NEW YORK — From the moment Adley Rutschman stepped foot behind the plate at Camden Yards, he was one of the best catchers in baseball, and the Orioles were one of the American League’s top teams.

Behind Rutschman, the Orioles made a surprise playoff push in 2022, won 101 games and the AL East in 2023, and then went back to the postseason as a wild-card team in 2024. During that time, Rutschman posted the highest wins above replacement through three seasons by a catcher in MLB history.

But cracks began to show last season. As Rutschman began a career-worst slump last July, the Orioles became a mediocre ballclub, limping into October for another playoff sweep. As his downturn carried over into 2025, the Orioles seemed broken beyond repair — and they were.

Now, after a slog of a season that included a managerial firing, a trade deadline fire sale and more losses than wins, the Orioles are left to pick up the pieces and make sense of how — and why — this year went the way it did.

“Nothing’s given to you in this league,” Rutschman said Saturday, his first time speaking with the media since suffering his second oblique injury of the season in August. “You’ve got to earn it, and I think next year I hope everyone comes back inspired, ready to go, and I know they will.”

After the season ended Sunday with a 75-87 record, Jordan Westburg didn’t know how to verbalize his emotions. Westburg, who debuted in 2023, experienced two clinch celebrations that season and another in 2024, in the same clubhouse at Yankee Stadium that he stood in Sunday.

Those seasons ended with a crashing thud, but the optimism about the future remained. This one ended with hardly a whimper, and it’s difficult to see the light at the end of this tunnel. The organization — from the ownership group to the front office to the coaching staff to the players — has more questions than answers heading into a consequential offseason.

“I think there needs to be reflection from everybody in this clubhouse, on a big scale and on a small scale,” Westburg said. “What did every individual do or did not do to add to this or to make us where we are? And then, what can we do to change things? It’s going to be different for everybody. … I think everybody’s a professional, though, and they’ll reflect and correct.”

After last season’s playoff failure, president of baseball operations Mike Elias vowed to turn over every stone in pursuit of making the team a World Series contender in 2025. For the first time since he was hired as executive vice president and general manager in November 2018, he had the financial backing to do it, now under owner David Rubenstein. The private equity billionaire signed off on contracts for eight major league free agents that added $77 million to the payroll. Those players combined for only 1.8 wins above replacement, according to Baseball-Reference.

That lackluster offseason, especially as it pertains to the club’s piecemealed starting rotation, hampered the Orioles early in the season. The Orioles went 12-18 in April behind the worst rotation in MLB. Charlie Morton, the face of the club’s rotation woes after signing for $15 million in the offseason, posted a 10.89 ERA through five starts, including the one that resulted in the 24-2 implosion on Easter.

It got even worse in May. The Orioles lost 10 of 13 to open the month, the final defeat being even more deflating than the one on Easter. The blunder-filled defeat served as the final straw for Brandon Hyde, who was fired the next day and replaced by Tony Mansolino.

The slide didn’t end there. The Orioles lost six of their first seven under Mansolino, falling to 18 games below .500 the day after a nightmare 19-5 loss to the Red Sox at Fenway Park.

“It felt like a 5,000-piece puzzle that was broken and all over the place,” Mansolino said last week, recalling the hectic circumstances under which he received the biggest promotion of his life.

A persistent issue throughout the season — perhaps the main one the Orioles finished last in the AL East — was a seemingly never-ending injury bug.

In addition to Kyle Bradish and Tyler Wells missing most of the season, the Orioles didn’t receive a single inning from Grayson Rodriguez as he battled elbow and lat muscle ailments and Félix Bautista suffered another major injury that required surgery. Colton Cowser broke his thumb during the first series of the season and appeared in only 92 games. Westbug suffered five injuries and played only 85 games. Rutschman injured both obliques and played 90 games. Tyler O’Neill, the club’s biggest offseason move at three years, $49.5 million, suffered three injuries and missed over 100 games. In total, a whopping 29 players were placed on the major league injured list throughout the season, and only two players (Gunnar Henderson and Jackson Holliday) appeared in more than 100 games.

“I know it’s not the popular answer by any means, but I think we’ve had some really bad luck,” Mansolino said. “It’s not the right answer or what everybody wants to hear, but it’s the truth.”

It wasn’t just the injuries, though, and the Orioles avoided using them as an excuse. Of the nine players who accumulated at least 200 plate appearances and ended the season with Baltimore, only two (Henderson and Westburg) posted an OPS above .700. Every member of the Orioles’ young core — their homegrown players drafted throughout the rebuild — declined or underperformed in 2025.

“Learn from what went wrong in the season,” Henderson said. “If you don’t, then what’d you go through it for? I feel like that’s the biggest thing, using these experiences to take them into next year.”

The Orioles played better in June and July, but not well enough to convince the front office not to sell at the deadline. In total, Elias traded nine major leaguers — including All-Star Ryan O’Hearn, fan favorite Cedric Mullins and the team’s best hitter in Ramón Laureano — to rebuild Baltimore’s depleted farm system, bringing in 16 prospects.

The day Hyde was fired was the most emotional one of the season, with players taking the blame for their skipper’s ouster. The deadline was the unofficial end of the season, a waving of the white flag by the front office and a sad goodbye to players that were part of the Orioles’ family until they suddenly weren’t.

Those negative experiences and this disastrous season, Mansolino believes, could be “the best thing that ever happened to these guys.”

“This is painful and miserable right now for a lot of us,” said Mansolino, whose future in the organization is uncertain. “But I do know that most people learn from mistakes. I think this is going to be a really good thing for them, if they choose so to make it.”

“I really believe everyone’s going to take this to heart and be ready to go,” Rutschman said.

The wheels didn’t fall off after the deadline, though. Even going back to the “Trevor Rogers Game” in late May — when Rogers made his season debut en route to putting up a historic campaign — the Orioles had been a solid ballclub for months. Baltimore was 34-25 from Rogers’ debut through the trade deadline. Over the season’s final two months, the emergence of Jeremiah Jackson, the returns of Bradish and Wells and the promotions of prospects Dylan Beavers and Samuel Basallo, who received the first long-term contract extension of the Elias era, kept the Orioles afloat and provided a glimmer of hope for next season.

But that doesn’t take away what this season was.

“It still feels like a failure deep down inside,” Mansolino said.

Have a news tip? Contact Jacob Calvin Meyer at jameyer@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/JCalvinMeyer.