Baltimore Orioles manager Craig Albernaz had a message after another loss to the Boston Red Sox.
The Baltimore Orioles are on a losing streak at the worst possible time. Baltimore dropped Saturday's matchup with the Boston Red Sox, officially losing their fifth straight game and falling to five games under .500 at 69-74 entering Sunday's slate of games.
With just 19 games remaining, time is running out for them to make a push for the MLB playoffs. They currently sit three games back of the final wild card spot, with the Texas Rangers and Cleveland Guardians both ahead of them in the standings.
The Orioles were just 69-69 entering two games against the Colorado Rockies earlier this week. They lost both at Coors Field and have now opened their homestand with three straight losses to the Red Sox. After Saturday's defeat, manager Craig Albernaz had a message on his team's lackluster performances.
"You still have to go out there and compete. Make sure you're prepared to go out there, which our guys are, and right now, we're just falling on our faces," Albernaz said, per Matt Weyrich of The Baltimore Sun.
Albernaz acknowledges the resiliency of this group but admits the execution simply is not there right now. He is not wrong about the resiliency either.
Baltimore sold at this year's trade deadline, including sending fan favorite catcher Adley Rutschman to Boston, yet still played better baseball in August to get themselves into a position where the playoffs were a possibility. Now, that hope is slipping away.
The clearest problem has been the offense. The starting pitching has mostly done its job over the losing streak, but Baltimore has been unable to score at the worst time.
Over the last six games they have scored more than two runs just twice and have been shut out in back-to-back games by Boston, unable to generate anything against Ranger Suarez and Sonny Gray.
If Baltimore wants to make the playoffs they have to find a way to produce against elite pitching, and the offense has been incapable of doing so during this stretch.
Even though all hope seems lost at the moment, it is not entirely gone. They are not out of the picture yet, and if they get the offense going and put together a winning streak the playoff picture could look entirely different by next week.
However, this team will have to show exactly the resiliency Albernaz was referencing, otherwise it will mark a second straight season without October baseball for the organization. This is Albernaz's first year managing the team, but the seat will certainly start to get warm if they miss out.
