Tony Mansolino carried his own lineup card to home plate this afternoon, decked out in orange from chest to ankles. His first game as a major league manager, and the Orioles put him in an alternate uniform from the early ‘70s. Brightly lit on a dark day after Brandon Hyde’s dismissal.

The alternative for Mansolino would have been to stay in his role as third base coach, but the Orioles fired Hyde this morning and left him in charge of a team that lost 17 of its last 23 games.

As it turned out, only the vantage point changed.

The first six batters reached against Kyle Gibson, with a wild pitch and misplayed line drive dumped into the mix. The Orioles fell behind by six runs after the Nationals batted around, rallied late and lost 10-6 before an announced crowd of 28,208 at Camden Yards that voiced its displeasure in the same manner as before.

Jackson Holliday hit a three-run homer off Zach Brzykcy in the ninth, but the slide has reached five games in a row and 11 of 13 to leave the Orioles' record at 15-29. The Nationals will try for the sweep on Sunday before the Orioles board their charter flight.

The game began about four hours after executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias addressed the team and informed it of the organization's decisions, which included firing major league field coordinator Tim Cossins.

"Tough day all around," said Ryan O'Hearn. "Got a lot of love for Hyder and a ton of respect for him. He’s meant a lot to me the last few years. Obviously, he gave me a chance to play, believed in me, so we’ll miss him around here. Nature of his game is, when you under-perform, they make changes. It sucks, but that’s how this business goes.

“We’ve got a game tomorrow, so we’re gonna show up and play that. We’re gonna go to Milwaukee and Boston. We have to keep going. I think we’re gonna show up and try to win a baseball game every day. It’s the same thing that I’ve been saying. It’s gonna switch, it’s gonna bounce our way, it’s gonna turn around. It has to. I think the at-bats have been pretty good. We made a run at the end of the game today. Yesterday, we left 15 on base but we had great at-bats all day. Just couldn’t get the big hit. The dam’s gonna break. It’s just how the game goes.”

"I'd say it definitely wasn't easy," said Cedric Mullins. "Just from a personal standpoint today, tough to go out there with everything that's going on, but hit two balls hard. Always try to take a positive out of it. I think the guys need to find a way to just kind of take a step back, free ourselves up a little bit and go out there and just play our game. Fundamental baseball, I think that's what we're looking for and we elevate from there.”

Mansolino indicated that he'll wear the interim tag for the remainder of the season, and he wasn't celebrating it. He watched a friend walk out the door today.

“Not excited,” he said. “This isn’t a good thing for us. We’re going to miss Brandon in a lot of ways. To me, he did a great job here. It’s the most wins in baseball the last couple of years. It’s a Manager of the Year. So to get to this point where a change is made, it’s not something that any of us wanted, by any means.”

The promotion came as a complete surprise.

“You don’t see yourself in this position," he said. "I’m not a guy. I’m not a former ex-major league player. I’m a bad minor league player is what I was. I’m a guy that I haven’t sat in the manager’s seat in six years. I did in Triple-A in 2019, but it’s been a while since I’ve done it, so I don’t think you see yourself doing this.

“I thought maybe 10 years down the road if I was able to hang in this thing a little bit longer, maybe you get consideration for a spot like this, but it’s certainly not something that you’re looking to do right now."

Mansolino said he'll have a message for the team at a later date. Today was more about telling the group to get ready to play and win.

"I think as I get in the seat and things slow down, my thoughts along with the collective thoughts of the rest of the staff, we’ll probably convey another message," he said. "What that is right now I have no idea.”

The first loud cheer for the Orioles came on Dylan Crews’ strikeout in the opening inning. Gibson faced nine batters in a start that began with a double, RBI single, walk, RBI double, two-run single and single. He retired only two batters, threw 47 pitches and watched his ERA rise to 16.78 in four outings.

James Wood followed CJ Abrams’ leadoff double with a ground ball into left field at 83.7 mph to give Washington a quick lead. Keibert Ruiz’s double came on a line drive that cleared Mullins’ head after he froze on the ball and broke late. Luis García Jr. had a two-run single. Josh Bell singled and raced to second base when right fielder Heston Kjerstad’s throw went to third.

José Tena had a sacrifice fly and Jacob Young ended Gibson’s day with a triple to right.

Gibson isn't using a late signing and rapid ramp-up as an excuse.

"I don’t know that I can attribute anything to that, really," he said. "I think physically I feel good. Stuff-wise frustratingly feels good. Bullpens feel good, everything’s been pretty normal. I think these first two or three weeks have been frustrating, to say the least. Hard to find words, really, to go into it and to kind of voice it appropriately, honestly.

"Four times taking the mound feeling like you haven’t given the team a chance to win each time is a pretty big gut punch. Feeling like you’re part of getting a manager fired is a gut punch. Just not going out there and being able to compete and give the team a chance to win every five days is frustrating. So yeah, I don’t know if any of you guys have ever felt the feeling of essentially letting down your co-workers, but it’s a gut punch. It’s not anything I enjoy feeling at all, but that’s kind of been the reality of the first four starts.”

“Emotions are a real thing," Mansolino said. "It’s human beings out there. This is a tough thing. I promise you this, Gibby wanted to go out there and do the complete opposite. It just didn’t work out today. It’s a guy we signed late in spring training. He had a quick ramp-up. I know we haven’t seen the best of him yet. Unfortunately, it kind of came to a head in the first inning a little bit. It’s not a look that he wanted or any of us wanted, but it’s a guy that, he’s earned some stripes in the big leagues for a long time, and it’s a guy that we have a lot of faith in and a lot of trust in. And there’s a lot of empathy watching him go through that and watching his teammates go through it with him.”

Gibson had to clear his head of the dismissals and just concentrate on the Nationals. Not let his emotions interfere.

“Yeah, I think anytime a good person is let go and anytime someone you care about is not around anymore, it’s tough," he said. "Hyder, he was an awesome person. I enjoyed playing for him every single day, so yeah, it was tough. Did that play into how I pitched? No. But yeah, I mean, Hyde and Coss were awesome people, so to not have them around, it’s frustrating, once again, to feel like you had a hand in that firing. So I think it’s more tough knowing that you’re not going to see those guys around here, but I think as a group we’ve got to keep coming together and keep playing for each other."

Charlie Morton might have put himself back into the rotation conversation by allowing one run and two hits in 4 1/3 innings, with one walk and six strikeouts. He struck out the side in the fourth.

The Nats expanded their lead to 7-0 in the second on García’s two-out, RBI double after Wood walked and stole second base. Morton retired the last six batters and 10 of 11, and Mansolino replaced him after 62 pitches, 47 for strikes. His ERA is down to 7.68.

Cionel Pérez retired all eight batters faced in his longest outing as an Oriole. He threw 19 of 23 pitches for strikes. Mansolino clapped his hands during most of his walk to the mound to remove Pérez in the eighth and gave him an aggressive smack on the backside.

The Nationals delivered a few more blows in the ninth, scoring one run off Yennier Cano and two off Seranthony Domínguez. Jorge Mateo collected his first RBI with a pinch-hit single in the bottom of the ninth after Mansolino lost his designated hitter in the seventh by batting for catcher Maverick Handley. Holliday followed with his shot to right-center field.

“I don't think we haven't seen that (fight)," Mansolino said. "Under Brandon’s leadership, they fought for him. They had a lot of respect for him. They won a lot of games with him, myself included, so it was just a continuation of what they’ve been doing recently. You just had a lot of balls go through the holes than what we’ve seen here.”

Holliday had a leadoff double against Jake Irvin in the first inning and was stranded. Certain weaknesses carry over from one manager to the next.

Kjerstad singled in the second and Ryan O’Hearn walked in the third. Irvin retired 10 in a row before Adley Rutschman led off the seventh with a double and scored on Ramón Urías’ single. Kjerstad reached when first baseman Nathaniel Lowe dropped an easy throw from Irvin, and Ramón Laureano followed with a double to center field that caused Young to slam into the fence and stay down on the warning track. Alex Call replaced him.

Irvin held the Orioles to two runs in six innings on Aug. 13, 2024 at Camden Yards. He was a smidge better today with two runs in 6 1/3.

Mansolino came out of the dugout and wanted a challenge on Laureano’s ball, hoping to get it changed to a home run, but the call stood.

He’ll now be in charge of getting the Orioles back on their feet.

“Just try to create consistency, man," Mansolino said. "I think we as a staff have to continue to do what we’ve done here over the last few weeks and just continue to be consistent. Listen, luck isn’t the story but it’s part of the story. Injuries isn’t the story but it’s part of the story. I think in due time you’ll see both of those tides turn for us a little bit. But we have to be consistent. We can’t overreact. There’s a lot of time left. There’s a ton of urgency. I’m not saying there hasn’t been or it’s unique to have urgency at this point. But there has been a ton of urgency, there will be a ton of urgency going forward. And we’ll continue to push as hard as we can.”

A lot of force will be needed to get to the desired spot.

"It’s still May," Mullins said. "It’s early, relative to the full season, so it's one of those things where we still have an opportunity to do something very special. It's just a matter of really just taking it day by day. It's about separating each game from the next, win or loss, putting your best effort out there.”

"Listen, we’ve got to get to .500," Mansolino said. "I think as you start thinking, and my mind’s turning today, what do we need to do, I think our goal is to get to .500. We played a couple of years ago at a 40 games over .500 pace, right? I think it was 101 wins, something like that. If you can get back to some semblance of that, you can get back in the hunt. The reality is one of those Wild Card spots is probably not going to be 95 wins. It’s probably going to be less than that, so I think short-term goal for the team, we have to frame it to get back to .500. I think we’ve got a couple of months to do that.

"Maybe you get hot. Maybe we get healthy and hot and get more luck. I think you guys saw some of our luck on display here those last couple of innings. If the ball rolls our way a little bit, I think it’s reasonable to get back to .500, and if you do that, you get a little momentum in this game, who knows what we can do?”