The events of March 18 seemed like a much bigger deal in spring training compared to the final week of the 2025 season.

Time passed can bring a new perspective.

The Orioles made seven cuts in camp, and catcher Samuel Basallo and first baseman Coby Mayo were the most noticeable names on the list. Basallo was reassigned to Twin Lakes Park, as expected, and Mayo was optioned.

Basallo knew that he’d begin the season with Triple-A Norfolk at age 20, but Mayo expressed his disappointment at a return trip after dominating International League pitching and having 151 games of experience over the previous two years. He spoke at his locker about the difficulty in going back and a “lose-lose” situation, with success expected and failure overblown.

The Orioles called up Mayo on May 3 while placing infielder Ramón Urías on the injured list. He had three hits in his first 25 at-bats and five in 36, but the production improved with more experience and consistent starts. Also, settling at one position removed a distraction.

ATLANTA – It is usually meaningless to try to compare two opposing starting pitchers. With the universal designated hitter, they don’t face each other in the batter’s box anymore. And opposing lineups are constructed differently with different approaches.

But after the level of pitching MacKenzie Gore and Chris Sale put on display in the nightcap of Tuesday’s doubleheader at Nationals Park – 13 ⅓ scoreless innings with 14 strikeouts between the left-handers – it was hard not to make comparisons between the two ahead of tonight’s rematch.

Unfortunately for Gore, there weren’t too many comparisons to be made between him and the reigning National League Cy Young Award winner after this 11-5 loss to open the Nats’ final road series of the 2025 season.

Gore lasted only two-plus innings tonight as the Braves drove up his pitch count by fouling balls off and drawing walks.

“He fell behind," interim manager Miguel Cairo said. "They take good pitches. And they fouled off a lot of pitches, so the pitch count went a little too high. And hey, they were able to lay off his good pitches. But they battled against him today."

The Orioles have returned catcher Adley Rutschman to the active roster for the final six games of the 2025 season.

Rutschman was reinstated today from the 10-day injured list after recovering from a right oblique strain and completing his rehab assignment. Triple-A Norfolk’s season ended yesterday.

Rutschman is hitting .227/.310/.373 with 16 doubles, a triple, nine home runs and 29 RBIs in 85 games. He’s posted a .264 average and .764 OPS in his last 32 games but has been shut down twice with oblique injuries.

Rookie Samuel Basallo has handled regular catching duties in Rutschman’s absence, with Alex Jackson backing up. Interim manager Tony Mansolino explained yesterday that Rutschman would regain the starting job.

“Adley Rutschman is going to be your catcher here as long as we’ve got him,” Mansolino said. “He’s a really, really good catcher. The beautiful thing about Sammy Basallo is he’s also a very good first baseman. So between the first base position, the DH and the catching position, there is no doubt they can both be in the lineup at the same time pretty much every day.”

NEW YORK – The circus catch in the bottom of the fifth was going to be the highlight of Jacob Young’s day. Shoot, the highlight of his season.

Until the Nationals center fielder found a way to make an even more meaningful catch in the bottom of the ninth.

Maybe the degree of difficulty wasn’t as high, but the magnitude of the moment far exceeded the previous one when Young leaped at the center field wall at Citi Field and robbed Francisco Alvarez of what would’ve been a game-tying homer, helping secure the Nats’ 3-2 victory over the Mets on Sunday afternoon.

“JY shows why he’s the most exciting center fielder in the game,” teammate Jake Irvin said.

On a day in which there was zero margin for error, Young twice saved the Nationals with his glove and twice crushed the souls of the Mets and their sellout crowd.

The Orioles reach another milestone today with their last off-day in 2025.

We’re counting it.

The next break will extend through the winter and into spring training. There could be an instructional camp in January, but we’re not counting it.

Do the last six games on the schedule matter? Winning is better than losing – if we learned anything from Bull Durham – and therefore, yes, a team should keep fighting as a matter of pride and because it’s the job.

Beating the fourth-place Rays at Camden Yards, where their series begins Tuesday night, could lift the Orioles out of the basement. Beating the Yankees in the Bronx over the weekend won’t influence whether the front office is more active in the offseason or becomes convinced that they can contend. Just like losing three of four at Camden Yards doesn't lower their opinion.

The best of Kyle Bradish isn’t displayed in each start since his return from elbow surgery and the 60-day injured list. There’s room to grow, which excites a club that’s been limited financially in its freedom to reach for an ace.

Bradish is here and he’s pitching like one again, carrying a one-hit shutout into the sixth this afternoon before the Orioles' 10th-inning meltdown in a 7-1 loss to the Yankees before an announced crowd of 31,974 at Camden Yards.

The Orioles (73-83) dropped three of four games in the series, their chances at a split disappearing with a Keegan Akin fastball to Ben Rice that carried into the right-center field seats for a grand slam. Jazz Chisholm Jr. homered onto the flag court with one out.

Kade Strowd walked Aaron Judge to begin the top of the 10th and Akin entered the game. Cody Bellinger singled to load the bases and Rice unloaded, hitting his second career slam and giving him four hits and five RBIs. Orioles fans were heading for the exits before Chisholm batted. They missed Yaramil Hiraldo allowing a run and the Orioles leaving the bases loaded.x

"You go up and down the lineup, it's an elite lineup, and they have a lot of matchups sitting on the bench on a nightly basis to where they can pop pinch-hitters and make it tough on your relievers," said interim manager Tony Mansolino. "Still liked our guys in the situations they got put in, and unfortunately just didn't go our way."

NEW YORK – On a day that saw Daylen Lile suffer a scary-looking knee injury, Nasim Nuñez homer, Jacob Young make one of the craziest circus catches in team history and Jake Irvin author his best start in two months, the Nationals ultimately had to ask the unlikeliest of relievers to close out a one-run victory over an opponent fighting for its playoff life.

Mitchell Parker, demoted to the bullpen after posting the highest ERA among all qualified major league starters, made his relief debut in a high-leverage situation in the bottom of the sixth, wriggled out of it and then kept on pitching until the Nats had eked out a 3-2 win over the reeling Mets at stunned Citi Field. With Young pulling off another defensive gem in the bottom of the ninth for good measure.

With most of the usual bullpen arms – especially closer Jose A. Ferrer – taxed from Saturday’s 11-inning win, interim manager Miguel Cairo instead turned to Parker for the final 3 2/3 innings. The 25-year-old responded with the poise of a seasoned late-inning reliever, retiring 11 of the 13 batters he faced, with zero margin for error.

"It was a different feeling, but it was a cool one," said Parker, who wound up with the longest save in Nationals history. "A different part of the game, the energy's a little higher, a close game, a big ballpark ... it was all awesome."

As a sellout crowd of 42,960 pleaded with the home team to mount a rally, Parker calmly closed it out in the ninth, with Young robbing Francisco Alvarez of a potential game-tying homer at the center field wall for the first out (this after an even wilder catch three innings earlier).

NEW YORK – Lost in the shuffle of Saturday night’s dramatic win was the play that nearly cost the Nationals the game.

Moments before Daylen Lile hit his go-ahead, inside-the-park homer in the top of the 11th, CJ Abrams was tagged out trying to advance to third base on Andrés Chaparro’s grounder to the left side of the infield. It was a potentially killer mistake on the basepaths, one the Nats were grateful didn’t end up costing them, thanks to Lile’s subsequent heroics.

It also left Abrams with a banged-up right shoulder that forced him from the game and is keeping him out of the lineup for today’s series finale against the Mets.

“He kind of jammed his shoulder,” interim manager Miguel Cairo said. “He told me he was fine, but he was a little sore. So we’re just giving him the day. But he’s going to be ready to pinch-hit if we need to. Just a precaution.”

Abrams was the Nationals’ automatic runner at second base to begin the 11th after making the final out of the 10th, representing the go-ahead run in a tie game. And when Chaparro immediately hit a routine grounder to third baseman Ronny Mauricio, the traditional move for the runner would’ve been to retreat and keep himself in scoring position for the next batter.

The Orioles close out their four-game series against the Yankees this afternoon with Kyle Bradish making his fifth start. He’s allowed six runs and 16 hits in 22 innings, with eight walks, 30 strikeouts and only two home runs.

Bradish hasn’t faced the Yankees since May 2, 2024, his first outing after leaving the injured list. He allowed one run in 4 2/3 innings. The previous start against them was on July 6, 2023 in the Bronx, when he tossed six scoreless innings. He also faced them on the road May 23, 2023, when he allowed four runs in five innings.

Bradish’s final start in 2022 came against the Yankees, again on the road, where he allowed an unearned run over five innings. The second matchup at Camden Yards occurred in his fourth major league start on May 16, 2022, when he surrendered four runs and eight hits in 4 1/3.

Aaron Judge, who hit his 49^th home run last night, is 0-for-5 with three walks and two strikeouts against Bradish.

Per STATS: Bradish has a first-pitch strike percentage of 73.2 against right-handed hitters this season, compared to 57.8 versus left-handers.

NEW YORK – Has everybody caught their breath since the end of Saturday’s game? Whew, what a finish for the Nationals, who blew a three-run lead in the eighth and ninth, only to win it in the 11th on Daylen Lile’s inside-the-park home run. Just like that, the Nats had perhaps their signature win of the season while the Mets saw their lead in the National League Wild Card race drop to one game over the Reds, two games over the Diamondbacks.

The series concludes this afternoon, with Jake Irvin on the mound hoping to right his ship and come up with a quality start in this big game. The right-hander hasn’t actually delivered a quality start in nearly two months, not since his July 27 gem in his hometown of Minneapolis. As always, the two keys for Irvin are getting through the first inning with a zero on the board and keeping the ball in the yard. He has surrendered 35 homers, most in the majors and three shy of Josiah Gray’s single-season club record.

The Mets are going with a bit of an unconventional pitching plan in this one. Veteran left-hander Sean Manaea will make the start and go as far as he can. He’ll then be replaced by veteran right-hander Clay Holmes, who in theory could go the rest of the way and give the entire bullpen the day off. We’ll see if that plan actually works or not. The Nationals actually did a good job each of the last two nights making a rookie Mets starter work and preventing him from pitching deep into the game. Can they take a similar approach with Manaea and Holmes and have success?

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at NEW YORK METS
Where: Citi Field
Gametime: 1:40 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 87.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Mostly sunny, 71 degrees, wind 9 mph in from right field

NATIONALS
DH James Wood
RF Dylan Crews
1B Josh Bell
LF Daylen Lile
2B Paul DeJong
C Jorge Alfaro
3B Brady House
SS Nasim Nuñez
CF Jacob Young

Plotting an offseason strategy to improve the roster and the Orioles’ chances of reaching the playoffs in 2026 requires a deep-dive into the weaknesses that must be addressed and an accurate measurement of payroll flexibility.

Contending comes at a cost.

The trade deadline, free agency and Félix Bautista’s shoulder surgery created openings across the board - in the rotation, bullpen, infield and outfield. The Orioles have room for Jorge Mateo and a need for a utility-type player with elite speed, but he might be running out of time.

Mateo is coming off back-to-back, injury-shortened seasons, appearing in only 68 games in 2024 before undergoing reconstructive elbow surgery and 40 this summer due to elbow inflammation and a hamstring strain that he sustained on his rehab assignment.

The Orioles added Mateo to their expanded September roster, but he’s started only four times – three since Wednesday against left-handers, and received 15 at-bats. He went 0-for-3 with a strikeout last night, is hitting .184/.225/.276 and owed $5.5 million next season.

The punishment that Tomoyuki Sugano absorbed tonight in the first inning looked a lot worse on the scoreboard than on the field.

Still counts, though.

Aaron Judge poked a two-out single into right-center field at 88.2 mph, and Cody Bellinger followed with a looping single to right at 68.5. Giancarlo Stanton lined a sweeper the opposite way, the ball carrying only 358 feet but reaching the first row of fans above the out-of-town scoreboard.

The sequence didn’t seem alarming but it set the tone, with the Orioles losing to the Yankees 6-1 before an announced crowd of 37,675 at Camden Yards and guaranteeing a sub-.500 finish to the season.

Judge hit his 49^th home run leading off the third, a full-count sweeper – the eighth pitch of the at-bat – staying fair down the left field line at 112.2 mph and landing deep in the lower section. That one was loud.

NEW YORK – The Nationals looked defeated, having just squandered Cade Cavalli’s five scoreless innings when Jose A. Ferrer surrendered three runs in search of a six-out save that was not to be. Citi Field was rocking, the Mets just needed to push across one more run to move one step closer to a playoff berth and the Nats were out of reliable relievers.

And then Daylen Lile decided to step up and turn an already remarkable September into something even more remarkable.

With an 11th-inning inside-the-park home run, Lile gave the Nationals the lead back in stunning fashion, then watched as PJ Poulin finished it off in the bottom of the inning for a most unlikely 5-3 victory to deal the Mets’ playoff hopes a serious blow.

"I keep saying it, but this team has a lot of fight in it," Lile said. "We're young. And I feel like we're opening a lot of eyes."

Lile, who on Friday night tied the club’s single-season record with his 11th triple, ripped a line drive off the wall in deep left-center off sidearm reliever Tyler Rogers. That guaranteed automatic runner Andres Chaparro would score the go-ahead run, and it seemed to guarantee Lile had just broken Denard Span’s triples record set in 2013.

The 2025 season hasn’t gone the way that anyone had hoped. 

At 73-81, the Orioles are likely on their way to a losing season, playing spoiler rather than contender. Just two active members of Baltimore’s roster have played more than 85 games, and only two pitchers have started more than 20 contests. 

Yet, despite disappointing results, there have been no shortage of positive stories. This week on “The Bird’s Nest,” we broke down some of our favorites. 

If you missed this week’s show, you can watch the full episode here: https://masn.me/v3mmyrwe. 

Trevor Rogers 

The Orioles claimed right-hander Dom Hamel on waivers today from the Mets and optioned him to Triple-A Norfolk. The 40-man roster is full.

Hamel, 26, was a third-round draft pick in 2021 out of Dallas Baptist University. His only major league appearance came on Wednesday against the Padres and he tossed a scoreless inning with three hits allowed and a hit batter.

Hamel made 31 appearances (11 starts) with Triple-A Syracuse and posted a 5.32 ERA and 1.330 WHIP. He struck out 75 batters in 67 2/3 innings.

Alex Jackson is catching tonight in a mostly right-handed lineup. Ryan Mountcastle is the designated hitter. Jorge Mateo gets another start in center field, which moves Colton Cowser to the bench.

Tomoyuki Sugano makes his 29^th start. His ERA is down to 4.39 in 149 2/3 innings after holding the Blue Jays to one run in six frames in Toronto.

NEW YORK – Josiah Gray has made it through his prescribed rehab program healthy. Now the Nationals must decide if they want to activate the right-hander to make one final game appearance in the big leagues before season’s end, fully completing his return from last summer’s Tommy John surgery.

Gray threw 45 pitches Friday night for Triple-A Rochester, tossing 2 2/3 scoreless and hitless innings while walking three and striking out two. That was his third rehab start across three levels of the minor leagues, a stint that ended with zero runs allowed across 6 2/3 total innings, with four hits, five walks and five strikeouts.

With the minor league season ending Sunday, there’s nowhere left for Gray to pitch, unless the Nats believe he’s ready to be activated off the 60-day injured list and pitch for them during next weekend’s final series against the White Sox. The club has not yet made that decision, according to interim manager Miguel Cairo.

“We’re seeing what we’re going to do,” Cairo said this afternoon. “We’ll wait to see. And as soon as I know, I will let you know.”

The Nationals don’t believe a big league start is necessary for Gray before he heads into the offseason, eventually building his arm back up for spring training. But they remained open to the idea if they believed it was worthwhile and wanted to wait until after he made his final rehab start to make that decision.

NEW YORK – Game one of this weekend series didn’t go so well for the Nationals, who took an early 4-1 lead over the Mets but ultimately lost 12-6 behind poor pitching and poor defense. New York, in the process, maintained its two-game lead over the victorious Reds for the final wild card berth in the National League with eight games to go.

They’ll be back at it this afternoon, with another matchup of rookie pitchers on the mound.

Cade Cavalli makes his ninth start, his first against the Mets. The right-hander has allowed three or fewer in six of his first eight outings, an encouraging development overall. Because he’s been held to five innings for the most part, though, Cavalli’s ERA is a bit inflated at 4.76. He also has struck out only three total batters over his last two starts, low by his standards. We’ll see how he fares in this one against a Mets lineup that ranks second in the NL in homers and eighth in strikeouts.

Nolan McLean is yet another New York rookie who has burst onto the scene over the last month, opening his career 4-1 with a 1.19 ERA. The 2023 draft pick has reached the sixth inning in each of his previous six starts, averaging nearly seven strikeouts per outing. He has a deep arsenal that features a mid-90s sinker and a mid-80s sweeper. The Nats did a nice job Friday night of figuring out fellow rookie Brandon Sproat as the game progressed. Perhaps they can do the same against McLean.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at NEW YORK METS
Where: Citi Field
Gametime: 4:10 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 87.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Sunny, 75 degrees, wind 8 mph in from right field

The Orioles won’t have much of a presence in the voting for the four major awards, which is part of the fallout from being in last place and underachieving to such a large degree. The shows will go on without them.

There’s always 2026.

The Baseball Writers’ Association of America is adding a reliever award next year, but it wouldn’t have mattered this summer. Félix Bautista was the only hope and he hasn’t pitched since July 20, before his surgery to repair his labrum and rotator cuff. And he might not return until 2027.

None of the Orioles are expected to sneak onto the 10-man ballot for Most Valuable Player after Gunnar Henderson finished eighth and fourth in his first two seasons. Aaron Judge, Cal Raleigh and Bobby Witt Jr. can battle it out for first place.

The rookie ballot is expanding from three to five players, but the Orioles probably will be shut out again unless Tomoyuki Sugano gets some backend support. We can talk about Samuel Basallo and Dylan Beavers next season.  

Trevor Rogers sprinted from the dugout to the mound tonight after Jackson Holliday made the last out in the bottom of the fifth inning. Yankees players hadn’t started to come off the field and Rogers wanted to begin warming. He might have set a land speed record.

Rogers exudes confidence, always in control, always giving the Orioles a chance, whether he’s working in a five- or six-man rotation.

Ryan Mountcastle moved down from leadoff to cleanup tonight and gave them an early lead with the loudest home run of his career, and he expanded it with a sacrifice fly.

Reduced to playing the role of spoiler, the Orioles slowed the Yankees’ pursuit of first place in the division with a 4-2 victory before an announced crowd of 26,269 at Camden Yards.

Rogers tossed five no-hit innings before Austin Wells led off the sixth with a groundball single. Dylan Beavers made two outstanding catches on consecutive plays to ensure that Rogers would keep the Yankees scoreless under his watch, and the Orioles improved to 73-81 while preserving their slim hopes of a .500 season. They’ve got to run the table.

NEW YORK – A Nationals roster loaded with rookies and a bunch of others with only slightly more experience stepped into the cauldron that is Citi Field on a Friday night in late September, recognizing it was going to require both productive and clean baseball to take down a Mets team fighting for its postseason life right now.

They actually got the productive baseball part down, scoring six runs by the fifth inning and watching rookie Andrew Alvarez induce a bunch of ground balls out of the most imposing lineup he’s faced so far in the majors.

They didn’t come close to getting the clean baseball part down, and that’s ultimately was cost them during a 12-6 loss to New York in which they very much looked the part of a 92-loss team crawling toward the finish line nine days from now.

Committing three errors to go along with several other sloppy plays in the field, the Nationals helped make life a whole lot easier for the Mets, who needed this win to maintain a two-game lead over the Reds (who beat the Cubs tonight) for the final Wild Card berth in the National League. (The Diamondbacks also can remain within two games if they beat the Phillies later tonight.)

Whether this one ballgame before a boisterous crowd of 39,484 proves these Nats aren’t yet ready for this kind of spotlight is debatable. Either way, they didn’t come close to putting their best foot forward on a night that demanded a much better brand of baseball for them to emerge victorious.