Two of the underlying causes for concern for an Orioles team that might go limping into September were on display Thursday night, in a sweep by the Yankees.

Kyle Bradish, their top starting pitcher recently signed to a $100M extension, didn’t log 40 innings pitched in either of the past two seasons dealing with elbow issues and eventual Tommy John surgery, always putting the second-half of this season in jeopardy for him. And shortstop Gunnar Henderson, among his many issues, just can’t field the damn ball (much to the consternation of longtime MLB GM Dan O’Dowd, as he explained on "The Daily Flock") amid his lost season.

Bradish wasn’t fooling many Yankees from the onset, he succumbed to the longball, and Henderson took his eyes off an utterly routine toss from Jackson Holliday in the third inning, and New York ended up scoring three times in that inning and never looking back. Two more unearned tuns added to the Orioles (61-67) runaway MLB total – but baseball czar Mike Elias simply doesn’t care about defense and fundamentals in his roster construction.

Baltimore also still can’t hit starting pitching with any frequency; former Cy Young winner Gerrit Cole had his way with them Thursday, and they lost, 6-1, at Camden Yards. The Orioles scored five runs in the series – Dylan Beavers hit a solo homer off Cole, his second solo homer in two days. And Pete Alonso hit a solo homer Wednesday (and had another apparent homer negated by a controversial call) and Coby Mayo his a solo homer Tuesday, so perhaps you are detecting a trend. And of course they hit double digit strikeouts for the second straight night.

“We just couldn’t get the big hit, and when we needed to get runners on base, we had a tough time doing that,” Albernaz said. “And you can’t give any big-league team extra outs. That’s what hurt us today.”

An offense that’s always overly reliant on the longball – another Elias specialty – is solo-homer or bust, and outside of that weekend outburst at Tampa this has been an astonishingly tepid lineup since June 1. They’ve scored three runs or less in nine of their 18 games this month. They were 0-16 with runners in scoring position in the series. They had four hits Thursday and 14 in the series.

The Orioles have now lost four in a row since shocking the Rays with three straight wins in Tampa. And that team – the best team in the American League - comes to Baltimore now with a chance to really send this team reeling before they depart on another long road trip.

Better Be Careful With Bradish

Bradish is one of the most important pieces in this entire organization. He has received Cy Young consideration in the past and has been quite good in general in his first full season back from surgery, but never threw even 170 innings in a season before and he’s now at 138 2/3 and, it seems, fading.

In his last five starts, Bradish has logged just 25 1/3 innings and allowed 32 hits. He has an ERA of 4.62 in that span. A six-man rotation in the second half seemed like it might be inevitable, with this unchartered territory for rookie starter Brandon Young and Trevor Rogers never going a full season in MLB (without an minor league rehab) in his career and Chriss Bassitt now 36 and just back from a lengthy IL stint.

A smarter skipper would have removed Bradish after the fifth (he needed 38 pitches to get through one inning), with him laboring and the Orioles mustering nothing against Cole, one of the best pitchers on the planet. The Orioles are stuck with the latest overmatched puppet Elias picked to be utterly subservient to him, however, so back to the mound Bradish went.

He was already pushing 90 pitches to get 15 outs at the time, and in the sixth Luis Garcia hammered him for a leadoff homer and rookie Spencer Jones homered to send Bradish from the mound with two outs.  

Albernaz intimitaed that Bradish has a lot to do with why he stayed in the game so long, which feels like anti-managing. But that's the slop we've had to sit through for three seasons now. "He wanted to save the pen," Albernaz said, of a collection of largely journeymen who aren't earning close to $100M collectively.

The starting pitching is the only reason this team isn’t already 10-games below .500 and buried even in a pathetic American League. It’s what’s allowed them to hang on the fringes of a final Wild Card spot. But even that might be fading now for a team that can't even string consistent play together for any real period of time.

"That’s on me," Albernaz said, always trying to protect the failed exec who hired him. Hopefully their fired at the same time.

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