The Season That Ended With a Shrug

A rained-out finale was the only fitting way to close the book on Baltimore’s 2026

By Michael Phillips | Sports & Whatever

The Orioles’ 2026 season did not end with a loss, a rally or a farewell. It ended with a tarp. Sunday’s finale at Yankee Stadium had already been moved up from 3:05 to 1:05 p.m. in hopes of beating the forecast, and it still sat through a delay of roughly three hours before the storm settled the matter. The Yankees never submitted a lineup. With nothing left to decide for either club, Major League Baseball announced the game would not be played or rescheduled. Saturday’s game had been folded into Friday’s doubleheader to make room for all of it.

Baltimore finishes 79-82, fourth in the American League East and 18½ games behind the division-winning Rays. The Yankees finish 93-68.

Nobody should mourn the missing game. It suits a year that was never quite bad enough to be memorable and never good enough to matter. The Orioles gained four wins on 2025’s 75-87 and found a few things worth keeping. They also traded the best-known player in the organization at the deadline, then got eliminated on an off day because the White Sox won.

This is a review, but there is an argument underneath it. A team that signed a premier free agent, hired a new manager, and promised a rebound produced a .491 winning percentage. Then it announced that the manager and the front office would run it back. Fans are entitled to ask what, exactly, changed.

“Nobody should mourn the missing game. It suits a year that was never quite bad enough to be memorable and never good enough to matter.”

What was promised

Remember the arc. Baltimore won 101 games and the AL East in 2023, then got swept by the Rangers in the Division Series. It won 91 games in 2024 and was swept again, this time by the Royals in the Wild Card Series. Then came 2025: 75-87, fifth place, and manager Brandon Hyde was fired on May 17 with the club at 15-28.

The reset looked serious. Craig Albernaz, who had been Cleveland’s associate manager, got his first big-league job. On Dec. 11, the Orioles signed first baseman Pete Alonso to a five-year, $155 million deal. When owner David Rubenstein was asked last fall whether the club would be aggressive spenders, he said there were no particular constraints. President of baseball operations Mike Elias said more than once that the team should be better.

It was not, at least not by much. The Orioles were 39-46 on June 28. They were 54-58 when the trade deadline arrived. On Sept. 19, sitting at 75-79 and three games out of a wild-card spot, they announced their plans for 2027. A White Sox win in Kansas City made the elimination official on Sept. 24.

Alonso did his part

The signing worked, and it is fair to say so plainly. Alonso led the American League with 43 home runs, one more than Junior Caminero and Yordan Alvarez, and led the league with 113 RBI. MLB.com noted he is the first player to win an RBI title in both leagues since the stat became official in 1920. He was voted Most Valuable Oriole unanimously, the first player to be since Cedric Mullins in 2021, and he joined Frank Robinson, Mark Trumbo and Nelson Cruz as players who hit 40 homers in their first season in Baltimore.

Through Sept. 23, he was hitting .265/.359/.510 and led the club in bWAR at 4.6, according to MASN. He also hit his 300th career home run at Citi Field, in the ninth inning, against his old team, and took a curtain call in road gray.

That is what a big free-agent contract is supposed to buy. The rest of the roster did not hold up its end.

“That is what a big free-agent contract is supposed to buy. The rest of the roster did not hold up its end.”

Henderson did not

Gunnar Henderson is 25, and in 2024 he hit .281 with 37 home runs and an .893 OPS and finished fourth in AL MVP voting. This year, according to FanGraphs, he hit .225 with 22 home runs in 145 games at shortstop. In late June, he called it one of the most frustrating stretches of his career, and said he had started “trying less.” Through 102 games, he was at .225 with a .701 OPS, per MLB.com.

To be fair, 2025 was not clean either. He posted a .787 OPS that year while playing through a left shoulder impingement, which he disclosed in January. Whatever happened this season, the fix belongs at the top of the winter list. A club cannot build around a shortstop it is not sure about.

The Rutschman trade

“The defining move of the year came on Aug. 3, about an hour before the deadline.”

The defining move of the year came on Aug. 3, about an hour before the deadline. Adley Rutschman, the No. 1 overall pick in 2019 and the player most closely tied to Elias’s rebuild, went to the Red Sox along with catcher Jake Rogers. Baltimore got back:

Right-hander Anthony Eyanson, now the organization’s top prospect and No. 49 on MLB Pipeline’s overall list
Right-hander Kyson Witherspoon and outfielder Enddy Azocar, both ranked among Boston’s top five prospects at the time
Catcher Carlos Narváez, who was hitting .187 with a .535 OPS when the deal was made
A player to be named later or cash

There is a respectable case for the deal. Rutschman was 28, had one year of control left after 2026, and was injured when he was moved. Samuel Basallo, who signed an eight-year, $67 million extension last summer, was ready to take over behind the plate.

But the timing is hard to defend on its own terms. The Orioles were 54-58 and only 2½ games out of a playoff spot. Rutschman had rebounded to make the All-Star team, hitting .251 with eight home runs and 47 RBI in 67 games. Elias had called him a cornerstone in June, and Camden Chat noted that the Orioles never won a playoff game during his tenure, which was the point of building around him.

Boston, which pushed hard for the deal in the middle of a 23-for-26 run, did not get what it paid for. Camden Chat reports the Red Sox were two games up in the division on Aug. 27, went 7-20 in September, and missed the playoffs. The deadline gamble cut both ways.

Attrition and sloppiness

Rutschman was not the only piece to go. Taylor Ward went to Seattle for three right-handers: Alex Hoppe, Harrison Kreiling, and Brock Moore. Ward had hit seven home runs in 111 games, only one of them at home, though he set a career high with 87 walks. Tyler Wells, who had a 2.67 ERA in 43 games, went to Tampa Bay for prospect Michael Forret. Wells landed with the team that won the division. Dean Kremer went to Minnesota.

Meanwhile, the injuries piled up. Jordan Westburg missed the entire season after a UCL sprain in spring training and a setback in May. Ryan Mountcastle broke his left foot in April and, after straining an oblique during his rehab, never returned. Basallo, 22, hit .222/.291/.406 with 18 home runs in 112 games, lost time to a shoulder injury in July, and was shut down with a concussion after a foul tip on Sept. 21. Kyle Bradish went on the injured list on Sept. 13.

Injuries do not explain the defense. MLB.com said as early as April that the club was sloppy on routine plays. After a three-error, 7-6 loss to the Angels in June, the story was the same. In July, Albernaz was asked about eight errors in three games against Boston. As of early August, Sports Illustrated’s Inside the Orioles had them 25th in the majors in errors per game. One Camden Chat writer, looking ahead on Sept. 28, picked defense as the first thing to fix.

It was not all bad news at the end. The Orioles swept the Blue Jays in their last homestand, including a 4-2 win on Sept. 23 that eliminated the defending AL champions, and Alonso led the team out to tip caps to the fans who stayed.

The accountability gap

The part of this story that should bother Orioles fans more than the record is the plan for what comes next. On Sept. 19, Elias said the club would continue to build around Albernaz, and described his own return in 2027 as his working assumption. Asked whether Rubenstein still backed Elias, a team spokesperson told The Baltimore Banner that nothing had changed.

“Baseball operations is the rare place where the person who built the roster gets to decide whether the roster failed.”

To his credit, Elias also said he wants outside perspectives and might add a general manager or other senior voice beneath him. Two front-office changes had already been made, and more may follow. Those are real steps, and they should be acknowledged.

Still, it is our view that they fall short of what the standings call for. The Orioles have missed the playoffs two years running after reaching them in 2023 and 2024. Their manager’s first season produced a sub-.500 record, and the most visible star they developed was traded away. In most businesses, a leadership group presiding over that kind of drop-off would have to explain itself more thoroughly than a Saturday press session did. Baseball operations is the rare place where the person who built the roster gets to decide whether the roster failed.

Alonso’s deal runs five years. Everything else about the direction of this club is still an open question.

What to watch this winter

Henderson’s bat. Whether the 2026 line was a slump or a new baseline will shape every other decision.
The catching spot. Basallo is the starter, and Narváez is the backup if no one else is added. Basallo has to stay healthy.
Defense. Everyone from the manager to the beat writers named it. Watch whether the offseason moves match the talk.
The front office. Elias said he is looking for senior help. Who arrives, and with what authority, will say a lot.
Bautista and Westburg. Félix Bautista came off the injured list on Sept. 19 after shoulder surgery and gave up three runs in two appearances. Westburg will try to come back after a lost year.
The labor deadline. The collective bargaining agreement expires Dec. 1. The AP reported last fall that the sides appeared far apart, and a lockout would threaten the start of 2027.

Sources

Standings and records come from Wikipedia’s 2026 Baltimore Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays season pages and MLB.com’s final 2026 stat leaders. MLB.com supplied the Alonso signing date, the Rutschman and Ward trade details, Henderson’s June and July reporting, the early-season defensive notes and Elias’s Sept. 19 comments. ESPN, CBS Sports and Sports Illustrated supplied the Rutschman trade return and context, and the Associated Press supplied Bautista’s activation and the club’s record on Sept. 19. The Baltimore Banner covered the Wells trade, the front-office changes, the spokesperson’s statement and the final homestand. Camden Chat and Yahoo Sports provided the Sept. 27 and 28 finale coverage, the Red Sox September collapse and the roster retrospective. PressBox, MASN and Yahoo covered Alonso’s Most Valuable Oriole award and season line. BaltimoreBaseball.com provided Rubenstein’s offseason comments. FanGraphs and ESPN provided Henderson’s stats. NBC Sports and RotoBaller covered Basallo and Westburg. Sports Illustrated’s Inside the Orioles provided the early-August error ranking, and the AP covered the labor deadline.