The Brandon Hyde era.

By virtue of Hyde’s six-plus seasons and 913 games in the manager’s seat, I’d say he gets an era. (Unless this is also the beginning of the end of the Mike Elias era, at which point Hyde’s era will be subsumed into those annals.)

How will we remember it? It’s tough to remove the last 43 games from the mind, given how recent they are, and the context of an ending that arguably feels lower than any of the losing seasons at the beginning of his time.

To do that, though, is to reflect on a manager who was a couple of things throughout his time in Baltimore. One, most notably, is consistent. Another is loyal to the Orioles. But through all the chapters, it’s mostly the little moments that stand out.

Knowing how close they were and what they’ve been through together, the most meaningful to me might have been Tim Cossins running in from the dugout to celebrate the division title with Hyde in 2023. They’d been through a lot, both here and before they arrived, and it felt right to acknowledge that both then and now.

There were the days before the pandemic shut things down when Hyde was keeping the news of Trey Mancini‘s cancer diagnosis concealed but was very clearly feeling the impact of it privately. There were the celebrations, both after his first win and after his biggest, where you caught glimpses of how much this meant to him. And of course, there were the times his emotions boiled over with Chris Davis, Robbie Ray, the entire Yankees dugout and so many more.

There was a lot for a manager to get worked up about in 2019, 2020 and 2021. Pandemic-related restrictions probably shielded most of the reactions toward the end of that stretch, but it’s always stuck out to me that the most animated I ever saw Hyde post-game was after a win.

On June 4, 2019, in Texas, the Orioles led 11-3 at the seventh-inning stretch. Branden Kline and Shawn Armstrong yielded a run apiece in the seventh and eighth. Pedro Severino hit what felt like a meaningless home run to make it 12-5 in the top of the ninth, and needless to say, it was not meaningless. An error and then two Josh Lucas walks loaded the bases. Richard Bleier allowed those three runs then three of his own to score before Mychal Givens inherited the tying run on first with one out. A strikeout, a throwing error by Givens to put the tying run at second, and a strikeout later, the Orioles finally won.

Hyde could barely finish a sentence after the game, in either his postgame TV interview with Gary Thorne or the rest of the media after. He was at a loss. Completely, agitatedly, nerve-rackingly at a loss. It would go on like that for three more years, more or less, and the only thing that stopped us from seeing that reaction more were COVID masks.

Back to those enduring traits. They are both why he stuck around for this long and perhaps illuminate why he’s no longer here. His consistency was something players lauded in the rebuilding years — that was evident still as the team got good — and it must be said felt frustrating as things deteriorated this year. Why change, though?

Hyde made it a point as the team’s fortunes turned to say, whenever he could, that the daily processes on how to manage his pitching staff and use his bench were the same in 2019 as they were in 2022 and 2025. They broke down who was available and when they could best be deployed. The difference between the successes and failures ultimately came down to the quality of the player.

Even Elias, as recently as May 2, listed consistency as one of the reason’s Hyde was still the right man for the job. What’s different now? Well, nothing, which I guess is the problem. The Orioles were still underachieving, and no amount of consistency could pull them from this tailspin.

The loyalty stands out as having been a bit cyclical, too. The players came and went at the beginning, but Hyde never threw any of them under the bus. He was the public face of the rebuild, and that meant not only defending the fact that the roster he had to work with was purposefully not good enough to win, but also shielding the players from that criticism.

That stopped being the case for a while and, though there are myriad reasons why this team has underperformed this year, the reality of the roster’s challenges is part of the story. Hyde defended it all through his last days as manager. I wouldn’t expect anything less.

He probably knew, even as he was doing so, that the first change to be made would be him. That it comes in these circumstances is going to sour the perception of him for a while.

Hyde wasn’t everyone’s flavor. He could run the full gamut in his media sessions; insightful, intimidating, self-deprecating, short, expansive, evasive. He could manage himself into a mess in-game or pull all the right strings — though to extend the metaphor, I don’t think he was the front office puppet he’s made out to be. He was a baseball manager, and outside of extreme circumstances, the good ones are the ones whose teams win, and the bad ones are the ones whose teams lose.

Let’s just not forget that for a while here, Hyde was one of the good ones.

Ballpark chatter

“We’re not necessarily having fun right now.”

— Zach Eflin after Sunday’s loss 

I know, show me the team that’s falling apart that looks like it’s having fun.

It could honestly just come down to the losing. But at the end of last year, the lack of joy around this team was evident. In spring training, it felt like good times were here again. The arrival of the Jack Sparrow hat in a series win in Anaheim felt like the Orioles at least understood that livening things up might help.

I don’t think they can go back to being the goofballs of the good old days until they start playing better, but I can’t be alone in saying both would be welcome developments.

By the numbers

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Entering Monday’s game, that was the Orioles’ expected winning percentage for the rest of the season on FanGraphs. That’s obviously a marked improvement on the .326 winning percentage they entered with that day and speaks to how significant this underperformance is.

That finish would make them 73-89. To get to .500 for the season, they’ll have to go 66-50 (.570 winning percentage). To win the 87 games that would probably get them into the playoffs, that’s 72-44 (.621) the rest of the way. They’d better get to work.

On the farm

It’s been an uneven Triple-A debut for right-hander Cameron Weston, but the 24-year-old had his best week at the level with a pair of starts against Jacksonville last week.

He struck out seven and allowed one earned run in five innings last Tuesday, then backed it up with seven more strikeouts in 5 2/3 innings of two-run ball Sunday. Weston is a sinkerball pitcher who comes at hitters from a low slot with a variety of shapes that play off that, and, at this rate, might very well might be someone who can pitch in the majors soon.

For further reading

🔥 Mike Elias in the hot seat: Kyle’s column on the pressure shifting to Elias from Saturday was a good one. The singular story to follow with this Orioles team is now how the front office adapts based on what’s happened so far.

🧢 Tony Mansolino: These two fans are the first two people I think of where Tony Mansolino is concerned. Andy had a nice look at them and their relationship with the Orioles’ interim manager.