Orioles back to season-low 8 games under .500 after 8-2 loss to White Sox

Matt Weyrich, The Baltimore Sun on Jun 29, 2026

Published in Baseball

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BALTIMORE — The Baltimore Orioles are back to where they were when the Tampa Bay Rays handed them a rock-bottom sweep in mid-May.

Baltimore was reeling when the Rays took all three games at Tropicana Field in dominant fashion, dropping the club to a season-worst eight games under .500. It appeared to be a wake-up call for the Orioles at first. They went on to win 10 of their next 14 games and show signs of developing into a club capable of turning its season around.

The past three weeks have erased that progress. The Orioles (39-47) lost 8-2 to the Chicago White Sox on Monday to fall back down to eight under .500 for the first time since that series in St. Petersburg, Fla. They’ve lost five of their past seven series since June 5 and find themselves in danger of dropping another if they can’t win each of the next two games.

Boos rained down from the Camden Yards crowd as the White Sox battered the Orioles’ bullpen for six runs over the final two innings to turn the game into a lopsided result.

Shane Baz tossed seven strong innings to keep the Orioles in it for a while. The right-hander went right at the White Sox lineup with first-pitch strikes to 19 of the 27 (70%) batters he faced, and he threw a career-high 109 pitches, including 17 over his final two at-bats to get through the seventh. Baz allowed four hits and four walks with six strikeouts, giving up a pair of runs in the third on a double by first baseman Jacob Gonzalez and catcher Kyle Teel’s RBI single.

He lowered his season ERA to 4.19 with the performance. Since May 15, Baz’s 3.18 ERA ranks second among Orioles starters behind only Brandon Young (2.53).

Chicago nearly plated the go-ahead run in the fifth when third baseman Miguel Vargas hit a deep flyball to right-center field, but Colton Cowser — for the second game in a row— made a leaping catch at the wall to pull the would-be home run back from over the fence.

Instead, they had to wait until the eighth. Grant Wolfram relieved Baz to start the frame, and the southpaw, manager Craig Albernaz’s top option for facing lefty hitters, allowed two of them to reach when he hit left fielder Sam Antonacci and served up an RBI double to shortstop Colson Montgomery.

Rico Garcia took over but permitted another run on a single by designated hitter Randal Grichuk — though Cowser almost threw the runner out at home on a 96.6 mph laser that Adley Rutschman dropped at the plate.

The White Sox then pushed four more across in the ninth as Yennier Cano recorded just one out and Blaze Alexander was responsible for a two-run fielding error.

But as deflating as the bullpen’s performance was, the Orioles’ lineup wasn’t able to string together any kind of rally anyway. They scored in the first and third innings on sacrifice flies by Rutschman, and that was it for the lineup on an otherwise quiet night against starter Sean Burke and the White Sox bullpen.

Gunnar Henderson, moved back into the leadoff spot for the first time since May 16, had two of the Orioles’ four hits while celebrating his 25th birthday. Samuel Basallo and Jackson Holliday accounted for the others — both singles. Baltimore didn’t push a runner past second base after the third inning.

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