BALTIMORE — What does it look like when nine seasons of toil comes down to six games?
For the Baltimore Orioles, it looks like this: Three 100-loss seasons amidst front office regime change, an influx of insanely talented young players, a 101-win season, a sale of the franchise, a desultory regression, a managerial firing and finally, this fence-sitter of a season, stuck in a quagmire of American League mediocrity at 51-55.
The crucible: A three-game series at Detroit that looks like a trade deadline play-in match – winner to buy, loser to sell – followed by a three-game set at Camden Yards against the eternally contending Philadelphia Phillies.
And then, the Aug. 3 trade deadline, where their performance in the next six games very likely will determine their stance: Buy aggressively, sell off parts or play the middle.
Oh, the franchise won’t collapse if these Orioles miss the playoffs for a second consecutive year. They are poised to be at least serviceable in coming years, even as their prized young players march toward free agency.
It’s just that 118 losses in 2018, and 110 losses in 2021, followed by club president Mike Elias’s promised “liftoff” after 2022 was supposed to mean much more.
Those 101 wins in 2023 bought a playoff bye and two home games at Camden Yards. And then five consecutive losses over two postseasons.
It’s enough to add a jolt of urgency for franchise cornerstones.
Gunnar Henderson’s .693 OPS is below league average this season.
“We haven’t won a playoff game since I’ve been here,” Gunnar Henderson, the 2023 Rookie of the Year and two-time top-10 MVP finisher, tells USA TODAY Sports. “That’s something a lot of guys in this room, including myself, want to do, want to get past, and make a run.
“I feel like we got the group to do it. It’s just a matter of doing it.”
For these Orioles, the doing has been challenging. After last year’s 15-28 start cost manager Brandon Hyde his job on the way to an 87-loss season, this year was supposed to be different. Elias augmented the club well in the offseason, most notably his first nine-figure commitment in first baseman Pete Alonso.
But an improved squad has performed arrhythmically. Injuries have not helped, but sloppy play and failures at various points in all departments has dragged them into the mire.
Now, they are 2 ½ games out of a playoff berth and one of 22 teams – 11 in each league – across the majors within 3 ½ games of the postseason.
Limbo, basically. And one week to ensure they emerge with hope.
Playing spoiler against Skubal
Wednesday, July 29 at Comerica Park will mark a most dramatic time: It is possibly the final home start for Detroit Tigers ace and two-time reigning Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal. And the pitching matchup epitomizes the volatility of this trade deadline.
Opposing Skubal will be another left-hander, Baltimore’s Trevor Rogers, in a similar but scaled-down situation.
Like Skubal, Rogers is a pending free agent and was his club’s opening-day starter this season. Like Skubal, his team could view him as a crucial piece of a playoff push – or an asset to be sold for future parts.
And while Rogers’ up-and-down journey to the verge of free agency lacks Skubal’s dominance and accolades, his performance the past two months – a 1.80 ERA, a 45-14 strikeout-walk ratio and the Orioles’ 6-3 record in his nine starts – would make him more than a consolation prize for a team that can’t land Skubal.
With the Orioles a game up on Detroit (50-56) entering the series, Rogers-Skubal is one of just dozens of mini-battles that will play out within the vaster landscape of the deadline: Buyers and sellers and losers who get caught on the wrong side of that line.
“We know where we’re at, standing-wise,” says Rogers. “These games really matter this close to the deadline. If we play really good ball and make that gap a little bit closer, change the front office’s mind, maybe we add a couple pieces. (Unlike) last year, getting rid of some guys.
“We know where we’re at in terms of the season.”
Rogers hit the accelerator at a perfect time for himself and the Orioles. He had a 6.96 ERA through nine starts, at which point the Orioles were 23-30 and their pitching staff ranked 28th with a 4.87 ERA.
Yet Rogers figured it out, improving his command to both sides of the plate in this two-month run, and so, too has the Orioles staff. They rank third in the majors with a 3.42 ERA since that point, giving them a chance.
So long as they win enough this week to keep the band together.
“The standard we’re trying to create here, especially what they did in ’23 and ’24 – we have the talent to do it,” says Rogers. “There’s just been times we haven’t been consistent doing it every single day.
“Hopefully, we can continue that. The trust in here is really high. We all know what we’re capable of and where we can go with this team.”
Time to clean it up
Rogers is in some ways symbolic of this close-but-not-quite era in Baltimore. He was a trade-deadline acquisition in July 2024, Elias’s first major burning of club assets by shipping future All-Star outfielder Kyle Stowers and infielder Connor Norby to Miami.
And then Rogers was hit hard in four starts, posting a 7.11 ERA, and optioned to Class AAA in mid-August. The Orioles would get swept at home by Kansas City in a two-game wild card series, giving them five losses in as many playoff games over two seasons in which they won 192 regular-season games.
Over those two deadlines, Elias did not shine on the buy side, bringing in starting pitcher Jack Flaherty and reliever Shintaro Fujinami in 2023. Rogers, starter Zach Eflin, relievers Seranthony Dominguez and Gregory Soto and outfielder Eloy Jimenez were 2024 adds.
None save for Eflin factored heavily into postseason plans. All of which contributed to the strong feeling Elias could build a team, yet perhaps not act aggressively enough on the buy side.
Third-year owner David Rubenstein remains publicly effusive of Elias.
“Mike was the baseball executive of the year a few years ago. Widely regarded as outstanding by his peers. I’m very very happy, couldn’t be more pleased,” Rubenstein said Friday at a news conference announcing a $90 million contract extension for starter Kyle Bradish. “We’ve had some injuries, but that’s not Mike’s fault.
“In the end, we’re very pleased and happy to have such a talented executive leading our baseball team.”
Elias, aware of the perception he’s perhaps too protective of young organizational talent, has sounded bullish on the trade deadline even when the Orioles were well below .500. Hours before the Orioles dropped the first of two games against Atlanta, he cast an eye toward what they have – and can be.
“We have so much talent on this team. I think we all look at our record and it should be better,” says Elias. “Where we’re at right now, we’re within arms’ reach of a playoff spot, have enough time to get there.
“We’re coming up on the deadline so the next several games are really important and everyone’s focused on that. But I look at the talent on this team and we’re extremely optimistic we’re going to get where we want to go.”
For now, they’ll have to do so without catchers Adley Rutschman and Samuel Basallo, both on the injured list with wrist and shoulder injuries, respectively. Their absences were felt in losing two of three games this weekend to Atlanta, including a particularly aggravating 3-2, 11-inning loss Sunday.
It was more of the same: Inopportune hitting and two runs given away when simple defensive plays – a booted ball in the outfield, a shallow fly falling – were not made.
“We’re way better than what our record shows,” says Alonso, who has upheld his end of the bargain with 22 home runs and an .812 OPS. “But we’ve given a lot away collectively, through mistakes. That’s why our record is what it is.
“But we have the ability to go on a run. To do damage and win a lot of games.”
If Rutschman were healthy and the Orioles deeper below .500, he’d likely hear his name bandied about even more in trade rumors. As it is, Rutschman’s eventual departure would leave Henderson as the significant symbol of Elias’s transformative 2019 draft. Yet as Henderson eases into his mid-20s – he celebrated his 25th birthday last month – the game has come harder.
In his four full seasons, Henderson’s OPS has gone from .814 his rookie to season to .893, .787 and now .701. His adjusted OPS was a whopping 155 in 2024; now, he’s a slightly below league average hitter.
At times – particularly in the lost 2025 season – Henderson has worn his frustrations outwardly, as if the burden at times became too much. He notes that dealing with failure is something every player must navigate himself.
“It’s something that’s been a long learning curve for me,” Henderson says of managing disappointment. “Still trying to break through that. I obviously have high expectations of myself. When you don’t really, to my standard, achieve that, it’s hard to not be hard on yourself.
“That’s something that’s definitely been tough, for me. And definitely something to work on.”
Henderson himself will have two seasons remaining before free agency after this year. It’s not so much do-or-die time for him as much as it is an inflection point in his tenure and, more broadly, this Orioles era.
The franchise must work to ensure their missed opportunities in 2023 and ’24 weren’t the high-water mark after years of ugly, ugly baseball. This year may offer another bite at the apple.
This week will determine whether that occurs.
“The ground that we need to make up – we honestly need to win every game we can,” says Henderson. “We want to make the playoffs. We’re close, but not in there. We gotta keep winning games.
“Because it can come down to one game.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: As MLB trade deadline looms, Orioles know it’s win or go home
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