What Orioles manager Craig Albernaz can learn from the NBA playoffs

With 128 games left in the season, it is mathematically early in the season, but how you perform early in the season matters. Last year, the Baltimore Orioles were six games over .500 over their last 112 games of the season. If the Orioles had been six games over .500 through their first 112 games, they might have rallied to the playoffs. They probably would have added talent at the trade deadline instead of subtracting; maybe the whole season would have been different. But the Orioles went 16-34 in the first 50 games of the season, so the fact that they were decent for most of the season didn't matter. The hole they dug was too deep.

So even though there are still a lot of games left to be played this season, what the Orioles do over the next few weeks is going to dramatically impact how the rest of the season goes. If they continue to get dominated over the next few weeks and suddenly go from four games under .500 to 10 games under .500, that could be the season.

The Orioles are dangerously close to repeating their failures from 2025

With that being the case, Craig Albernaz needs to follow the example of the NBA coaches in the playoffs right now and tighten up his bench usage.

During the NBA regular season, coaches rely heavily on their benches. They'll sit their best players to keep them healthy, play 9-10 players every game to make it through their 82-game season. The best teams in the league are buoyed by deep benches. Once the playoffs start, only the best guys play. If you can't defend, you're going to sit, and if you can't shoot, you're going to sit. The games are just too important to ever have the ball in your 10th-best player's hands.

The Orioles' playing time this season has been far too democratic, leaning heavily on a non-existent platoon advantage. After losing to the Yankees in game one of the series to fall to two games below .500, they benched two of their hottest hitters in Samuel Basallo and Dylan Beavers in favor of getting Coby Mayo and Tyler O'Neill in the lineup. O'Neill and Mayo have been two of the Orioles' worst hitters this season, and they played like it over the next two games, combining to go 1-10, with the only hit being an infield single while batting back-to-back in the middle of the lineup. They were rally killers. That's not to mention that Weston Wilson played in both games and was 1-4 with a bunch of defensive mistakes. That can't be acceptable.

It may sound dramatic to ask Albernaz to go into playoff mode with so many games left in the season, but if the Orioles don't stop their skid, they're going to be just as eliminated as Albernaz's Celtics by the end of next week.

Albernaz needs to look at his roster and decide which nine players give him the best chance of winning a game and try to play those nine guys every day until the Orioles are above .500. While the season is in the balance, the Orioles can't afford to lose any more games for the sake of making sure their worst players feel included. There will be plenty of playing time for those guys if the Orioles climb back above .500, and even more if this plan doesn't work and the season goes in the waste basket before Memorial Day again.

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