The Orioles can try to take some positives from Wednesday’s ninth straight loss. They can look at Jorge López’s deepest start of the season or a ninth-inning rally that had the tying run at second base.
In the end, it was just another loss, 3-2 to the Minnesota Twins at Target Field. Along with those positives, there were many more negatives. Not only is their ninth straight loss their longest skid since a 10-game slide from June 12-21, 2019, but it’s their 15th straight loss to the Twins.
Since John Means threw his no-hitter in Seattle exactly three weeks ago, the Orioles (17-32) have lost 16 of 18.
Trey Mancini had one of three Orioles’ hits in the first inning against Michael Piñeda (3-2), his 11th home run of the year. Cedric Mullins led off with a single, but was thrown out stealing, and Anthony Santander doubled after Mancini’s home run.
The Orioles didn’t have another hit until the ninth, when Mancini and Maikel Franco doubled.
López (1-6) had a 1-0 lead and a two-hit shutout heading into the sixth. In previous starts, the fifth inning had been his undoing, but that wasn’t the case against Minnesota (20-29).
Willans Astudillo led off with a single but was erased on a double play by Rob Refsnyder. Andrelton Simmons grounded out, and it was on to the sixth. ‘
Max Kepler led off the sixth with a single, moved to second on an infield out by Jorge Polanco. Nelson Cruz walked, and Miguel Sanó hit a three-run home run and, suddenly, the Orioles trailed, 3-1.
“Every mistake we make, we have to pay for it,” López said. “That’s what I felt.”
López allowed three runs on four hits in six innings, walking four and striking out three.
“Disappointing on that pitch, but six really good innings,” manager Brandon Hyde said. “Was in control, was in command. Pitch count was down. Velo stayed there throughout his outing. He pitched really, really well. Made that one bad pitch.”
Piñeda gave up a run on three hits, walking two and striking out eight. The Orioles didn’t have a hit against Tyler Duffey in the seventh or Caleb Thielbar in the eighth.
“We had a tough time getting any offense going,” Hyde said. “Once again we battled back with the tying run on base, but didn’t have a whole lot going on from [innings] two through eight.”
Mancini began the ninth with a double, the Orioles’ first hit since the first. Santander grounded out to third, and DJ Stewart lined out to left. Franco doubled against Hansel Robles, scoring Mancini, and Stevie Wilkerson grounded out to end the game.
Robles was credited with his third save.
Hyde believes the Orioles are still in a position to succeed.
“I sense some frustration,” he said. “It doesn’t feel good. There’s no way around it. This doesn’t feel good. We’re in most of these games, too. We’re just having a tough time getting on the right end of it.”
Elias addresses woes: Before the game, Orioles executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias acknowledged the team’s losing streak.
“It’s been tough on everyone involved,” Elias said. “These struggles happen in baseball. In particular, they happen with young teams, a young roster. These stretches can be harder when you have a group of young players, as we do.”
Elias, who assumed his job in November 2018, said he knew turning around the franchise’s fortunes was not going to be easy.
“It was a big task,” he said. “It is a big task. It remains a very difficult task and these processes are difficult. They don’t go perfectly. They don’t go smoothly. They require a lot of effort and endurance through tough stretches like this.
“This wave of young players right now that are undergoing some struggles in what I call their sophomore seasons are a very talented group. I don’t think this is unexpected. Sophomore slumps are real. This is a generation of players that has undergone probably the strangest and most difficult introduction to the major leagues possible. A lot of these guys totally skipped Triple-A because of the pandemic, working at alternate sites, dropped into the American League East, had a weird calendar last year, a weird calendar this year.
“You look at our young pitchers who have undergone some struggles this year, [Dean] Kremer, [Bruce] Zimmermann, [Keegan] Akin. The ERAs are a little high, but the strikeout/walk numbers remain positive. Those are indicative of future results. We see a lot of talent there. This is a group of players that we believe in. I know that things will improve and get back in a positive direction on the field at some point.
“We are remaining on target for what we’re trying to do, which is build for a sustainable, competitive, playoff-caliber future for this organization for a long time so that we do not have to undergo a process this traumatic ever again.”
Notes: The 15th straight loss to the Twins equals the third-longest streak to one club in franchise history. From July 26, 1987-April 11, 1989, the Orioles dropped 15 consecutive games to Kansas City. … The Orioles have scored first in their last five games. … They’ve lost eight straight road games for the first time since August 18-September 3, 2018. … The Orioles play four games at Chicago, beginning Thursday at 8 p.m. Bruce Zimmermann (2-3, 5.59 ERA) will face Dylan Cease (2-1, 3.18).
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View Comments
We played good defense, pitching was solid; well played game. Might need to keep Severino on the bench a few days and see how Cisco holds up defensively
Unfortunately Sisco’s poor performance at the plate makes him overall worse than Severino value wise to the Orioles. Might be time to add a new catcher to the Orioles 40 man roster
Agreed
I’m sure it’ll be easier going into Chicago for 4/s...go O’s...
Sorry to say this but our skipper needs to go. We now need a vet manager to handle the team and gm
Who is available?
How about C.D.? He's already on the payroll.
Bumble Bee, in my opinion maybe we are seeing that the pitching coach might play a larger role with the team. I agree who would we get maybe we should have kept Buck; you must admit the team is still playing hard so I say keep Brandon for now
I hope ALL of you will join me in obeying Elias's heartfelt advice to be patient and embrace the process--even though there might be a couple of minor bumps along the way to the 2024 turnaround. [BTW, Thank you, Rich, for sparing us most of the silliest Elias rah-rahs quoted today on orioles.com.]
Does anyone know if the O's are the first team in MLB history to be swept back-to-back by two teams that were last in their division? .
Steve, there will be more Elias tomorrow morning. As for your question, I’m sure that’s happened many times.
Rich, If you burden us with more of his over-sugared, feel-good blather, your computer just might be hacked and ransomware imposed. I think it would be far more productive if, instead, you figured out how to grant BRR's wish, below, to "make it stop."
And "sure" is not the same thing as fact.
Snickers, you need a Snickers now... I looked it up, 312 teams have been swept back to back by teams in last place in their division before the Orioles were. Only in 2 other occurrences did a commenter get warped enough to go the sure ain’t fact route you did. That’s all fact. You needing a Snickers is my personal opinion though...
Make it stop!
O’s are well on the way to their 5th consecutive losing season. In fact our W/L % during those 5 years is .367 and going down. It’s horrible!!! Yet some folks think we need to be patient! Hogwash! Ownership can’t continue to have their heads in the same! O’s can’t win and fans won’t show up. Trade Mancini and Means, and then move the franchise to Nashville. Unfortunately, it’s time to put a fork in it.
Deep breath...
2018 winning pct 0.290
2019 winning pct 0.333
2020 winning pct 0.417
2021 still time to improve on 2020’s winning pct
Tphoebus ... you seem oddly familiar?
Again ... Numbers can, and in this case, are very misleading.
2018 ... Led by an apathetic lame duck Machado and his non-existent work ethic and character, the team basically quit playing.
2019 ... Led by Tank Elias, the goal was to lose as many games as possible to obtain a high draft pick, following the Houston Blue Print
2020 ... The Bizarro year where the normal rules of mathematics, physics and the Universe were stood on their heads. And I haven't even mentioned that only 60 games were played .......plus .... by the end of the season, the O's record was sinking faster than Biden's gas prices are currently rising! It's simply not fair to say they were a team on the uptick.
2021 ... Every time I think things can't get worse ...they do. But hey ... it's a process. A sub .400 pct is almost a certainty.
Drink Pepsi
"2018 … Led by an apathetic lame duck Machado and his non-existent work ethic and character...."
"non-existent work ethic and character"..... sheer brilliance!!
You are so right....
I will have some Canadian whisky w my Pepsi...please.
Bottoms up. But please ... don't be so complimentary, stuff like that goes straight to my head!
LMAO Boog, your spot on & crack me up, drink Diet Pepsi & go O’s...
How about moving them to Frisco? NoTex could support 2 teams 'eh?
I’m all for the Orioles in North Texas!
I do need to take a breath. I expect more out of this ball club and continue to be badly disappointed. Sorry for the rant above.
I heard a rumor that the Twins are gonna schedule a Homecoming Game next year as soon as the schedule comes out and they see when the O’s are coming to town.
Retro music, they’ll play Elton John’s “Bitch is Back”...LOL...go O’s...
Sad & depressing. I want to believe Elias, I really do. But I'm not onboard for an 8-10 yr rebuild plan, with a shallow promise that once we're playoff caliber again, we'll never have to go thru this again.
All because ownership has fallen on hard times and can't part with the money to buy a couple of good FA vets to stabilize this team while the young future stars work to become major league ready.
I'm not talking spending the club back into the top 10 of payrolls. Just enough so it can scratch and claw itself back to consistent .500 ball and competitiveness.
Asking the fans of this once proud franchise to endure this long drawn out rebuild with nothing but an empty promise possibly awaiting us at the end is just plain wrong. Spend a little dough and throw us fans some small bones along the way. That's providing we could even get a solid vet to sign here after all this losing.
It's a dreadful predicament.
Elias said in his press conference we are going to see results I’m confident of that. He didn’t say what year we would see the results.
Oh Bhoff, we’re seeing results, they just suck...go O’s...
Signing free agent veterans will put us back into the same predicament that got us here
in the first place. History repeating itself. No free agent will sign here anyway until these youngsters get promoted and show some of their skill set consistently. We complain about Galvis and Fraaanko, but that’s what we’re going to get right now.
Who would want to sign here, I mean come on.
It will get better, maybe just not on your imagined timeline.
Really wish that I could share your positive endorsement of the Orioles rebuild. Hallbe62 made the excellent point that “Asking the fans of this once proud franchise to endure this long drawn out rebuild with nothing but an empty promise possibly awaiting us at the end is just plain wrong”.
Fans aren’t going to sit around waiting until 2023 or later for “The Process” to kick in.
The Orioles definitely need to bring in an established veteran infielder to provide stability. We need to trade some of our “prospects” to get a proven starter. John Means is the only reputable starter. Lastly, gonna have to overspend to find a young slugger to provide run support. Imagine Juan Soto, Aaron Judge, or Vlad Guerrero Jr in Oriole Black and Orange – bringing excitement to a rather boring product.
I've got a pretty healthy imagination but seeing the Birds as playoff contenders within 5-6 years isn't part of that. I'd call it an educated guess or prediction.
But I do agree the O's would be hard pressed to find "good" veteran players at any position to sign here. No one likes being a loser or associates of losing. I get that.
But you know what...... that's NOT my problem. It's the Angelos bros. problem to solve. Right now they and their father are rolling the dice that we'll all be here in 10 years cheering away. Some of us will. Some of us won't