BALTIMORE — Before Tuesday night’s game, Orioles manager Craig Albernaz said Baltimore fans “have every right to boo.”
Four hours later, his team gave the fans something to boo for the second night in a row.
The Orioles were thoroughly outplayed by the Chicago White Sox at Camden Yards, falling, 9-3, for their fourth consecutive loss. At 39-48, they are now a season-worst nine games below .500.
Baltimore fell behind 8-1 in the third inning as the White Sox clobbered rookie pitcher Trey Gibson. Many of the 17,581 fans who paid good money to witness the beatdown expressed their displeasure, almost like they were customers at a restaurant.
The problem for Baltimore fans is there’s no kitchen to send this dish back. They simply had to swallow it and hope they didn’t get sick.
Throughout the game, fans did their best to get their money’s worth. They went crazy for the Crab Shuffle and cheered Mustard’s wins during the hot dog race, during which the condiment showed more vigor than the ballclub on the field. The fans who appeared on the video board during the sing-along of “I Want It That Way” by the Backstreet Boys performed with gusto. And the “Tarps Off” crew in the upper deck were as rowdy as ever — cheering “M-V-P” for Gunnar Henderson, “Let’s Go Orioles” and “U-S-A” to help pass the time.
It was all more enjoyable than actually watching the game.
“We have not been playing our best baseball,” Albernaz said about the boo birds during Monday’s 8-2 defeat. “The fans that are there, they’re paying their hard-earned money to watch us play and win and play good baseball and competitive baseball. They have every right to boo. It’s our job for us to go out there and give this city and the fans something they can stand behind and have pride in. And right now, we’re coming up short.”
Gibson showed flashes of his top prospect status during the Orioles’ recent West Coast trip, but he unraveled Tuesday. The Orioles have spent the past few weeks relying on Gibson, their No. 9 starting pitcher entering the season, and the bill came due in Tuesday’s third inning.
The first seven batters of the frame reached base and scored off the 24-year-old, making the contest a laugher and leaving the fans laughing in disbelief. The runs came via a two-run homer from Colson Montgomery onto Eutaw Street, a two-run single from Jacob Gonzalez and a three-run blast from Junior Perez that unleashed the boos.
It was only the third inning, but fans had given up on winning this one. On Monday night, they waited until the game got ugly in the late innings, booing after an error that put the White Sox up 8-2.
Gibson exited after 2 2/3 innings, allowing seven hits and six walks. The free passes have been an issue for the youngster, as he’s given out a whopping 25 in the first 33 frames of his big league career. He will almost certainly be optioned to Triple-A after the loss ahead of the return of Dean Kremer from the injured list.
Gonzalez put the White Sox up 9-1 in the fourth with an RBI double off lefty Josh Walker. The Orioles’ offense showed signs of life in the fifth after Henderson and Dylan Beavers hit back-to-back doubles to score a run and Pete Alonso singled to drive in Beavers and end the game’s scoring.
Perhaps the lone positive for the fans who stayed until the end was that they didn’t have to watch a position player pitcher take the mound. Albernaz wasn’t able to bring in a slow-pitch softball pitcher for the final inning because the game wasn’t far enough out of reach, per MLB’s rules. Relievers Andrew Kittredge, Albert Suárez and Rico Garcia combined to toss five scoreless frames to end the game.
The Orioles’ season is starting to slip away from them. They are now 4 1/2 games back of a playoff spot. The ugly loss comes a few days after president of baseball operations Mike Elias said he plans on “going for it” at the trade deadline.
His team has since lost four straight games.
Where the Orioles go from here is unclear, but Tuesday’s loss marks an unfamiliar spot for owner David Rubenstein. For the first time since he purchased the team in March 2024, the Rubenstein-era Orioles are below .500 during his tenure. They are 205-206 since the private equity billionaire bought the team.
One of the loudest cheers at Camden Yards on Tuesday night came when members of the rock band Bon Jovi were on the scoreboard as “Livin’ on a Prayer” won the song of the game and played through the loudspeakers.
The Orioles are halfway through this season, and their hopes of turning this around are, indeed, living on a prayer.