Silenced By The “Evil Empire”
For those fans in Birdland who were pinning their hopes of success on another sort of “Curse of the Andino”, the final homestand of the 2025 season did not start they way they would have hoped. In front of a sparse looking announced crowd of 25, 253 (too many empty seats in the upper deck) at Camden Yards, the New York Yankees (86-67) shut out the Baltimore Orioles 7-0 on Thursday night. It marked the 15th time this season that the Orioles were shut out.
Limited to three hits, all singles, the Orioles were struck out fifteen times by Yankees pitchers. New York starter Max Fried (18-5) was dominant as he scattered those three hits over 7.0 innings with a walk and 13 strikeouts, 11 of which were swings and misses. After giving up a second inning single to Coby Mayo, Fried retired a dozen Orioles in a row.
Ryan Mountcastle and Gunnar Henderson were the other Orioles hitters to record a hit off Fried.
Cade Povich (3-8) took to the bump for the Orioles and produced a 3 runs allowed on 5 hits effort over 5.0 innings. Povich threw 89 pitches (51 K’s) to 21 Yankees batters, walking 4 and striking out 5. He also picked Jose Caballero off first base in the second inning.
Four relievers were needed to finish the game with Jose Castillo becoming the 69th player used by the Orioles this season when he appeared in the seventh inning; the MLB record for players used in a season is 70, set by the Miami Marlins in 2024. Castillo allowed a hit and struck out 3 in 1.2 innings of relief.
Yennier Cano pitched the sixth and Kade Strowd pitched a clean ninth inning.
Chayce McDermott pitched in the seventh inning and pretty much duplicated his effort of Tuesday night in Chicago. The young right-hander allowed 4 runs on 2 hits with three walks, recording just one out. In two games this month, McDermott has allowed 8 runs on 4 hits with 4 walks and 2 strikeouts over 1.0 inning (72.00 ERA).
Interim Manager Tony Mansolino had this to say after the game about McDermott’s night, “I feel for him right there. That’s a couple outings. … It’s tough. This is a really tough level. I think he’s got decent stuff, it’s just gonna be whether he can throw the ball over the plate or not. And he knows that, and he’s a good kid. We’re in a tough spot right there because we’re trying to cover the last four innings with three guys. So we’re hoping that Chayce can give us one, one-plus right there. I think under certain circumstances you leave him out there longer, but being that he’s a homegrown kind of developed guy – I know that he came over in a trade, but he’s one of our guys – it’s just hard to watch him get beat up, so we had to pull the plug, and kind of put us in a tough spot.”
On a positive note, Orioles pitchers held Aaron Judge (0 for 2, RBI, 2 BB, 2 K) in check.
In order to finish the season with a .500 record, Baltimore needs to sweep the final nine games of the season, a seemingly impossible task.
Mansolino summed up the night by saying, “I would probably say that tonight is all about Max Fried. That was about as good as you’re gonna see him and I’ll be curious to see what kind of the comments come from over there, how good he really was. But it’s not so much the swing-and-miss but just the overall under-performance from some of the key guys that we’re gonna need to turn this thing around, similar to the way Toronto kind of turned around their key guys. We need our key guys to turn it around this winter and into next year. And there’s probably a variety of things that need to get turned around with some of those guys. And they will. I’ve got faith in those guys, I’ve got faith in the staff.”
You have to have faith Birdland.
2025 Record: 72-81
Next Game: Fri. 9/19 @ 7:05 pm vs. New York Yankees