There was like a week when the Orioles weren’t booting the ball all over the place. Remember that?

It was like the very end of the last homestand and then like the first half of the ensuing road trip. You know, before Jackson Holliday started dropping pop ups in Colorado and Gunnar Henderson started missing easy backhanded plays and outfielders went back to misjudging balls and taking ridiculous angles. So it seemed somewhat fitting that after starting to rally from down 6-0 Tuesday night, they’d quickly hand the game right back via three more unearned runs.

They are committed to this bit, and this is The Elias Way, a product of failure baseball exec Mike Elias, and they will play this woeful brand of ball they’ve been employing since the spring of 2024 right ‘til the bitter end of this season. This time in a 9-6 loss to Cleveland at Camden Yards, dropping Baltimore (70-76) back to four off the Wild Card pace – their seventh loss in the last eight games.

After Pete Alonso’s blast cut this deficit to 6-5, a throwing error in the 7th (by Alonso, which is unusual given how well he has fielded this season) extended their misery. There were two on and one out, with reliever Alex Hoppe looking a lot more like the wild reliever he was in Seattle before being part of the Taylor Ward salary dump, when Alonso’s throw to second hit the runner going to second and a run scored. Hoppe issued another walk – the No. 8 hitter – and No. 9 hitter Brayan Rocchio sent a 3-2 liner into center scoring two more runs with two outs.

“That’s a play where he should have went to first,” manager Craig Albernaz said.

The Orioles now have surrendered 84 unearned runs this season, runaway leaders in MLB (no other team has more than 71). Hey, everybody’s got to be good at something, and this is no fluke. It’s built into the warped roster-constriction Elias subscribes to, and we’re seemingly stuck with it.

Orioles pitching, so good for so long, didn’t have it tonight and we’ve seen starter Brandon Young start to tail off in his command for a few weeks now. Tuesday was the worst of it.

Where Was The Six-Man Rotation?

Going to a six-man rotation long made sense for this group, so many starters being extended in ways like never before, especially Young. Young held the rotation together through May and into June, before it took off, but it’s unraveling now. He never threw more than 110 innings in the minors and is at 140 now, in MLB, vastly different.

Young couldn’t complete four innings tonight, with Leody Taveras offering no help in right field, taking horrible routes to balls and turning a leadoff double into a triple. Either way, Young needed 86 pitches to get 11 outs, allowing eight hits and six runs, with the one homer a huge one – rookie Travis Bazzana, with two on and two outs in the second inning.

“Had a tough time getting ahead of guys,” Albernaz said. “Lot of fastballs early in the game … Had a tough time getting a feeling for the offspeed.”

This one ended with catcher Carlos Narvaez at second base, with Henderson (.698 OPS) getting injured in the eighth and Blaze Alexander, just a few weeks back from a long IL stint, also leaving after a late bunt. Alexander has back spasms, Albernaz said, and Henderson fouled a ball off his patella tendon.

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