The Orioles have lost their ABS courage and it could cost them dearly

One week into the 2026 season, the Baltimore Orioles were the best team in the league at using the ABS challenge system. They were challenging a lot and winning almost all of them. They were one of the few teams to have seen batters, catchers, and even a pitcher successfully challenge. It seemed the new challenge system would be an advantage for the Orioles; many of their young players had come up through the minors with it in place. However, an early-season challenge mishap appears to have quelled the Orioles' enthusiasm for challenging.

In the second game of the Orioles' series against the Pirates, the game was close, and it was tied in the top of the ninth. With two outs and nobody on, Gunnar Henderson challenged a low called strike and was unsuccessful.

This, on its own, was not problematic. It was late in the game; the call was the difference between being out and a 2-2 count, and Henderson is by far the Orioles' best hitter. It's not a perfect challenge situation, but that late in the game, there's no guarantee a better use of the challenge will come up.

That wasn't the case in this game. In the bottom of the ninth, Orioles closer Ryan Helsley was in a battle with Pirates infielder Nick Yorke. On the seventh pitch of the at-bat, Helsley fired a fastball that got the bottom of the zone for what should have been strike three, but it was called a ball. Helsley began tapping his hat to challenge the call, but the umpire just shook his head, indicating that the Orioles were out of challenges. On the very next pitch, Yorke roped a double over Dylan Beavers' head, and the Pirates walked it off.

It is unfortunate that Henderson's burning the Orioles' last challenge so directly contributed to the Orioles losing the game, but the blown challenge was not the sole reason the Orioles lost that game, and had Helsley challenged and struck out Yorke, he might have given up a walk-off on the first pitch to the next batter he faced. At the end of the day, it's just one game; the Orioles reaction to the outcome of this one game may cost them many more games, though.

Orioles are leaving valuable challenges on the table out of fear

Ever since the Orioles lost that game to the Pirates, they have become one of the worst ABS-challenging teams in the league. They started the season 12/14 on challenges, and since then, they are 4/13, with a recent 3/3 game doing much of the heavy lifting. They have not used all of their challenges in a single game once, and since they're refusing the challenge after they get the first one wrong, that means that in most games, they are challenging one time, losing it, and then just bailing on the challenge system so that they can make sure they have a challenge in the ninth.

It's a strong overreaction. They lost a game because they didn't have a challenge in the ninth, and in their determination to never allow that to happen again, they are losing out on potentially valuable opportunities to challenge by self-imposing a one failed challenge limit on themselves.

The pressure to get your challenge right when you know that if you don't, nobody will be able to challenge until the ninth inning is immense and clearly messing with the players' heads. Early in the season, they were sharp at challenging; now they are watching balls way out of the zone get called strikes and not challenging, and then challenging on balls much closer to the zone. They're in a challenge spin cycle.

The solution is simple: the Orioles need to let the Pirates game go and allow themselves to heal mentally from that loss. As long as the memory of Helsley tapping his head and being told he doesn't have a challenge is hovering over the team, they're going to be ineffective using ABS. They need to move on, forgive themselves, and get back to being good at challenging, because the advantage teams can get from ABS if they're willing to use it is massive.

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