Peter Schmuck: We can only hope the Orioles hit rock bottom on Sunday

Orioles manager Brandon Hyde kept his cool after Sunday’s ridiculous 24-2 loss to the Cincinnati Reds, summing things up with a classic bit of understatement.

“It’s not what you want to do on Easter Sunday in front of your home crowd,’’ he said. “You want to compete.”

Hyde also used the word “embarrassing” in reference to the presence of position players Jorge Mateo and Gary Sánchez on the mound in the eighth and ninth innings, which helped the Reds come within two runs of the largest offensive performance in the franchise’s 156-year history.

“You just want it to be over.”

Well, it is and it isn’t. The only good thing about seeing your pitching staff completely unravel before your eyes is knowing that whether you lose by two or 22, the loss only counts once in the standings. And that might be comforting if this particular pitching performance was just an anomalous event.

I’m pretty sure the Orioles will not give up 24 runs again this season, but I’m also pretty sure the reason that just happened was because the overall pitching situation has been deteriorating since early in spring training. You’d like to think there is nowhere to go but up from here, but there isn’t a lot going on at the moment that would engender hope for the near future.

The club was looking forward to getting highly talented starter Grayson Rodriguez back in the next few weeks, but just as the soreness in his elbow was clearing up he developed a sore shoulder, leaving the likelihood of him pitching at all this season in serious doubt.

The more immediate concern, however, was figuring out how to get through those next weeks with dependable right-hander Zach Eflin on the injured list, Japanese pitcher Tomoyuki Sugano still  adjusting to a new league and young starter Cade Povich struggling to establish himself in the rotation.

Oh, and one other thing. The Orioles’ $15 million 40-something veteran Charlie Morton needed to go out on Sunday and keep his new team in the game against a Reds team that was forced to use all relief pitchers for the rubber game of the three-game series.

Hyde made that crystal clear the night before when he said that the club really needed at least five innings from one of the most experienced pitchers in the sport. It looked for a few tantalizing moments that Morton would deliver, but a scoreless first inning that featured a pair of two-out walks was just a harbinger of bad things to come.

He got the first out of the second inning before allowing a run on a walk and two hits before escaping again, but there was nowhere to hide after that. The Reds exploded for seven runs in the third, and Hyde had to go his bullpen early again.

Now, the big question is how long the team can afford to keep running Morton out there … and there certainly is no easy answer with him only a few weeks into a very large one-year contract.

The Orioles do not have a lot of options with so many pitchers already down. I wrote just a few days ago that this plague of injuries and short starts was not as bad as the midseason problems the club dealt with in 2024, but I’m starting to wonder. Last year, at least, they were in a position to acquire Eflin and had gotten by on the surprising performance of swingman Albert Suárez.

Where they turn now is anybody’s guess. The team sent Triple-A prospect Brandon Young back to Norfolk after Saturday’s brief spot start, which means that even if they wanted to give him another look, they’ll have to wait 15 days unless another pitcher has to go on the injured list. Veteran Kyle Gibson is on the verge of a call-up after signing a one-year deal a month ago today, but who really knows what he’ll have to offer after replicating spring training in the minor leagues.

Nobody is sugar-coating the situation, especially not a manager who has been dealing with problems like this for much of the past year … and particularly over this past weekend.

“We didn’t get through the fourth the first game … Four innings … 3 ⅓ something and 2 ⅓,’’ Hyde said. “You’re just not going to be able to win games that way. You’re going to win once in awhile because you’re going to outscore teams, but that’s not how you win Major League Baseball games.”