Brandon Hyde, who guided the Baltimore Orioles through a gutting rebuild and led them to a 101-win season and consecutive playoff berths, was fired by the club on Saturday as it holds the second-worst record in the American League.
Hyde, 51, was in his seventh season as Orioles manager, a tenure in which expectations grew exponentially after he was hired following a 115-loss season in 2018. The club lost 108 games in Hyde’s first year and 110 games in 2021, but held the team together as the top draft picks awarded for those lost seasons began to arrive in Baltimore.
The results were almost instantaneous: Baltimore won 101 games in 2023, the first full season for All-Star shortstop Gunnar Henderson, and just its second AL East title since 1997. The Orioles won 91 games in 2024 and again earned a home playoff series as the top wild card.
But the Orioles were 0-5 in postseason games under Hyde, getting swept by the Texas Rangers in the 2023 AL Division Series and the Kansas City Royals in a wild-card series last season. The postseason failures resulted in significant changes on Hyde’s staff, including new hitting coaches and bench coach Robinson Chirinos.
Yet the Orioles are 15-28, last in the AL East and ahead of only the Chicago White Sox in the AL. Hyde becomes the third manager fired in the past 10 days, joining Pittsburgh’s Derek Shelton and Colorado’s Bud Black.
‘The poor start to our season is ultimately my responsibility,’ Orioles GM Mike Elias said in a statement. ‘Part of that responsibility is pursuing difficult changes in order to set a different course for the future.’
Third base coach Tony Mansolino will serve as the club’s interim manager.
Elias, architect of the teardown and rebuild, also aimed to fortify a roster badly exposed in the postseason. But his $15 million investment in 41-year-old pitcher Charlie Morton has been a disaster – he has an 8.35 ERA and the Orioles have lost all 11 games in whic he’s pitched – and slugger Tyler O’Neill has been both injured and ineffective, with a .180 average and .605 OPS in 93 plate appearances. The lineup has also badly missed 2024 All-Star Jordan Westburg, limited to 23 games due to a hamstring injury.
Elias’s inability to deepen the organizational pitching pool – both through an unwillingness to spend high draft picks on pitchers and in the offseason – put the club at a significant disadvantage when early-season injuries struck right-handers Zach Eflin and Grayson Rodriguez. The club has won just two of its 14 series this season.
The slow start has been a continuation of a second-half fade last season: Baltimore went 34-38 to squander a narrow lead in the East and get relegated to the wild-card round. Now, the Orioles have backslid even further, very likely out of the playoff race and seeking a leader who might guide it through rough patches, just like its previous manager.
Hyde’s firing comes as the club is mired in a 2-10 stretch, which included a pair of sweeps at the hands of the Minnesota Twins. The final indignity came in a 4-3 loss to the Washington Nationals, during which the club gave up a late lead on a James Wood home run off Keegan Akin, followed by a ninth-inning go-ahead tally when Nasim Nuñez beat closer Felix Bautista to the bag to allow the winning run to score from second on an infield single.
It was a loss emblematic of the Orioles’ season – Hyde on paper pushed all the right buttons, such as deploying the left-hander Akin against young slugger Wood. But the move did not work and the club’s ultimate undoing was its untimely hitting: Baltimore left 15 runners on base, reflecting its .192 batting average – worst in the majors – with runners in scoring position.
‘Brandon Hyde is someone I have come to know and deeply admire, not only for his extensive knowledge of baseball, but also for his exceptional leadership as a manager,” said Orioles owner David Rubenstein in a statement. ‘I am sincerely grateful for his significant accomplishments over the past six years, which have greatly benefited both the Orioles and the city of Baltimore.
‘However, as is sometimes the case in baseball, change becomes necessary, and we believe this is one of those moments. The Orioles organization is truly appreciative of everything Brandon has contributed during his tenure, and we wish him nothing but success in whatever path he chooses next in the world of baseball.’
Hyde’s firing comes on the day of the Preakness Stakes in Baltimore, a full-circle moment for his tenure. It was on Preakness day in 2022 that catcher Adley Rutschman – the first overall pick in 2019 who kick-started the rebuild – arrived in the majors.
Now, the two-time All-Star is struggling with a .214 average and .654 OPS, a symbol of the club’s dropoff from the second half of 2024 through the first half of this one.