What’s been inevitable since the first month of the season finally came to fruition Tuesday: The Orioles have been eliminated from the 2025 postseason.

While the Orioles beat the White Sox 8-7, wins by the Seattle Mariners and Houston Astros officially knocked Baltimore out.

The Orioles’ season will end Sept. 28, the last day of the regular season, a disappointing crash after making back-to-back playoff appearances. At 71-80 with 11 games left, the Orioles are last in the American League East and all but guaranteed to finish the year with a record below .500.

“They’re not happy,” interim manager Tony Mansolino said of the clubhouse. “You go through like the core group in there, they are miserable right now. This has been a complete failure in a lot of ways that we’re at this point, that we are being eliminated from the playoffs, and there is a lot of motivation going forward. I promise you that.”

Seven months ago, when the Orioles converged in Sarasota, Florida, to begin the journey of their 2025 season, they had one goal on their minds: being World Series champions.

Winning a postseason game was the obvious first step — something that evaded them during the 2023 and 2024 playoffs — but taking the sport’s ultimate title felt attainable to them. They retained most of their core players and acquired back-of-the-rotation starters they thought could pull them through the season.

“I think the team is in pretty good shape — we have a really solid team,” owner David Rubenstein said in February. “We’ve added to it in the offseason. I’m very pleased with the team, and we have a chance to go all the way. Absolutely.”

They were confident that 2025 was going to be their year. But by the end of the first month, it was all but clear that wouldn’t be the case.

The Orioles haven’t been above .500 since they improved to 3-2 on March 31. By the end of April, they were 12-18.

“Very weird, very weird season,” shortstop Gunnar Henderson said. “Just the start of the year got us behind the eight ball, we had a good little winning streak there for a little bit and just couldn’t get on another one to get us back in the hunt, and yeah, just kind of got ourselves in a deep hole we couldn’t get out of at the beginning of the year.”

In May, manager Brandon Hyde and major league field coordinator/catching instructor Tim Cossins were fired. Mansolino, then the team’s third base coach and infield coordinator, was given the interim title. Later in the month the team brought in John Mabry as a senior adviser to give the coaching staff more experience.

Injuries to top contributors — Grayson Rodriguez, Adley Rutschman, Zach Eflin, Tyler O’Neill, Gary Sánchez, Colton Cowser and Jordan Westburg all missed significant time — held the team back. So did poor performance from their stars, particularly the starting pitchers who were healthy. At the end of the first half, the Orioles’ rotation had a 5.16 ERA, the second-highest in Major League Baseball behind only the Colorado Rockies.

While the Orioles have improved in the second half — they are 28-28 since the All-Star break, with a starter ERA of 3.86 entering Tuesday — it was too late to make a difference.

Still, while this season will end without a postseason appearance, there is some hope for next year, especially as they’ve gone 10-4 in the month of September.

“It’s a long season, for sure, and you can’t take the day before into the next day or your at-bats into the field or the previous inning into the next inning,” starting pitcher Dean Kremer said. “I think a lot of growth has come from a lot of these guys in many different ways.”

Trevor Rogers has emerged as a potential ace, pitching to a 1.43 ERA in 16 starts. Kyle Bradish and Tyler Wells are back after missing over a season recovering from elbow surgeries. Both have picked up right where they left off. Rico Garcia, Dietrich Enns and Kade Strowd are becoming intriguing bullpen arms in a unit that has plenty of spots up for grabs this winter.

Samuel Basallo and Dylan Beavers, the Orioles’ No. 1 and No. 3 prospects according to MLB Pipeline, have both debuted and fit right in. Basallo, who already has two career walk-off hits, is getting everyday reps at catcher with Rutschman out and became the team’s first homegrown star to sign a long-term extension under Mike Elias. Beavers’ patient approach has transitioned seamlessly to the majors. He’s hitting .275 with a .420 on-base percentage in 26 games.

Jeremiah Jackson is also getting his first major league experience, and potentially playing his way onto the 2026 roster. He’s becoming versatile defensively — he can play third base and is learning right field — and is proving to be valuable at the plate, batting second for the Orioles.

Those pieces can only succeed, though, if the Orioles accomplish what they need to this winter. That lengthy offseason to-do list starts at the top, with the search for a new manager, or the promotion of one if they intend to keep Mansolino, and potentially the hiring of a new general manager after Elias was quietly promoted to president of baseball operations prior to the start of the season.

After that’s set, the Orioles need to revamp almost their entire bullpen. After trading away four relievers — Seranthony Domínguez, Gregory Soto, Bryan Baker and Andrew Kittredge — ahead of the trade deadline and losing closer Félix Bautista for at least 12 months after he underwent shoulder surgery, the Orioles likely have four to five spots to fill. They could also use at least one more starting pitcher and a center fielder.

The Orioles have some trade chips, such as Ryan Mountcastle, who will be entering his last season of team control, but they’ll likely need to be willing to spend more money than ever before if they plan on adding all these pieces.