Yet Another Error Dooms Orioles In Extra-Innings Loss To Braves

Whenever Mike Elias opens his mouth in front of a microphone, his feckless and unsound baseball team makes him look like a fool.

He needs no assistance doing this on his own, of course, with eight years of mostly brutal transactions indicating how shockingly foolish and inept he is at this, yet it's uncanny the impact his words have on his shoddy product. Friday's, 7-6 loss to the Braves at Camden Yards was but the latest example of this phenomenon.

The Orioles failed baseball czar is a master at making excuses and gaslighting his fans, and before Friday’s game he and his billionaire owner, David Rubenstein, hid behind injuries at a press conference and spewed yarns about a ballclub that is one of the worst in MLB all of this season and since June 21, 2024. The owner, out of hiding to celebrate Kyle Bradish's contract extension, gushed about Elias's horrible work with a vote of confidence, so of course The Baseball Gods made sure these two were thoroughly undressed in the ensuing ballgame.

Elias’s pathetic lineup (11 more strikeouts!) could do nothing against one of the worst arms in MLB over three innings in relief. His prized first-overall pick Jackson Holliday, whom Elias hyped as a future five-tool star shortstop, still can’t play second base at a AAA level and committed a ridiculous error lobbing a throw into the outfield in the 10th to plate a run and extend the inning. And his latest novice manager came up short again, too.

"Jackson didn’t realize how much time he actually had to go to second," rookie skipper Craig Albernaz said of his team's latest backbreaking error.

All of that was the precursor to Andrew Kittredge surrendering a three-run homer for a 7-3 deficit in the 10th inning that was too much to overcome. Rather than walk Matt Olson, who has a 1000 OPS on the road this season and is the Braves biggest threat, with a base open, the overmatched manager let Kittredge challenge him. So they wasted a gem from starter Trevor Rogers, while the Braves, a stout defensive team, made elite plays all over the diamond.

"If we fell behind (in the count) we were going to put him on," Albernaz offered..

You could have bet the mortgage on the Orioles (50-54; 25-34 vs winning teams) soiling themselves Friday.

Just like when Elias gaslight fans about being a trade deadline “buyer” in June, and then his team fell apart against the Nats. Or like back in April when he promised this year’s team wasn’t as tragically flawed as last years and remarked how “bullish” he was about them, and then they fell off a cliff. That’s just the conman that he is, and the terribly-flawed baseball team that they are, and Baltimore sadly seems stuck with all of the above.

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Christian Encarnacion-Strand is getting intentionally walked about a week after being called up from AAA. It also obviously says something about the state of an already erratic Orioles lineup that remains down three of its top bats. And the fallen former prospect drove in four runs, including a two-run homer in the 10th inning (in an 0-2 count), but he can’t do it all himself.

Gunnar Henderson, who finally showed signs of life in Boston and perhaps a renewed approach, could not produce yet again in run-scoring opportunities and even hits were once again hard to come by through nine innings and there remains more swing and miss than anyone would like. But that’s what you always get with Elias. He traded for Taylor Ward to be a big bat, all he wants to do is walk, and when he came up with two outs in the 9th with the bases loaded and worked a 3-0 count before finally having to swing the bat against a mop-up arm he grounded out meekly.

The Orioles have played seven games since the All Star break and have struck out 77 times in those contests. And without injured Blaze Alexander and Samuel Basallo two of the three best high-leverage bats on this roster, their inability to get things done in the clutch continues to dog them (Encarnacion-Strand, with 8 RBIs in five games, excluded).

So the Braves were content to ride an arm who hasn’t pitched in the majors in forever and who last pitched at all 12 days ago in AAA and let him cruise through the better part of three leverage innings against a team that Elias once said would be a hitting factory with “a decade-long window” competing to win the mighty AL East.

Yeah, we got Elieser Hernadez, with a 5.06 career ERA in MLB who was getting smacked around in AAA, becoming the latest vagabond arm to slice up a lineup that can’t hit curves, sliders or change-ups, or make astute adjustments.

Another Stellar Start

Thus, Rogers’s effort ended up wasted.

He wasn’t giving anything up easy, putting together his ninth straight elite outing and seventh straight allowing two earned runs or less. The only time the Braves got to Rogers at all, it could have been worse. Atlanta has second and third and one out, and got a single and a sac fly to tie the game at 2 (Encarnacion-Strand provided the 2-0 lead), but that was it.

Rogers went seven innings and allowed just six hits and he walked no one. He was always in command and rarely was anyone on base let alone threatening to score. And he didn’t even have his regular catcher, Basallo, with him. Picking up 18 swing and miss with scouts all over the ballpark will make some waves in rival front offices.

With Rogers revealing when interviewed during a MASN broadcast this week the Orioles have never even attempted to sign him, and with his contract up at the end of the season, and the trade deadline looming Aug. 3, perhaps this was the last time he’ll pitch at Camden Yards as his home park.

"He did his job," Albernaz said of why he yanked Rogers after 88 pitches. "Our pen was fresh and ready to go." (Yeah, the not-ready-for-prime-time-skipper played quite a role in this).

Unfortunately for Rogers, any chance to earn a win was exhausted in the 8th when Rico Garcia, who went from unhittable through May to something of a pinata since, gave up another home run, this time to young catcher Drake Baldwin to tie the game at 3. The Baseball Gods were just getting warmed up.

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