Peter Schmuck: Orioles’ playoff hopes may soon be an impossible dream

Like all of you, I keep wanting to believe that the Orioles will get healthier, bring a couple of top-flight pitchers back into their starting rotation and start winning consistently enough to reclaim their once-rightful place among the better teams in the American League.

That hope grows fainter by the day.

There have been a few hopeful signs over the past several weeks, like the resurgence of Gunnar Henderson at the plate and the visible progression of budding superstar Jackson Holiday, but injuries keep piling up and the O’s seem to be treading water at best as the deadline approaches for executive VP/general manager Mike Elias to decide whether to turn his attention to 2026.

It’s hard to cite Tuesday night’s lopsided loss to the Texas Rangers as proof that it’s time for a midseason fire sale, since there was little expectation that the Orioles were going to sock it to Rangers ace Jacob deGrom. They kept hope alive for a few innings thanks to another big home run from Gary Sánchez only to watch the bullpen unravel against one of the weakest offensive teams in either league.

That’s going to keep happening. There was a period when the Orioles’ relievers were performing masterfully, but the lack of organizational pitching depth is being laid bare and the going is only going to get tougher along with the remaining schedule.

The next week features a weekend road series against the Atlanta Braves and then a home series against the New York Mets. The Braves looked a lot like the Orioles for the first two months of the season, but they’re playing winning baseball again with superstar Ronald Acuña Jr. back and looking very much like himself after missing a full year recovering from knee surgery.

The Mets have been in a deep slump yet remain near the top of the NL East standings and will be looking to make somebody pay if their 3-13 tailspin stretches through the weekend.

There are a couple soft spots in the July schedule – visits from the Marlins and Rockies – but the only weak team the Orioles are scheduled to face in August are the Athletics, who won their home series against the O’s in June.

Though Elias isn’t saying which way he will turn in the next four weeks, most signs seem to point toward at least a partial rebuild, and even that would seem to be problematic because of the recent injury to top starting pitcher Zach Eflin, who is not under contract for next year. If his sore back keeps him sidelined more than the minimum injured list period, it might be tough to get great value in a deadline deal.

Cedric Mullins becomes eligible for free agency at the end of this season, which – under better circumstances – would make him another valuable deadline commodity. When he’s at his best, he’s a terrific combination of speed, power and defense, but only the defense has been evident of late. He’s batting .214, has hit only two home runs since May 19th and did not steal a single base in June.

The Orioles, surprisingly, enter tonight’s game only 7 games out of the final American League wild-card berth, so it’s still possible to envision Grayson Rodriguez and Kyle Bradish returning in August and giving the club a much more representative starting rotation. It’s also possible that the O’s hitters will morph into more than the inconsistent bunch that all too often scores (and sometimes hits) in only one inning a game.

The more realistic hope is that Elias makes a couple of forward-looking moves, the Orioles eventually do reconstitute the rotation and play reasonably competitive baseball the rest of the season. And we can spend the offseason clamoring for the club to make a couple of big-money acquisitions and dreaming about the 2026 World Series.

Is that too much to ask?