The vibes in Birdland right now are\u2026not great. It\u2019s only been eight games, but so far the Orioles look discouragingly similar to the flawed, frustrating team of 2025 that was out of contention by Memorial Day. Their starting pitching has underwhelmed and has already lost a key member, likely for the season. Their offense has too often lacked the big hit. Their defense and bullpen have been as bad as feared. It\u2019s not a good combination. Now the O\u2019s are in danger of being swept by the Pirates in their first road series of the year.<\/p>\n
As last year\u2019s Orioles demonstrated, a slow start to the season can easily spiral into something worse, so it would behoove the Birds to turn things around sooner rather than later. Maybe today will be the day. Chris Bassitt takes the mound for his second start as an Oriole after a woeful performance in his debut (4.1 IP, 4 ER, 4 BB, and a throwing error). Bassitt, a veteran leader, could establish some positive momentum for the Orioles if he can deliver a quality performance today. But he\u2019s had his struggles against the Pirates\u2019 big hitters \u2014 Brandon Lowe, Bryan Reynolds, and Ryan O\u2019Hearn \u2014 each of whom has a .971 or better OPS in at least 17 career PAs versus Bassitt. Lowe has four homers off Bassitt in 20 at-bats.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, some of the Orioles\u2019 key hitters need to get on track. Pete Alonso is 0-for-8 with five strikeouts in this series. Samuel Basallo is OPS\u2019ing .544 for the season. They\u2019ll be batting third and fourth in today\u2019s lineup. Two other struggling Orioles, Colton Cowser and Coby Mayo, have the day off as Craig Albernaz searches for the right mix of hitters. Leody Taveras is back in the lineup and Tyler O\u2019Neill makes his first start in five days. They\u2019ll be facing Pirates righty Braxton Ashcraft, who I definitely will accidentally call \u201cAshton Braxcraft\u201d at some point. The former second round pick has a 2.74 ERA in 27 games (nine starts) since debuting last year.<\/p>\n
The O\u2019s made a roster move before the game, placing scuffling reliever Yaramil Hiraldo on the 15-day IL with right shoulder inflammation. Perhaps the injury explains Hiraldo\u2019s struggles, or maybe it\u2019s just an easy way to rid him from the roster for a while. He\u2019ll be replaced by Cade Povich, who\u2019s up from Triple-A Norfolk. Povich is a candidate to start against the White Sox this week in place of the injured Zack Eflin. I really thought we would get further than two weeks into the 2026 season before we had to watch a Cade Povich start, but I guess that\u2019s a problem for another day.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s go, Orioles. It\u2019s time to look alive.<\/p>\n
LF Taylor Ward
SS Gunnar Henderson
1B Pete Alonso
C Samuel Basallo
RF Tyler O\u2019Neill
DH Dylan Beavers
CF Leody Taveras
2B Jeremiah Jackson
3B Coby Mayo<\/p>\n
CF Oneil Cruz
2B Brandon Lowe
DH Bryan Reynolds
RF Ryan O\u2019Hearn
3B Nick Yorke
SS Konnor Griffin
1B Spencer Horwitz
C Henry Davis
LF Jake Mangum<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The vibes in Birdland right now are\u2026not great. It\u2019s only been eight games, but so far the Orioles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664969,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2374],"tags":[143,47,76458,2538,5,4,125],"class_list":{"0":"post-664968","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baltimore-orioles","8":"tag-baltimore","9":"tag-baltimore-orioles","10":"tag-baltimore-orioles-game-information","11":"tag-baltimoreorioles","12":"tag-baseball","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-orioles"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116353364274639105","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}