There’s a point after a season sinks when the focus shifts. Who, exactly, is left in this lifeboat?

All the dealing the Orioles have done in the last few weeks has been with the stated premise to return to contention in 2026 around their young core. General manager Mike Elias mentioned five Orioles hitters by name last week when talking about the future: Gunnar Henderson, Jackson Holliday, Adley Rutschman, Jordan Westberg and Colton Cowser.

“We have an extremely exciting group of young players on the Orioles that we’ve all come to enjoy,” GM Mike Elias said. “And these guys are still here. They’re fighting hard.”

There’s one small problem. They’re not fighting as hard as they could be.

Nights like Tuesday in Philadelphia betray a startling lack of competitiveness in the lineup that has reared especially when the Orioles are playing from behind. Aside from a pair of hits from Westburg, Rutchman provided the only other knock from the group. Henderson, Holliday and Cowser went a combined 0 for 11. Nobody walked.

The last week has been a rough one: In the last six games, the O’s have only scored more than four runs once. Westburg is the only Oriole with an OPS above .800 in that span. The group has struck out 34 times while walking just eight.

Cowser in particular is going through it, striking out 13 times in 19 at-bats — in spite of interim manager Tony Mansolino not playing him in center field to take pressure off of him (Cowser declined to speak to media in the clubhouse after Tuesday’s loss).

Elias has taken plenty of lumps this season and deservedly so. But at some point, a share of the “blame pie,” as we like to say here at The Banner, needs to be handed out to the core players, who largely have struggled to live up to the high bar they’ve set in previous seasons.

Just over a year ago, it was easy to view this group as the powerhouse of the future, sporting three All Stars among them (Henderson, Rutschman and Westburg) and a leading candidate for Rookie of the Year in Cowser. While Holliday had struggled in his debut, the other four were the engine of a humming offense that threatened to knock the rest of the league flat.

Their specialty was one-run games and comeback wins — in 2023, you never, ever felt like the Orioles were out of the fight.

Injuries have played a part in the regression, yes. Rutschman, Westburg and Cowser have all had significant stretches on the injured list. But the gritty character of the 2023 and early 2024 Orioles has withered and turned brittle.

If you see the O’s down by more than two or three runs, it feels safe to tune out and assume they’re going to lose. Sure, the bullpen is decimated now, but shutouts like the two the Orioles have suffered this week have nothing to do with the quality of pitching.

Here are a few sobering stats about the 2025 offensive season: The Orioles have been blown out 24 times this season by at least five runs, including their past two losses. They have been shut out 12 times through 114 games, on pace to be shut out more times than 2023 and 2024 combined. The last time this team won a walkoff game was Sept. 19, 2024, when Anthony Santander was the hero and Hyde was the manager — the Orioles even won three walk-off games in the disastrous 2021 season, but have none this year.

When the Orioles play from behind, they have the 23rd-worst OPS in baseball (.665) — just last season, they had the 6th-best OPS (.717) when battling back from a deficit.

Guess who two of Baltimore’s best three players in OPS when playing from behind were this season? Ryan O’Hearn and Ramón Laureano.

I’m not second-guessing trading those guys at the trade deadline — as far as I’m concerned the Orioles needed to be aggressive sellers — but it’s not a good look when two of the players the club deemed replaceable were hitting better under adversity than the “untouchable” members of the core.

So many parts of this roster need improvement to get this club back to contention next season, and that includes the pieces of the team that are considered its most sacred.

As good as Henderson has been since June 1, the power that made him an MVP candidate in the first half of 2024 has waned, slowing his previously rocketing ascent. Holliday has been much more consistent this year, but he’s still the only MLB player with at least 50 games as the leadoff hitter who has an on-base percentage under .300 (.290).

Westburg has been great when healthy, but his health has been spotty over the last year. Rutschman is still trying to return to his peak 2023 form at the plate when he was legitimately one of the best-hitting catchers in the league, and he, too, has been stalled by injury. Cowser simply looks like he’s struggling at this point, casting doubt on his ability to be an everyday center fielder in 2026.

Most importantly, that progress must start now — when nothing matters except building toward next season. It was disheartening to see the Orioles’ massive sell-off in the first place, but the disappointment compounds when the young core that the team means to build around isn’t even close to looking the part.

It’s doable. We’ve seen this group be the foundation of winning not that long ago. Advanced analytics point to a team that is still relatively strong when it comes to hitting the ball hard (43.4%, 5th) and defining the strike zone well (5th best zone swing rate).

But really think about the years sunk into the rebuild, and the draft capital used on the players in that group. It’s OK that the expectations are high for them. And it’s also OK that fans are asking for more than they’ve seen so far this year.

In Chicago, Rutschman acknowledged as much when asked about how the team needs to approach the rest of this lost season.

“I think we have a lot of guys on this team with natural leadership in the way they go about their business,” Rutschman said. “So I think it is our responsibility to show up with a great attitude and kind of step up in ways that maybe now, we need to.”

Frankly, there’s no one else left in this clubhouse to step up. With the roster stripped down to the support beams, the rest of the season will allow fans to judge how sturdy the base for next season will be.

If the last week since the deadline is anything to go by, it has got to be better than this.

Right now, it feels safe to turn off the TV halfway through the games. Next year, it might be harder to tune in at all.