Orioles Manager Brandon Hyde Still Suffering From Quick Postseason Exit As Set To Be Sacked
Nearly three months have passed but the sting hasn’t quite gone away for the Baltimore Orioles.
The Orioles had 101 wins this year, good enough for their American League East title since 2014. Baltimore also had the best record in the AL, giving it a bye into the Division Series round and what would have been homefield advantage throughout the AL playoffs.
However, the Orioles were swept in three games in the ALDS by the Texas Rangers, who went on to win the World Series. Thus, a special season with Baltimore ended very quickly.
“I think that there’s still a lot of disappointment,” Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said. “And I’m really proud of our season, I don’t want to take that for granted. To win our division, to win over 100 games, to have the individual performances and team performances that we had, it says a lot about our roster and our guys and how we have some really good players. But you do that, and then you fall short like we did, that takes a while to go away. So, it hasn’t gone away for me yet.”
The Orioles began a massive rebuild in 2019 when Mike Elias took over as general manager and hired Hyde, who had been the Chicago Cubs’ bench coach, following a 115-loss season the year before.
The Orioles lost 108 games in 2019 and 2021 sandwiched around a 25-35 record during the pandemic-shortened season. In 2022, the Orioles had a 31-win improvement when they went 83-79 then won 18 more games last season.
Yet the Orioles looked overwhelmed against the Rangers, like a young team experiencing stage fright.
Of the four teams that drew byes into an LDS, three were knocked out in that round. The only team that survived was the Houston Astros and they were eliminated by Rangers in the American League Championship Series.
Hyde, like many managers, does not like the five-day layoff that comes with having one of the two best records in both leagues. However, he didn’t blame his team’s October dud strictly on the downtime. The Orioles were just 11-10 in their last 21 regular-season games.
“From my opinion, we weren’t playing our best baseball a couple weeks going into the postseason, then we had that long layoff,” Hyde said. “We got beat by the World Series champion team that was playing extremely well. They went to Tampa (Bay) before us and beat (the Rays) handily for two games and then played really well in our series and continued to play well the next couple weeks.”
Perhaps the only thing the Orioles gained from their short postseason stint was a taste of playoff baseball, albeit a quick one.
“For our guys to experience that atmosphere, I think that’s going to be great going forward,” said Hyde, who won the AL Manager of the Year award. “But I don’t look at it as a whole lot of positives, honestly, because it just doesn’t sit well with how it ended.”
The Orioles are seemingly set up to be a contender for many years, though.
Third baseman/shortstop Gunnar Henderson was the AL Rookie of the Year in 2023 and catcher Adley Rutschman is one baseball’s brightest young stars. The Orioles also have shortstop Jackson Holliday, a 20-year-old who finished last season with Triple-A Norfolk and is considered the top prospect in the sport.
“I think Adley, he’s already one of the premier catchers in the game,” Hyde said. “What he can do offensively and defensively, it’s incredibly special. Now it’s just continuing to pile up at-bats, more innings behind the plate, stay on the same path he’s on right now.
“Gunnar’s so young and being Rookie of the Year, the league is very aware of how dangerous he is at the plate, but also the athleticism he shows on defense, the way he played two positions at a high level. They’ve just got to stay on the path they’re on. They are so driven. These guys have incredible makeup. They’re extremely hard working, and I know that they’re itching to get better every day.”
