Bruised Orioles thumped 7-0 by Tigers in series sweep, fall to 10-17

Jacob Calvin Meyer, The Baltimore Sun on Apr 27, 2025

Published in Baseball

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DETROIT — After the Baltimore Orioles were swept in Saturday’s doubleheader against the Detroit Tigers, manager Brandon Hyde stated matter-of-factly the difficult position his team would be in Sunday.

“Today was a really, really tough day,” Hyde said. “We’ve gotta bounce back and get up early and face [Tarik] Skubal tomorrow.”

If only Hyde knew how challenging Sunday against the reigning American League Cy Young Award winner would be.

When Hyde arrived at Comerica Park on Sunday morning, he learned that three of his best players couldn’t play. Adley Rutschman has a sore and swollen right hand after taking a pitch off it while catching Saturday. Jordan Westburg has a sore hamstring he started feeling late in the twin bill. And the illness Cedric Mullins was battling worsened after playing 18 innings Saturday.

The confluence of events — a scuffling team, the ailments and facing Skubal — served as the ingredients for disaster, and disaster is what was served.

The Orioles were shut down by Skubal and his bullpen in a 7-0 loss that secured Detroit’s sweep of Baltimore. Skubal struck out 11, Orioles starter Dean Kremer allowed five runs and Baltimore’s bats were once again befuddled in clutch moments.

The Orioles had gone 30 straight regular-season series without being swept before they lost all three games in Detroit this weekend.

The loss is the Orioles’ sixth in their past seven games dating to their 24-2 loss on Easter. Baltimore falls to 10-17 — its first time seven games below .500 since July 2022 amid that team’s 10-game winning streak.

Kremer, whose ERA rose to 7.04 in the loss, gave up a two-run double to Javier Báez in the second to put Baltimore in an early hole — the seventh time in the Orioles’ past eight games that they trailed first. Gleyber Torres added another run off Kremer (2-4) in the fifth with an RBI single, while singles from Jace Jung and Dillon Dingler brought home the other two runs off the Orioles right-hander. Torres hit a two-run double off newcomer Grant Wolfram in the seventh to cap off the game’s scoring.

“Nobody in this clubhouse feels good about where we’re at, but we’re fighting to be consistently good and that’s in all three phases of the game,” pitching coach Drew French said pregame. “We haven’t done our part on the mound.”

It wouldn’t have mattered if they had, though. The injury-plagued Orioles lineup — with Ramón Laureano leading off, Ramón Urías batting cleanup and lefty hitters Heston Kjerstad and Jackson Holliday starting versus baseball’s best southpaw — tallied only five hits and went 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position. The Orioles are 6 for 60 (.100 batting average) with runners in scoring position and have left 54 men on base since Easter.

Instant analysis

This is no longer just a slow start.

The Orioles are seven games below .500, in last place in the American League East and owners of the third worst record in baseball. The only teams with worse records are the lowly Chicago White Sox and Colorado Rockies — two clubs sportsbooks projected would win fewer than 60 games. The Orioles, meanwhile, entered 2025 with World Series aspirations — a goal that looks impossible to reach right now.

Sure, it’s still early. Injuries are perhaps the main reason this team looks this way. There has been bad luck.

But another week of baseball like this, and none of that nuance will matter much. Another month of this, and this hole the Orioles have dug themselves will be too deep to escape.

On deck

The Orioles’ season is slipping away from them, but they have the opportunity to get back on the train tracks this week. Baltimore returns home and welcomes the New York Yankees, the top team in the AL East, to Camden Yards.

A sweep of the Yankees would put the Orioles only three games behind New York. However, if their slide continues, they could go into the day off Thursday 10 games under .500.

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