Asked before Sunday’s final game what he most enjoyed about managing the Orioles in 2021, Brandon Hyde began by succinctly describing the season.
“Well,” Hyde said, “it’s been a tough year.”
The finale, a 12-4 blowout against a Toronto Blue Jays team playing to extend its season, was thus a fitting conclusion. The Orioles (52-110) suffered their second-most losses in franchise history, dropping at least two-thirds of their games for the second straight 162-game season. They finished with the American League’s worst record by eight games, matching the Arizona Diamondbacks for the most losses overall.
The Orioles will pick first overall in the 2022 MLB draft barring a change in how the order is determined with a new collective bargaining agreement. The current deal expires Dec. 1.
Sunday’s game represented the Orioles’ most significant chance to play spoiler in a final month that has featured numerous opportunities. Each of the AL East’s other four teams entered Sunday having won 90 games, and had the Orioles prevented Toronto from securing its 91st, they would have eliminated the Blue Jays from playoff contention. Instead, Toronto completed a season-ending sweep that at least temporarily kept in the playoff hunt. The Boston Red Sox, however, beat the Washington Nationals to secure the AL’s first wild-card spot and will host the New York Yankees on Tuesday.
Like much of the season, Baltimore’s pitching let it down Sunday. The Orioles’ collective ERA of 5.85 is the third highest of any pitching staff since World War II. In the 60 years that MLB seasons have featured 162 games, only two teams have been outscored by more than the 297 runs Baltimore has. Their 258 home runs allowed are tied for the fifth most in league history, with the 2019 team’s 305 holding the record by 35.
“I think for us to compete in this division, we’re gonna have to improve on the mound, period,” Hyde said before the game. “We just have had a tough time pitching the last three years, trying to stay in games.”
They were out of Sunday’s practically immediately. The Blue Jays pounced early and never relented, knocking Baltimore starter Bruce Zimmermann from the game in the first inning and each of the first three relievers to follow him for multiple runs. Toronto leadoff man George Springer homered on Zimmermann’s fourth pitch, walked and scored when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. went deep in the second, then hit a grand slam in the third.
Baltimore pieced together a handful of runs, with Tyler Nevin’s 442-foot solo shot being the longest an Oriole has hit for his first career home run since Statcsst began tracking in 2015. Yet at one point in the middle innings, a “Let’s go, Nationals” chant broke out in Rogers Centre’s left-field stands, fans’ attention shifting to other games with the result they needed seemingly secured in front of them. The call returned around the stadium in the ninth, with Boston and Washington tied late.
Baltimore went 20-56 against AL East teams, which has only gotten stronger during Hyde’s three-year tenure guiding the major league team during this organizational rebuild with the Tampa Bay Rays, New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox moving on to the playoffs. He has often said he was aware this process would be a challenge when he was hired but admitted Sunday “until you’re sitting in the chair, you don’t know how hard it’s gonna be.”
“These four teams in this division aren’t going anywhere,” Hyde said. “They’re extremely talented. Three of them have huge payrolls. And we just need to continue to get better. It’s not a lightswitch, throw-a-ton-of-money-in-one-year situation. It’s a total process, and I know that’s a buzzword, but that really is what it is. It’s a process that takes a little while, and it probably takes longer in this division because of who you’re facing 80 games of your 162.”
