The Orioles' season is officially over, even if three games remain to play it out.
Baltimore's postseason hopes were mathematically extinguished Thursday night, when Cleveland's magic number over the Orioles hit zero during a three-game, season-ending set at Yankee Stadium. The Orioles (76-83) came in off Thursday's loss to New York already needing a miracle; by the time Cleveland's result was final, there was nothing left to need. It's the first time since 2021 that Baltimore has finished a season with a losing record, and it comes one year after ownership and the front office spent the winter insisting this roster was built to contend.
Manager Craig Albernaz confirmed the news to his team before batting practice Friday, and both he and first baseman Pete Alonso spoke to it at length ahead of the series' third game.
How It Became Official
The Orioles entered September within shouting distance of the American League's final wild-card spot, and as recently as Sept. 15 they were still technically alive, three games back of Cleveland with 11 to play. Getting there would have required something close to a 10-1 finish, and Baltimore never found that gear. The Orioles went 3-5 over their next eight games, a stretch that included series losses to the Guardians themselves and a middling homestand before the trip to New York, while Cleveland kept winning at a pace Baltimore couldn't match. Toronto and Texas, the two other clubs Baltimore would have needed to leapfrog, held their positions as well, closing off every remaining path at once.
The finish leaves Baltimore fourth in a four-team race for one spot, a year after the front office added Alonso in free agency specifically to push this roster over that line. Full final standings and wild-card math from the stretch run are on our Orioles standings and playoff odds page.
Our guys will keep competing. Thank you, Baltimore, for a hell of a ride this summer.
— Baltimore Orioles (@Orioles) September 25, 2026
Albernaz's Message Before Friday's Game in New York
Albernaz said he gathered the team in the visitors' clubhouse at Yankee Stadium before Friday's workout, wanting the news to come from him rather than a scoreboard or a phone.
"I got everybody together before BP and just told it to them straight — the math's done, and that part's out of our hands now," Albernaz said. "But how we play these last three games isn't out of our hands. That part's still ours. I told them we owe it to each other, and we owe it to this city, to finish the right way."
He acknowledged the finality of it hit differently than the slow fade of the last two weeks. "It's not a fun conversation to have with a group of guys who worked as hard as this one did," Albernaz said. "We've known for a while it was getting close to over. Today it became official, and that doesn't make it sting any less. But I don't want three meaningless games in the standings turning into three meaningless games on the field. There are guys in that room auditioning for next year, whether we say it out loud or not, and I want them playing free."
Asked what he'd tell a fan base that watched this group flirt with .500 all summer without ever holding onto it, Albernaz didn't reach for anything easy. "I'd tell them our guys never stopped playing hard, and that matters to me even when the results didn't fall our way," he said. "We've got some real building blocks here. This isn't the story we wanted to write, but it's not the last chapter either."
Alonso Reacts
For Alonso, in his first season in Baltimore after leaving the Mets as a free agent, the elimination closed the book on a year he'd hoped would end in October.
"It stings, for sure. You put the work in all year hoping to play meaningful games in October, and when that door shuts, it shuts," Alonso said. "But I don't think anybody in that room quit on this season, not once, and that matters to me. We fought for every one of those wins."
Alonso hit his 300th career home run during the stretch run, a milestone he'd been chasing since his return to Citi Field earlier this month, but he said the moment carries a different weight now. "Obviously hitting 300 was really special for me and my family, something I'll never forget," he said. "I just wish we were still playing for something bigger when it happened. That's the part that's hard to sit with."
He was direct about what the final three games mean to him personally. "We owe these fans three more good games, win or lose," Alonso said. "That's the least we can do for the people who showed up all year. I take a lot of pride in playing every game like it matters, and that's not changing these last three."
What Went Wrong
If there's one moment that defines Baltimore's season, it's the three days in Denver over Labor Day weekend. Colton Cowser's home-run robbery in the ninth inning on Aug. 31 sealed a 2-1 win over the Rockies and pushed the Orioles to .500 for the first time in months, half a game back of the final AL wild-card spot with September just beginning. It was the high point of the year. Instead of building on it, Baltimore lost the next two games in Colorado — an error-aided defeat in a rookie's major-league debut, then a walk-off loss in 11 innings after blowing a two-run lead in the top of the frame — and dropped the series to a Rockies team that came in with the worst record in baseball. The Orioles never saw .500 again.
The rest of the season played out as a series of smaller versions of that same collapse. The bullpen wore down at exactly the wrong times, with Albernaz acknowledging in early September that heavy usage had caught up to closer Andrew Kittredge during that Colorado series finale. Shane Baz took the mound all year with rotation-caliber stuff and finished with a losing record anyway, a symptom of a lineup that too often couldn't cash in the innings its pitching staff bought it. Catcher Samuel Basallo played through a right shoulder issue for most of the second half and hit .133 over that stretch, and Kyle Bradish's September trip to the injured list thinned a rotation that had no margin left to give. None of it was any single collapse. It was a team that kept finding itself a step behind in close games, night after night, in a race that came down to fractions of a game against three other clubs doing the same thing better.
Three Games Left
Baltimore closes the season with two more games in the Bronx before a scheduled offday and the finale, all with nothing on the line but pride and, as Albernaz put it, auditions for 2027. Kickoff time and broadcast information for the remaining games are available on our Orioles schedule page.