Any baseball conversation with Orioles bench coach Donnie Ecker reveals an interesting facet of his personality. Of a belief that he carries through each day of his life.<\/p>\n
He prefers to deal in the present.<\/p>\n
The rare media scrums don\u2019t always allow it, or at least make it easy on him. The group can bounce in every direction. He understands the reasons why questions about 2027 are surfacing with the Orioles and he tries to oblige. But to be clear, the schedule shows three games against the Blue Jays beginning tonight and three at Yankee Stadium.<\/p>\n
The likelihood that the Orioles scatter for the offseason keeps increasing, but they haven\u2019t been eliminated. That can\u2019t occur before Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Asked yesterday what needs to happen next season for the Orioles to avoid similar disappointments that again dumped them into last place, Ecker said, \u201cActually, I understand where that question is coming from and some of what I\u2019ll say will be baked into a future version, but it comes back to discipline.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is Game 156. Game 1, Game 10, Game 15, no matter what your personnel is, you have to attack. Today is the most important day in the world and that\u2019s where competitors live. They live in the space between winning and losing. So as we continue to build the behaviors that we think it takes to build a championship, a lot of that comes back to having the disciplined approach that today is the most important day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Staying in the present, Ecker is asked whether he\u2019s seen that approach waiver over the course of a long and trying season.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I think it\u2019s a skill that needs to be trained,\u201d he said. \u201cA lot of team discipline, a lot of environmental discipline, it comes from the accumulation of individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yesterday\u2019s example was facing Jacob Misiorowski to conclude the series against Milwaukee. Trying to avoid a sweep by the best team in baseball, and with the future National League Cy Young Award winner on the mound.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan everyone in this building, from the warehouse to the kitchen to the laundry room to the strength and condition staff, everybody\u2019s attention should be on competing to win today,\u201d Ecker said.<\/p>\n
The Brewers shortened Misiorowski to three innings and the Orioles managed one baserunner against him.<\/p>\n
Jumping back into the past and tying it to the present, the Orioles were 30-16 in one-run games in 2013, when they posted the best record in the American League, and 32-23 in 2014, when they reached the American League Championship Series. They were 29-9 in 2012 while ending a 14-year playoff drought.<\/p>\n
They fell to 17-24 in one-run games this year after Saturday\u2019s 1-0 loss, and the .415 winning percentage tied for 26th in the majors.<\/p>\n
There isn\u2019t one reason for it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had a bunch of games where we\u2019ve been down by more than one and then clawed back and lost by one. But to the real one-run losses, yeah, it\u2019s the little stuff,\u201d said manager Craig Albernaz.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s being able to move the runner, to take the extra 90 feet, to limit the extra 90 feet, to not shoot ourselves in the foot, make good decisions with the baseball, throw strikes. All the above. There\u2019s a lot of meat left on the bone as far as those areas where we can get better at.\u201d<\/p>\n
The offense keeps disappearing, and often times in the clutch. The Orioles were 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position Saturday and 0-for-3 last night to make them 9-for-65 in the last eight games. They didn\u2019t produce more than two hits with RISP since Sept. 11 in Toronto.<\/p>\n
The Orioles struck out at least 10 times in eight consecutive games until Saturday, the longest stretch since a franchise-record 10 games from Aug. 30-Sept. 10, 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s frustrating,\u201d said outfielder Rece Hinds, who doubled Saturday for one of the club\u2019s four hits. \u201cIt\u2019s part of the game, though. You kind of have to roll with the punches and keep fighting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Albernaz has expressed frustration over the inability to execute in certain situations, to do the little things like laying down a bunt. The consequences can be enormous.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it gets overcomplicated, but if you want to sprint faster, you\u2019ve got to practice sprinting,\u201d said Ecker, who was hired in November after serving as bench coach and offensive coordinator with the Rangers and previously serving as a Giants hitting coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith any skill in this game, if you\u2019re not deconstructing it and isolating it and practicing on it, it\u2019s a really difficult thing to execute between the lines. So with anything tactical that we believe it, whether it\u2019s delayed steals, bunting, double play turns in the shift, that\u2019s something we just have to continue to define it, tell the truth and then isolate it and train it better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Albernaz talked last night about needing to do those little things consistently right, calling it the separator between good and bad teams with bad records.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we have a bad record,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe little things, it\u2019s something that we can control, and that\u2019s where the series go awry. Like this one, we just didn\u2019t control, but when we play our best baseball, we are on top of little things, and that\u2019s the inconsistency\u00a0that we have right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think some experience in situations I feel like is a big thing, and just obviously being aware of I guess the situations,\u201d said Gunnar Henderson. \u201cBut just obviously being able to take your breath and realize the situation and what kind of approach and mental mindset you should have and that, and I feel like that comes with experience, but also just being aware of the situation and how to handle.\u201d<\/p>\n
The coaching staff experienced some turnover under a new manager, a typical outcome in sports. Ecker noted how everyone is \u201cpulling on the same string,\u201d and emotions are tugged by a record that stands at 75-81.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody\u2019s satisfied, nobody\u2019s excited about where we\u2019re at,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd quite frankly, any day that ends in a loss and any season that ends in a loss is a failure, in my opinion. So that whole room, they\u2019re pushing, they\u2019re finding ways to get better, and the culture of both the clubhouse and the coaching staff room is as good as I\u2019ve been around.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ecker and Albernaz overlapped with the Giants, who employed the latter as bullpen and catching coach. President of baseball operations Mike Elias confirmed Saturday that Albernaz will return next season as expected.<\/p>\n
\u201cI get to see everything, and it\u2019s been great to watch him navigate a whole new situation, an environment,\u201d Ecker said. \u201cAnd as much as you can rely on experiences in the past, you have to, and all of us have to, we have to approach everything as like a beginning, right? You\u2019re working with new people at all times, so him navigating Year 1, new front office, new players, all kinds of volatility on the roster, it\u2019s been great to watch how consistent he is. And that\u2019s why the clubhouse is so damn strong.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s because he never waivers off what he believes in. And most importantly, that\u2019s just taking care of the players and the coaches.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Any baseball conversation with Orioles bench coach Donnie Ecker reveals an interesting facet of his personality. Of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":856258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[361485,831,363,48262,148834,99],"class_list":["post-856257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-donnie-ecker","tag-featured","tag-mlb","tag-orioles","tag-roch-kubatko","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=856257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/856258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=856257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=856257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=856257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}