from making anything of this season.

It really is as simple as that.

He is not cut out for this job, he certainly isn’t growing into the position or making any real corrections or adjustments (he’s a stubborn fool like the failed baseball executive who hired him to be a subservient puppet), and his stubborn display Tuesday – married to certain philosophies that belie the reality of the individual replacement players he is calling on – was a true indicator of just how sophomoric and myopic his rookie campaign has been.

Craig Albernaz is a massive part of the problem that is the 2026 Baltimore Orioles and he and baseball ops chief Mike Elias have more to do with them being in last place in the AL East as anything. Elias prizes fealty over all (and Albernaz is a Hall of Fame suck-up and brownnoser to his boss), and Elias is getting just what he deserves with a fake strategist and wannabe tough guy running his dugout into the ground again.

Bringing Albernaz back should be enough for fans to finally boycott this garbage baseball product. Elias will surely pretend the 2027 Orioles will compete to win the AL East (he peddles that garbage every year to get you to buy Birdland Memberships); Baltimore hasn’t competed for anything since starting a rapid decline June 20, 2024 – and trying to do so with this pawn in charge and no checks and balances on Elias’s whims and fancies and overanalytical tendencies will yield similar results.

The weekend at Tampa was great, but this season has been more like “Weekend At Bernies” with Bernie in the dugout. Alby finally pulled a few of the right levers Friday-Sunday, but man are we back to reality. He ain’t cut out for this, as a manager or communicator or primary messenger through the media for this hapless franchise.

This team (61-65) has not had a winning record since April 14 (my birthday!). it’s had one meaningful winning streak all season and like most of his players, when the stage gets even a little magnified Albernaz comes up quite small. At some level, surely even he knows he really does suck at this whole managing thing - managing men and managing personalities and managing nine innings of baseball.

About Last Night

Plenty of people who know baseball – and several employed by the Orioles - are still sickened by what they saw in a massive game against the Yankees, after this O’s team has finally built up a little momentum and seemed to maybe feeling a little confident. Thinking Josh Walker, who has absolutely nothing in his resume to make him a go-to guy in a 1-1 game in the 7th against the Yankees with men on base, had any business in that spot from the left side against the pinch hitters New York would throw at him was utterly naïve.

Thinking this version of Walker – on fumes now throwing for the fourth time in five days and who battles serious control issues in the best of times – was the man for the job was beyond foolish, as the walks and hit batters and game-winning hit he surrendered spoke to. Starter Shane Baz, striking out 10 Yankees and with a knuckle curve they couldn’t touch (10 whiffs on 21 swings at it) was still throwing 97.

Albernas has so little feel for this part of the job, the fact he didn’t even go out to the mound to really confer with Baz before making the decision rubbed some smart baseball people the wrong way. I wish I could tell you all the individuals more than worthy of your respect who have seen through this pathetic facsimile of a major league manager from the get up, and maybe one day I can.

“He’s such a phony,” someone who knows more baseball than anyone reading this article and the guy who wrote it combined, told me Wednesday morning, still stewing from Albernaz’s antics Tuesday. “He thinks he’s a bully.”

Preach!

Albernaz has a default when recounting what transpired within the game when asked any strategic question – it’s not an answer or explanation, it’s glorified play by play (maybe he’s be better in a booth than a dugout, but this fraud belongs nowhere near this dugout). He saved his worst for the bottom of the 7th.

The Orioles had runners – both with wheels in Leody Taveras and Christian Franklin – on first and second and no outs and he decides to pinch hit for his catcher in the nine hole with Jeremiah Jackson – a double-play machine, a guy who has a .205 OPS since the All-Star break (yeah, .034 average in 19 games since the break) - and opts not to even try a bunt before he strikes out. Jackson Holliday’s ensuing fly ball easily scores a run if Jackson bunts, and Holliday’s speed with runners on second and third and one out would complicate that scenario potentially for New York’s defense, too.

“Playing for the big inning,” this novice opined after the loss.

Here’s what was really going on – the Orioles lead the majors in pinch hits, this fraudster thinks he has a magic touch now, and rather than do what made sense with the top of the order coming up, knowing runs would be tough against the Yankees and you’d better get something now against their 7th inning arm before you get to other leverage arms, he thought Jackson would run into a fastball and make him look smart. His ego got the best of him. Having an ego despite being this obviously bad at such a public facing job, really says a lot.

Honestly, Brandon Hyde and even interim skipper Tony Mansolino were better at this than Albernaz, across the board. Better instincts, more comfortable in their own skin rather than this pretend tough guy routine with the media. They had a better temperament and demeanor and they never had a roster that an ownership group sunk put even these modest resources into.

Birdland deserves so much better than anything Elias could ever dream of putting together. He should have been fired years ago. But if we are stuck with that charlatan – and the owner already began making the case for it in a shambolic public display – then the manager must eat this.

He has to go.

And an experienced and expensive replacement must try to finally salvage whatever is left of a pathetic and perpetual rebuild. Bring back Buck Showalter. Show the fans you can at least pretend to care. End this charade as soon as this façade of a season meets its demise.

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