In 18 innings, the Orioles found two ways to lose.

The first was to produce a tepid offensive performance that resulted in four hits. The next was to score all at once, including an emphatic grand slam from Cedric Mullins, before attempting to hold on to a narrow lead. Both involved bullpen breakdowns.

There have been pitching issues all season, but they have mainly been isolated to a troublesome rotation. The five runs against left-hander Keegan Akin (in Game 1) and right-hander Yennier Cano (in Game 2) played key roles in the Minnesota Twins’ doubleheader sweep of the Orioles.

By dropping both games, Baltimore is 0-5 against Minnesota this season. And it dispels some of the promise built during a series win against the lowly Los Angeles Angels over the weekend.

The doubleheader, really, was an encapsulation of the year at large. A strong start squandered by a scuffling offense; a boom-or-bust offense suddenly booming for a six-run third inning in Game 2, just to have that lead fall away. Baltimore is 15-26, 11 games below .500 for the first time since June 10, 2022.

How’d this happen? Let’s start with Game 2.

Game 2

The Orioles handed a one-run lead in the eighth inning to Cano. He promptly allowed a leadoff single to Willi Castro, and Castro stole second and reached third on Cano’s balk. A walk preceded the gut punch of a swing from Kody Clemens — a three-run homer to right that flipped the score to Minnesota’s favor, 8-6. That’s where it remained.

Baltimore had entered the eighth with a lead because of the overflowing run production of the third inning. Gunnar Henderson drove an RBI single, and with the bases loaded, Mullins broke a slump with a grand slam. Heston Kjerstad brought a light midday crowd to its feet with a solo homer one batter later.

But the Orioles managed three hits in the five innings following that six-run third as they failed to add on.

Until the eighth, though, it seemed as though six runs might be enough. Right-hander Chayce McDermott allowed four runs in three innings — his first major league start this season, coming up as the 27th man for the doubleheader. He showcased his stuff with five strikeouts but allowed three walks and four hits and saw his pitch count rise to 65.

And, because McDermott is not built up fully since returning from a lat injury, right-hander Charlie Morton took over from there. Morton produced his second straight strong outing out of the bullpen. Apart from Castro’s solo homer, Morton was manageable — he has allowed one run in his last six innings, going back three appearances.

But, when the ball reached Cano, three straight batters reached. One did so with a round-tripper that doomed Baltimore.

All four runs against Orioles starter Dean Kremer came in the fourth inning of Wednesday’s 6-3 loss to the Twins.

Game 1

The unexpected Wednesday matinee against the Twins, the first of a doubleheader due to rain, drew an understandably small crowd. Apart from the blaring sound system between pitches, the scattered applause and yells felt more appropriate for a high school game — each voice sticking out at Camden Yards, audible over the occasional crack of a bat and smack of a glove.

The groans came in unison, though, when Christian Vázquez lifted a pitch from Dean Kremer to deep left field. The ball sailed, and for a catcher who entered with two runs batted in all year, Vázquez’s three-run home run was the biggest swing in a four-run fourth inning that propelled Minnesota to a 6-3 win against the Orioles in Game 1.

Vázquez might not have even come to the plate if Ramón Urías had cleanly transferred the ball from glove to throwing hand earlier in the frame. Instead, the double clutch allowed Carlos Correa to reach on an infield single. A walk followed, and with two outs Vázquez took a curveball from Kremer deep.

“Monday morning quarterback, probably should’ve gone with my strengths there with two outs,” Kremer said of throwing the curveball to Vázquez. “But he beat me.”

It was the second curveball that inning for a Twins batter to clobber. To lead off, immediately after the Orioles took a three-run lead in the third, Brooks Lee drove Kremer’s curveball just over the outstretched glove of a leaping Mullins at the center-field fence.

“Hell of an effort,” Kremer said. “If he comes down with it, great, happy, awesome. He hit it out of the yard. I’d love to have that one back, too, but it is what it is.”

Of course, the late additions from Minnesota against left-hander Keegan Akin in the ninth made the task more challenging for an offense that hasn’t seemed up to a challenge for some time. Perhaps it was a bad sign, then, when a “Ted Lasso” video played on the board during the eighth inning. The faux soccer manager from the Apple TV show asked his faux team, “Do you believe in miracles?”

The Orioles needed one, even though they trailed by one run at that point.

And they didn’t get one. Particularly not after Trevor Larnach hit an RBI double and later scored via a wild pitch.

An Orioles offense reliant on Ryan Mountcastle and Henderson for its four hits couldn’t muster at least a run to level the score, let alone three in the ninth. They came close in the seventh, when Mountcastle walked and Henderson lined his second hit of the game to left field. A soft line drive from Ryan O’Hearn with two outs, though, hung up just enough for center fielder Byron Buxton to make a diving catch.

Another opportunity arose in the eighth, when Tyler O’Neill reached on an error and advanced to third on a throwing error — Minnesota’s fourth error of the game. But, after Kjerstad walked to put runners on the corners with two outs, right-hander Griffin Jax struck out Urías.

Orioles shortstop Gunnar Henderson celebrates a two-run homer in the third inning.

“We have three hits going into the ninth inning,” manager Brandon Hyde said. “Tough to win games that way.”

The positives centered on Mountcastle and Henderson, although the lineup was hitless otherwise (0-for-25 with nine strikeouts). Mountcastle’s two-out double scored Urías from first base in the third inning, and Henderson followed with a monstrous two-run homer off right-hander Bailey Ober.

Even with that blast, the Orioles left 10 runners on base. And the Orioles are 0-22 when trailing after six innings. Comebacks have been nearly nonexistent this season. That’s a sharp departure from the propensity for come-from-behind wins two years ago, and even during parts of 2024, no deficit seemed too much.

Now, a three-run deficit proved unscalable once again.

“They have a really good bullpen,” Hyde said. “We just had a tough time stringing anything together against a good pitching staff.”