Barber: Brandon Hyde keeping Orioles on even keel

OAKLAND - The Baltimore Orioles played a competitive game at the Coliseum on Monday night. They limited the A's to five hits and were never more than a run down. But the Orioles made enough mistakes in the first three innings to earn a 3-2 loss.

In the top of the first, they initiated a double steal by two runners with one combined stolen base in 2019, with two outs and the No. 5 hitter at bat. And in the bottom of the third, they had a chance at a home-to-first double play, but instead wound up with a throw from catcher Chance Sisco that sailed down the right field line and allowed two runs to score.

In other words, it was a highly typical game for the most hapless team in baseball.

Brandon Hyde, born in Santa Rosa and a graduate of Montgomery High, knew this was possible, of course. He knew the Orioles, the team he was hired to manage in mid-December, lost 115 games and finished 61 games out of first place in 2018. He knew the Baltimore farm system was thin. He knew that even the most optimistic projections had them years away from competing with teams like the Yankees and Red Sox.

None of that has made the losing more palatable in 2019.

“It's never easy,” Hyde said, sitting in the visitors' dugout on Monday afternoon. “It's not easy to lose. Fortunately and unfortunately, I've been through this before. I've been on a hundred-loss club, not in the manager's seat but on a coaching staff. I've been in Miami when we traded away a lot of veteran guys at the deadline and became really, really young with (Giancarlo) Stanton and Logan Morrison and those guys back then. So I understand what this is about. That being said, it's not easy to lose.”

But lose is mostly what the Orioles have done.

After dropping this one to the A's, they fell to 21-51, Major League Baseball's worst record. Since an unexpected 4-1 start, they have gone 17-50 and have won back-to-back games just twice. They are last in Major League Baseball in run differential, at minus-152. In the first 64 games of the season, Hyde used 64 lineups. On April 8, an Orioles-A's game at Camden Yards drew 6,585 people. The only crowd smaller in the ballpark's 28-year history came when rioting in Baltimore resulted in a game with no attendance.

And yet there was Hyde before Monday's game, laughing out loud in the dugout, looking perfectly at peace and insisting he wouldn't have it any other way.

“I've enjoyed all of it, to be honest with you,” he said. “I'd just like to see our team win a little bit more. It's a really inexperienced group, and a group that hasn't won in the big leagues very much. And so we're trying to set the right culture here.”

As Hyde noted, he's been through something like this before, and so has Tim Cossins, his field coordinator in Baltimore. They are old friends, both Santa Rosa natives, and both veterans of the rebuild that took the Chicago Cubs from last place to World Series champions in three years. They will now attempt to perform the same sort of magic in Baltimore.

This road trip is a nice moment for the two men, their first trip with the Orioles to something approximating home. Cossins said he rooted for the A's when he was young. Hyde preferred the Giants but paid plenty of attention to the Bash Brothers era in Oakland.

“The 'Stick and here, sitting up in upper reserve, watching (Mark) McGwire and (Jose) Canseco and the guys when I was a kid,” as Hyde recalled from the dugout.

Many things might have made Hyde attractive to Orioles management, including his embrace of data analytics. Baltimore hired a new general manager, Mike Elias, and assistant GM, Sig Mejdal, this offseason, with the express intent of beefing up the organization's use of numbers.

But foremost among Hyde's selling points might have been his manner. He is generally as excitable as Kawhi Leonard at naptime. This is always a good trait in a baseball manager - look no further than Bruce Bochy or Bob Melvin - but is crucial when you're leading one of the youngest and most unproven teams in baseball.

“I've said this a thousand times, I think his demeanor is built for this,” Cossins said. “There's an honesty chip in there that really helps him. And you go from Day One to this point, of course I'm biased, but I'm impressed with the way he handles himself, how he handles the people around him - the players, the staff.”

In particular, Hyde is credited with bringing along the Orioles' young players, of which there are many. He built his reputation in player development.

“Especially when I struggled early on, he worked with me and helped me get through that and kind of regain my form,” relief pitcher Richard Bleier said Monday. “I think he's got good feel. Sometimes you need a confidence booster or a reminder of what you can do.”

Is Hyde's approach working? The results say no, not really. Cossins insists it is.

“It's funny to say, because people will look at the record as the ultimate test,” he noted. “But at this point I've seen a massive improvement in our clubhouse culture.”

Cossins added: “We have to remind ourselves we've been doing this only a few months now. It seems like 40 years at times. But the reality is we've been here a few months.”

Patience is the key to sanity in Baltimore. But patience has its limits. It's hard to be the Buddha when you're team is winning at a .292 clip.

After a mistake-filled loss to the Red Sox on Saturday, Hyde took his players to task. “Our guys are getting an incredible opportunity,” he told reporters in Baltimore. “At times, I feel like we take advantage of them, for the most part. And I think days like the last couple days, guys haven't. They need to start appreciating the opportunity that they're getting.”

The next day, umpires ejected Hyde from another Orioles loss.

Monday's setback brought more frustration, but Hyde was back to taking it in stride. After the game, he answered questions about the steal gone wrong, and the E2, and the strong performances by pitchers Andrew Cashner and Jimmy Yacabonis.

“It was a pretty good baseball game, to be honest with you,” Hyde said, wrapping up his press session. As reporters dispersed, he added, “Except for the mistakes early.”

He was smiling. Somehow, through all of this, Hyde is still smiling.

You can reach columnist Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. Follow him on Twitter: @Skinny_Post.