The Orioles’ coaching staff for the 2026 season has three confirmed outside hires and three likely holdovers.

A source confirmed tonight that Buck Britton, Drew French and Ryan Klimek are expected to remain with the Orioles.

Britton finished as third base coach and infield instructor after Tony Mansolino was named interim manager. French completed his second season as pitching coach. Klimek has served as pitching strategy coach since 2023.

Another source said earlier today that Britton might remain at third base but details had to be worked out and nothing was official. The team definitely had shown interest in retaining him.

Britton was promoted from Triple-A manager to major league coach prior to the 2025 season, but Orioles manager Brandon Hyde was fired on May 17, which led to a reshuffling of the staff.

The Orioles honored Corbin Burnes on Friday with his own bobblehead night. He appreciated the gesture and took one home.

It just wasn’t anything new to him.

Teams have come up with the idea to doll up Burnes pretty much at every level after Little League.

“I’ve had a bunch of bobbleheads,” he said. “I had two or three in Milwaukee, I’ve had a couple in the minor leagues. My college (St. Mary’s of California) did one this year at the basketball game they had. I have quite a few Corbin Burnes bobbleheads in the office.”

Burnes isn’t a rabid collector, one hint being that he isn’t exactly sure of the number while pitching for the Brewers.

For a team that ranked last in the major leagues in team ERA last season, the Orioles have made some impressive pitching improvement thus far in the 2022 season. Baltimore’s ERA was 5.84 in 2021 and the next closest team to that was really not that close with Arizona at 5.11.

But this season the Orioles have gone from worst to, at one point on the recent road trip, close to first. They ranked near the top of the league to that point in team ERA, rotation ERA and bullpen ERA.

The club took a step back when it gave up 27 runs in three games at Yankee Stadium, but still is doing overall much better in American League pitching stats. Through last night’s game – a 2-1 loss to Minnesota at Oriole Park – the team ERA of 3.60 is eighth in the league and the rotation ERA of 3.53 is fourth. In bullpen ERA, at 3.67, the O’s are ninth.

Right-hander Tyler Wells gave up one run in five innings last night. It was the 19th time in 23 games that an O's starting pitcher allowed two earned runs or less. That happened 10 times in the first 23 games a season ago. O's starters have an ERA of 1.72 in home games.

It is a nice trend for the better. During the West Coast trip, I sat down with O’s second year pitching coach/director of pitching Chris Holt to discuss some reasons for the potential turnaround. Holt was one of the first hires by executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias after he took over with the Orioles and he headed up the O’s minor league pitching development starting in 2019 and still does today, even with his bigger role now on the major league staff.