The Orioles rookie skipper did it again.
Craig Albernaz, who has an innate knack to alienate those who are still bothering to pay attention to anything he says or does, caused another stir Monday night in another awkward defense of his horribly flawed baseball team. This time he invoked some nonsense about “noise” being a distraction for his club on the heels of their nonsensical general manager, Mike Elias (Year 9: three hapless managers and no playoff wins) spewing more falsehoods about his broken roster over the weekend.
As best we can tell, Elias, fearing an attendance slide in the second half with the surging Red Sox about to pass the O’s and send Baltimore last in the AL East, and understanding his job security is more tied to that than anything else since his Private Equity owners have never given any tangible indication that results and winning matter, launched into salesman mode. If he gaslights people sufficiently enough about the team he rostered and his intentions at the trade deadline (the guy who never wanted to make good teams better now says he really wants to buy with this lemon) then maybe people will keep showing up to Camden Yards anyway.
And when Albernaz was asked about his boss following a fairly disgraceful – even by lowly 2026 Orioles standards – collapse to the White Sox with the requisite bullpen implosions and horrible offensive approaches and 13 strikeouts and no one in the infield fielding the baseball, he of course tried to serve his masters (Elias, PE billionaires) by making more inane excuses for a franchise that is 158-180 since June 21, 2024.
First you had to sit through three hours of the Orioles playing The Elias Way. Then, if you were really a glutton, you had to try to figure out what an overmatched puppet manager really meant when uttered the following when asked about being 0-3 since Elias spoke of “going for it” at the deadline:
“Yeah, you would think that would help ease some of the pressure if guys are feeling pressure in the clubhouse. But it’s one of those things where there’s a lot of noise that the players are listening to outside. It’s starving the distractions and feeding your focus – that’s the biggest thing for our guys.”
Hmm. What is this guy – a wannabe MLB skipper at this point who hasn’t proved a damn thing about being to do his job – inferring here?
This is an organization that invariably makes excuses and seeks cover, so of course Elias was drawn to a manager who has the same impulse. Pressure? Trying pulling off a nine-year con job in New York or Boston where there are entire segments of the media calling out utter BS 24 hours a day and not entire media entities in a small market with a core ethos of sucking up to the people who consistently rip off their fan bases in hopes of curry favor and boosting access and making money.
Pressure? That’s pathetic Craig.
This is the same guy who warned fans back in early May, when his team gave every indication it was absolutely an extension of the gross and sloppy Orioles teams of 2024 and 2025 and going nowhere: “If you want to jump ship, you can jump ship. But don’t ask to come back on. That’s it. It’s a long season.”
This is the same unserious person who tried to publicly shame an overachieving 21-year old catcher later that month in an organization filled with charlatans and underachievers (Albernaz included), for not being tough enough. Then Albernaz turned it into a weeklong drama than helped sink a vital homestand (Hall of Fame pitcher and broadcaster Jim Palmer couldn’t keep it all in anymore and went scorched earth on the situation; was that “noise’ too, Craig?).
So we must take all of this in stride, given who it’s coming from and who he works for. Skewing clownish is a job requirement for Mikey’s Skippers. But if Albernaz is suggesting in any way that fans voicing their displeasure about his warped and gutless baseball culture is “noise,” then he has no place in that dugout.
If he is implying that media who are reporting the reality of this baseball team and how any suggestion they can or will “buy” is ridiculous – given how terrible they are at the MLB level and how weak they are as a minor league system – is the root of the noise, then his clubhouse is even more soft and naïve and coddled than I believed. And I’ve been calling it out for three years. It’s “The Hanson Brothers” with the remote-control cars before games and not enough Reggie Dunlop.
Just consider the hubris of this guy – fueled by the egomaniacal and feckless baseball execs who hired him – to utter this garbage at this moment in time. Albernaz was just unmasked by a fellow rookie manager over the weekend with the Nationals the second biggest surprise in baseball, then watches his team play like the mentally frail bunch they are in collapsing to the White Sox, the biggest surprise in baseball with a second-year skipper and this is what he comes up with.
This is where, with his team dropping back to a season-low eight-games below .500, his mind goes. No blame or accountability for himself, no ownership, creating false boogie men. It’s beneath this fanbase but it’s what Elias believes in more than anything else.
Albernaz almost got to the core of the problem a little earlier in his rambling when he said: “We have to play the game the same way from the first pitch to the last.” Because this is a feeble outfit that is hardwired to find ways to lose and come up short and boot the ball around and succumb to actual pressure; it’s why they are 6-13 in one-run games and haven’t strung four wins together all season.
So let me help you out, skip, and maybe stop embarrassing yourself so often. Focus on that stat above. Try yanking one of your many underachievers from a game when the same crap keeps happening. Take ownership of your constant inadequacies – too many to list but the silly contract play and playing people out of position and having almost no feel for when the pull a starter – and turn your words inward.
Most people around here have already tuned you out and the ugly baseball product you oversee every night. Save the whining and obfuscating for your boss. Thankfully he doesn’t open his mouth nearly as often, and gaslighting is the one thing he’s apparently good at.
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