Orioles do everything wrong, including fighting in the dugout, in 14-2 loss to Yankees

So, you thought the Orioles might win tonight? No, friend, you were wrong. You thought John Means might be good tonight? You were wrong. You thought that Chris Davis would definitely not get into a fight with Brandon Hyde in the dugout and be taken out of the game? Wrong!

There have been a lot of bad Orioles games this year, but I am confident in my declaration that tonight’s 14-2 loss to the Yankees is the worst of the season. Not only did the pitching, hitting, and defense fail on pretty much every level, but the players looked unbelievably defeated and, as mentioned, there was a fight in the dugout.

The Yankees are a very good team this year and the Orioles are a very bad team, but tonight it looked like a major league team was playing a double-A team. The Yankees have now won 12 consecutive games against the Orioles and 15 consecutive games at Camden Yards.

John Means actually looked good through the first three innings, but everything went to hell in the fourth inning. It started the issue of the outfield being manned by infielders and ended with Means giving up a home run to a terrible hitter.

With one out and runners on second and third, Cameron Maybin hit a pop up that should have been caught by an outfielder. It should have been caught by center fielder Stevie Wilkerson (not an outfielder) and could have been caught by right fielder Trey Mancini (not an outfielder). That was after “left fielder” Hanser Alberto took a terrible route on a double earlier in the inning.

The inning was extended due to Maybin’s “single” and with two outs Means gave up a home run to Kyle Higashioka, he of the 72 OPS+. That was it for Means, whose final pitching line was 3.2 IP, 5 H, 4 R, 1 BB, 5 K. The second half isn’t going great for Means so far.

After Means was a parade of pitchers who don’t belong in the major leagues. Miguel Castro relieved Means and was bad. Taylor Scott relieved Castro and it was a disaster. It was worse than a disaster. After four runs allowed in just ¹⁄₃ of an inning, Scott was relieved by Tom Eshelman.

Eshelman allowed one inherited runner to score but then held his own until the ninth inning. Manager Brandon Hyde clearly wanted him to finish the game, but after a home run and a double to start the ninth, Eshelman was pulled for David Hess, who wasted no time surrendering the fifth home run of the night for the Yankees.

Look, I know this is rebuilding and I know these guys are bad. They are supposed to be bad. My head knows that, as Mike Elias says, wins are not strategically relevant. But how is anyone supposed to watch this? Other than Means, not a single Orioles pitcher who appeared tonight should be in the MLB. It’s brutal.

Of course, more interesting than anything happening on the field was what happened in the dugout after the top of the fifth inning. Coming back from commercial, MASN played video they caught of Chris Davis just freaking out in the dugout and trying to physically go after another person. It appears that person was Brandon Hyde, but it was hard to know what happened for sure. Either way, it was embarrassing. Here is the video:

Will we ever get more details on this? I’m not holding my breath, but it’s a bad look in a game that was already a nightmare. Chris Davis was pinch hit for in the bottom of the fifth inning and we didn’t see him again for the rest of the game.

In the post game show, Tom Davis and Rick Dempsey speculated it could have been over Davis not hustling to get a pop up in foul territory, or him not making a pick on a bad throw from Jonathan Villar.

In his press conference, Brandon Hyde said that “it’s just a disagreement that we had in the dugout” and that “it happens on occasion and unfortunately was caught on camera.” Hyde did state that he removed Davis from the game because of it.

On the other side of things, Yankees starter James Paxton kept the Orioles in check despite my hope that he might be bad tonight. His only mistake was a home run by Trey Mancini in the fourth inning. His relief, Chance Adams, pitched the final 2.1 innings giving up just one run in the bottom of the ninth on an RBI double from Stevie Wilkerson.

Tomorrow is, thankfully, a day off. Hopefully the next team coming to down won’t be quite as tough. Let’s see....oh, it’s the Astros. Crap.