BOSTON — Brandon Hyde has hidden his frustration so well this season, and by the time he reached his postgame media scrum, his positive mindset had returned. The Orioles manager emphasized the steps forward from Adley Rutschman, highlighted a resilient outing from left-hander Cade Povich and congratulated outfielder Anthony Santander for reaching 40 home runs.
But for just a moment, the cameras for the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network captured what’s bubbling underneath. When the fourth run scored against right-hander Burch Smith, Hyde stood up and threw a baseball in the dugout.
The Orioles had collapsed, and during a monthslong stretch of mediocrity — a team with World Series aspirations is now stumbling toward October — the reaction from Hyde wasn’t surprising, even if he keeps that frustration out of the public eye as much as possible.
“Our guys are grinding, there’s no doubt,” Hyde said. “We’ve got to just turn the page on this and come back tomorrow. Not a whole lot went right tonight. Wasted a couple opportunities and just had a tough time putting zeroes up out of the bullpen.”
In a sampling of individual batters, of course, there were positives to take from this.
Santander joined an exclusive club of eight switch-hitters in MLB history to reach 40 long balls in a season. Rutschman hit his first extra-base hit since Aug. 24, and his two knocks showed signs of life amid a slump.
But on the whole, Monday night at Fenway Park was a worrisome continuation of poor team performances since the All-Star break, and with a 12-3 loss, the Orioles now have a losing record in the second half of the season (24-25) and trail the New York Yankees by 1.5 games in the American League East.
They’ve been playing like losing teams generally do. They’re a far cry from the high-flying offensive juggernaut of earlier days, and their pitching staff is leaky enough that an offense in a skid has little chance to come back.
So, Santander hit his 40th homer. Rutschman doubled. They were afterthoughts in the seventh inning, however — vestiges of better times, when Baltimore wasn’t mired in such futility.
“It’s doing fair,” said outfielder Cedric Mullins when asked about the clubhouse morale. “It’s not at its best, but not terrible, either. We got soundly beat today. The beauty of baseball is we come out tomorrow and set the tone for us to move forward.”
There was a pregame lineup reshuffle in an attempt to get the offense back on track. There were early opportunities that were squandered. There was a late pull-away from the opposition that left a stale Orioles offense far out of it.
Can this still be called a slump or a rut? Those have been go-to terms from the Orioles, but the longer this continues, the more demoralizing it becomes. And while Baltimore aims to peak at the right time — entering October — time for that rise to come is dwindling. There are fewer than 20 games left in the season, and the team is sputtering.
When asked what message he delivers to his team after a loss that got out of hand as badly as this one did, Hyde didn’t elaborate.
“Our guys know,” Hyde said. “I actually thought our at-bats were better early, I thought we were more competitive offensively tonight. Nice to see Rutsch get going with some good swings. But once Cade came out we had a tough time with the bullpen.”
Gunnar Henderson opened the game for the Orioles with a booming double off the Green Monster, and Santander scored him with a single. But the Orioles loaded the bases with one out and then witnessed a familiar refrain: Two strikeouts stranded the trio. Baltimore left the bases loaded in the fourth, too, although Santander’s walk brought one run home (and gave the outfielder three RBIs).
The Orioles wouldn’t muster much offense after that. They left 11 runners on base and finished 2-for-11 with runners in scoring position.
One well-timed knock in the early innings would have gotten Baltimore right back into it. Left-hander Cade Povich struggled in the third, allowing two home runs, but he finished with four runs against him in 4 2/3 innings.
“Overall, I thought the stuff was all right at the beginning,” Povich said, “and then, I think those last couple innings, it was trending toward the right direction, getting better, starting to get back in a groove.”
Then the Red Sox piled on against the bullpen. Four runs scored against Smith. Another two came in against right-hander Craig Kimbrel. In the eighth, left-hander Cole Irvin conceded homers to Tyler O’Neill and Rob Refsnyder, the duo going back-to-back for the second time Monday.
The postseason is nearing, and the same old second-half story is being written by the Orioles. They left runners on base, but Monday, no offense can expect to keep up with a bullpen that collapsed at that level.
Baltimore has preached that in baseball, there’s always tomorrow. But there are increasingly fewer tomorrows for the Orioles to figure this out.
Notes
- Henderson earned the American League Player of the Week award after hitting .417 with three homers for the Orioles. He was one of the lone bright spots in an otherwise slumping lineup.
- Catcher James McCann was nominated for the Roberto Clemente Award for his work in the community, both in Baltimore and Nashville, where his family lives in the offseason. McCann said: “What Roberto Clemente stands for, who he was, obviously, as a player and then just who he was to his community, words don’t really describe what it is to be viewed in that same light. Being nominated for that, it’s a very special award. I’m proud of it, and I feel very strongly that using my platform to be able to impact the community in a positive way is very important.”
