The first inning Tuesday night felt like one of those bad informercials, when the salesman jump-scares the viewer with an unbeatable offer: “Wait, there’s more!”

It played on endless loop for Kyle Gibson, an all-around clubhouse favorite who made his Orioles return against the New York Yankees and represented, at least for a moment, a glimmer of hope for a beleaguered rotation.

And then Gibson threw his second pitch. And his third pitch. And his fifth pitch. And his 12th pitch.

“Obviously,” Gibson said, “not how I wanted the first one to go.”

The cascade of home runs came in a quick, painful procession during the 15-3 loss to the Yankees — turning Gibson’s first start into a nightmare within moments. Trent Grisham, Aaron Judge, Ben Rice and Cody Bellinger all went deep against Gibson in the first inning, and by the time the frame ended, the Orioles trailed by five runs.

There was a mesmerizing quality to it all. For as disastrous as this was, it was equally as captivating. The Yankees obliterated Gibson in the first inning, and Rice returned in the second inning for another home run. The third inning was tame before Gibson spiraled in the fourth.

He allowed nine runs in 3 2/3 innings. There were some boos for him as he left the mound. There were boos for manager Brandon Hyde, too, after he handed the ball to right-hander Matt Bowman. If general manager Mike Elias had been visible, there likely would have been boos for him, as well.

“It’s happened to us quite a bit so far this year,” Hyde said. “We’re having a tough time keeping teams down early in the game.”

On top of it all, the Orioles could hardly buy a hit against left-hander Carlos Rodón. The Yankees starter held Baltimore without a baserunner until the sixth inning.

“Rodón was really good,” Hyde said. “He was carving us up.”

Gibson became the first Orioles pitcher to allow nine runs, 11 hits and five homers in an outing. The five homers were a career high, and they each came against a different pitch: four-seam fastball, cutter, sinker, changeup and curveball. That, in itself, is impressive.

For all the wrong reasons, that is. The performance from Gibson is only his first this season at the major league level, and there’s every possibility he recovers in future appearances.

“Just a weird instance where some of them were bad location. A couple of them weren’t,” Gibson said. “I’ll go back and look at it and try to see if I was doing something or getting in a pattern. But yeah, physically, I felt good, and that’s kind of the frustrating thing — when you feel good physically and the results don’t show that.”

But the poor showing is yet another indictment of the Orioles’ starting rotation. There are worthy questions around the way Elias built his staff. They have been asked and they will be repeated here, for completion’s sake. Did Elias do enough this offseason to make this team a winner?

The injuries are undoubtedly a factor in this — the presence of right-handers Zach Eflin and Grayson Rodriguez would help — but Elias knew about the recovery timelines of Tyler Wells and Kyle Bradish, as well as the free agent departure of Corbin Burnes. To supplement the rotation, Elias signed right-handers Tomoyuki Sugano, Charlie Morton and Gibson.

Sugano has pitched well. Morton has not, and he came in as relief for Bowman in the fifth inning. Gibson began his account with a dud.

Beyond the score, what made Tuesday night so pitiful is how it compared to Monday night, and how the game seemed over just 12 pitches into the contest. On Monday, when the Orioles beat the Yankees 4-3, there seemed to be a spark of life. Sugano struck out eight batters in five scoreless innings. Ryan O’Hearn crushed a three-run homer.

But too often this season the Orioles have faced the steepest of uphill climbs. Before they picked up a bat Tuesday, they trailed by five runs.

“Today was a tough one,” said infielder Ryan Mountcastle, who holds a .510 on-base-plus-slugging percentage this year. “That’s the great thing about baseball. We’ve got tomorrow. Hopefully we can bounce back and win the series tomorrow.”

The team’s skid began with an Easter Sunday embarrassment at the hands of the Cincinnati Reds, who beat Baltimore 24-2. The Washington Nationals took two of three games and the Detroit Tigers swept the Orioles.

When all was said and done, the Orioles allowed 15 or more runs for the second time this season — an ignominious feat the team hadn’t accomplished since 2021.

As The Baltimore Sun reported, the hitters held a meeting before the series opener Monday. They rallied themselves together to win one game, but to climb out of this hole in the standings, Baltimore needs to string strong performances together. They never had a chance Tuesday, with five homers against Gibson. But they might not have had much of a chance against Rodón, anyway.

“I think the best thing you can do is look at tomorrow and see if you can finish the calendar by winning a series, and win a series in May,” Gibson said. “You can’t just do it 10 games at a time. You’ve got to do it one at a time. And two or three at a time, and start knocking off some series. And before you know it, by the end of May, you can be four or five games over .500 and you’re feeling really good. Just like good teams can have bad months, they can have really good ones, too.”