Yankees hit seven homers, Orioles fail at everything in 15-3 blowout

Rebuilding. Folks, it sure is something.

This is what we signed up for. This is what the franchise needed. The Orioles had reached a point where they were so lacking in talent that they couldn’t realistically compete in the long term. There was no option but to blow it all up and start over from scratch. And by all accounts, the Orioles have the right people in charge to lead the rebuilding effort from the ground up.

We knew it would be a long process. We understood that the Orioles will have to be really, really bad for a couple of years before they start to turn the corner. We swore we were ready for it.

But were we, really?

Speaking as someone who is 100 percent on board the rebuilding train, I’m not sure I fully recognized how painful the actual experience would be. It’s one thing to say, in theory, that you could put up with watching uncompetitive baseball every day. It’s another thing to actually have to watch it, game after game, in excruciating detail.

Today’s finale against the Yankees displayed -- painfully so -- just how daunting a task awaits the Orioles in their long climb to respectability. A team that’s going to be extremely bad played a brand of baseball that was extremely bad.

Orioles pitchers gave up seven home runs. There are seven MLB teams who don’t have seven home runs all season.

Gary Sanchez hit three of those homers today, off three different pitchers. In all, the Yankees torched O’s pitching for 14 home runs in this three-game series.

Nobody on the Orioles did anything well. Most didn’t do anything even competently. Chris Davis went 0-for-4 to stretch his Orioles-record hitless drought to 44 at-bats, two shy of the longest ever for an MLB position player. Mike Wright gave up four runs in relief and now has an 18.69 ERA. New Oriole Dan Straily made his club debut and fit right in, getting torched for five runs, five hits, and two walks while notching just four outs.

The game ended with utility infielder Hanser Alberto on the mound for the Orioles. He gave up the fewest runs of any Orioles pitcher.

Oh, and the Orioles were no-hit into the sixth inning by Domingo German, who holds a 4.97 career ERA and is only in the rotation because the Yankees’ better pitchers are injured. Even the three runs the O’s managed to score were more or less handed to them, with two of them scoring on wild pitches.

It was that kind of day, folks. And it’s not the last time we’re going to see this kind of cringeworthy effort from the 2019 Orioles. I hope you’ve braced yourselves. We are all witnesses, and there’s no going back now.

Was there anything even remotely redeeming about today’s disaster at Camden Yards?

Oh! Well, happy birthday, Bird.

Sorry your party’s so lame.