It’s only fitting that the hapless 2026 Baltimore Orioles dropped a season-low nine-games below .500 with an absolute thud.It’s perfectly on brand that they were down 8-1 through three innings to the upstart White Sox en route to a fourth-straight loss (9-3 at Camden Yards). It made perfect sense that a night after rookie skipper Craig Albernaz shoved one of his beloved custom Air Force One’s deep down his own throat whining about “the noise” that was distracting his awful team that they would be utterly uncompetitive again. Only this time they didn't wait until the 8th inning to collapse.And it was completely predictable that immediately after the clownish baseball executive who built another janky roster, Mike Elias, came out over the weekend gaslighting his fans about this pathetic baseball product (“we’re right there”) in trying to entice them to keep buying tickets, they completely fell apart. These overly-coddled and overly-hyped players seem to truly enjoy making their architect look like a total fool - not that he needs any help with that – and are a lock to go on a persistent losing spell when Elias decides to get in front of the microphones in season.“We need to string together some good innings of baseball,” Albernaz said during his post-game press conference, repeating a trite script that's a lazy default at this point. “We’ve shown we can do it, and now we have to go out there and do it consistently.”The idea of this roster winning anything is a joke and has been all season, as we’ve been pointing out. They are 39-48 and bottom 10 in MLB in run differential, they are about to be caught by the Pirates to drop them to the sixth-fewest wins in MLB since June 21, 2024, and two teams that were total disasters the last few years – the Nationals and White Sox – have outclassed them this week. Their young managers have unmasked the Orioles wanna-be skipper., with Chicago out-scoring them 17-5 over two games.The Orioles alleged star catcher Adley Rutschman, who has caught well less than half of their games since their collapse began in June 2024, got yet another day off Tuesday just a few days after returning from the concussion Injured List. They have a day off Thursday and a day off again next week and the All Star Break is looming and this guy is outside the top 20 in innings caught this season, but why push now? Give Adley all the time he needs as he heads toward free agency, while trying to rip the kid catcher who is exponentially better than him every chance you can. Because that's what bush-league organizations do.This latest loss wouldn't be complete without the typical fielding woes - they couldn’t get to balls that MLB fielders get to again last night (Jackson Holliday and Leody Taveras on the right side together is asking for trouble) and Elias has never developed a homegrown starter of any distinction in nine years on the job and the rookie he sent to the mound Tuesday got absolutely clobbered.Trey Gibson again could not command anything out of his hand (he entered this game struggling to throw 60% strikes); he managed to walk six of the 21 batters he faced in allowing eight earned runs in 2 2/3 innings. Colson Montgomery – imagine having a recent first-round pick actually over-performing in MLB – mashed a ball 440 feet onto Eutaw Street for a two-run homer and Jacob Gonzalez, who the O’s cant get out, added a three-run homer."This is a great learning experience for him," Albernaz said.Gibson managed to pitch a clean second inning, striking out two, if you want to put your MASN glasses on and try to find the good in a decade-long rebuild.They Can't Hit EitherThe Orioles lineup remains fugazi – Elias hyped it as a super power that would allow them to compete for the AL East title. The Orioles are 8-14 in their last 22 games in large part due to their inability to hit in the clutch or hit starting pitching, and in the last 16 games have produced just 58 runs. That's pathetic."We've got to go out there and compete," Albernaz offered. Only one player on the entire roster, highly-paid free-agent slugger Pete Alonso, has an OPS over .800. Only Blaze Alexander and 21-year-old catcher Samuel Basallo are exceeding expectations (Basallo drove in run with two-outs to give them a 1-0 lead and had three hits in the game). This sad operation finished June 11-16, and we'll see if they show a pulse now having a quick turnaround for a day-game Wednesday, with Dean Kremer, just back from the 60-day IL, set to start. Just remember that no matter what other spin this GM and his puppet skipper try to peddle (with help from their favorite shills in the media) between now and the end of the month (trade deadline) the only reasonable path forward is to sell anything other teams want. Ideally, anyone other than Elias would be leading that charge.Subscribe On YouTube For The Best Orioles CoverageAdd us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow