BALTIMORE — A day’s worth of Orioles baseball, fat with gusto and as full of life as they’ve been all season, can unravel quickly.

Thus was the case in the waning innings of Baltimore’s nail-biting 7-6 10-inning loss to the visiting Toronto Blue Jays on Sunday afternoon.

Gregory Soto relieved Seranthony Domínguez in the eighth inning, inheriting a three-run lead. It was trimmed to 6-5 by the time Yennier Cano replaced him. Cano could all but drop his head as he stepped off the mound after a Bo Bichette RBI single evened the score.

The Blue Jays’ eventual game-winning run was an anticlimactic soft ground ball toward third base courtesy of Myles Straw that scored Andrés Giménez in the 10th inning. Jeff Hoffman, whom the Orioles agreed to sign this offseason before a failed physical caused the deal to fall through, earned the win by recording the final six outs. After the last, he blew a kiss toward Baltimore’s dugout.

With the loss, the Orioles (6-9) have still yet to win any of their five series this season.

Manager Brandon Hyde, who was ejected for the first time this season and 18th time of his career after arguing balls and strikes in the third inning, thought six runs might be a safe enough lead the way his group was battling.

“I thought we fought hard,” he said, adding later, “just didn’t happen. We just didn’t add on a ton and they got some breaks late.”

So much of the energy Baltimore generated in Saturday night’s win rolled right in Sunday’s matinee. This loss to their American League East rivals was littered with moments of a team reinvigorated. A group that days ago was hearing its manager talk openly about needing to remind his players they’re capable of winning these back-against-the-wall games.

They looked like it for seven full innings. They just couldn’t finish the job.

When Gunnar Henderson slid head-first through home plate, avoiding the tag for an early go-ahead run, he leapt to his feet and whacked Ryan O’Hearn’s hand hard enough that O’Hearn had to shake it off before his own at-bat.

Jordan Westburg came up next and was rung up for his second strikeout. Hyde jumped out of the dugout, presumably shouting a few obscenities. He was tossed for sticking up for his third baseman. “I needed it,” Westburg said, thanking his skipper for the backup. Hyde “didn’t really appreciate the strike zone early” and blew a gasket.

“I think those are the kind of plays and momentum that can kind of get us going,” Westburg said. “It’s just disappointing that we couldn’t kind of carry it over.”

Baltimore’s fight didn’t end there.

When Toronto’s Ernie Clement poked the ball to third base in the fourth, Giménez wound up in a pickle between third and home plate. Westburg made a diving effort tag to prevent the tying run, and Baltimore ended the inning a batter later.

When the Blue Jays positioned themselves to flip the game on its head, getting two runners in scoring position with two outs in the fifth, the Orioles called on right-handed reliever Bryan Baker. They needed a way of that jam.

With three thundering fastballs all painting the high and inside corner of the strike zone, he sent George Springer packing, keeping a firm grip on a 4-2 Orioles lead. Baker stepped off the mound and screamed, punching the palm of his bright turquoise glove over and over.

Those moments kept stacking. The balloon swelled for seven innings. It popped completely on that dribbler in the 10th. And the Orioles couldn’t resuscitate themselves.

A nearly empty postgame Baltimore clubhouse lingered with the stench of such a stinging loss, even though it’s only April. While this won’t mean much in the long haul, it was a squandered opportunity to stack some momentum and win their first series of the season before a day off Monday.

“I think when the tendency is to start changing, changing, changing, we might lose the identity we worked all spring to build,” Westburg said. “I think the most important part is just sticking to who we are and staying close here in this clubhouse, having each other’s back, and just trusting that the product is just going to get better.”

Instant analysis

It’s been a week since an Orioles pitcher recorded a quality start. That was Zach Eflin in a 5-1 win at Arizona. Elfin’s responsible for three of Baltimore’s four quality starts through 15 games, tied for the 17th most of any team in MLB. Povich’s was a retroactive quality start because of an overturned call in Kansas City that flipped a Bobby Witt Jr. triple to a Jorge Mateo error. Three quality starts would rank bottom-10 in baseball. Through three turns, the rotation holds a 5.30 ERA — 29th in the league.

Now that Baltimore is starting to remind people its offense is capable of hitting with some juice, it’ll need its beleaguered pitching rotation, which is without several key starters, including Eflin and Grayson Rodriguez, to come closer to matching that energy.

What they’re saying

Hyde on how short starts put more pressure on Baltimore’s bullpen:

“With the day off tomorrow, we were more aggressive yesterday and today with our bullpen. I thought that Cade [Povich] hung in there — third time through the order there in the fifth. I thought he escaped traffic a lot of those first few innings. I thought Bake did a great job of getting him out of that second-and-third, two-out jam there in the fifth inning, and you take your chances with Soto and Cano there in the eighth and the ninth, because those guys have been unbelievable so far this year.”

By the numbers

First baseman Ryan Mountcastle launched his first home run of the season in the second inning, a go-ahead two-run shot. It was his first time putting it over the fence since July 29, 2024, ending a career-long 41-game home run drought. It was also the first time Mountcastle deposited one in the new left field home run porch that was moved in this offseason. It would not have cleared “Walltimore.”

On deck

The Orioles have Monday off, the second in four days because of Friday’s postponement. After a lively hitting performance Saturday, the Blue Jays got the best of Baltimore in an extra-innings cage fight, splitting the series. Baltimore begins a four-game series Tuesday with the Cleveland Guardians in town. Charlie Morton will take the ball for the Orioles opposite lefty Logan Allen. Then, for Baltimore, it’s Dean Kremer on Wednesday and Tomoyuki Sugano on Thursday.

Guardians at Orioles

Tuesday, 7:05 p.m. ET

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