​BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – SEPTEMBER 23: Chris Bassitt #40 of the Baltimore Orioles walks back to the dugout between innings during game one of a baseball doubleheader against the Toronto Blue Jays at Oriole Park at Camden Yards on September 23, 2026 in Baltimore, Maryland. (Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty Images) | Getty Images It’s become an annual ritual for the Orioles front office. Every offseason, when fans are clamoring for the O’s to sign a top-tier ace pitcher, Mike Elias inevitably says “no thanks” and instead throws some money at an aging, back-of-the-rotation veteran. It’s a tried-and-true formula that Elias continues despite the fact that it basically never works.Oh, sometimes the veteran will eat up innings and provide clubhouse leadership, like Kyle Gibson in 2023. But more often than not, the pitcher will show his age and get absolutely torched, like, well, Kyle Gibson in 2025. This past winter, after the O’s again failed to land a frontline starting pitcher, Chris Bassitt became the latest grizzled vet to engage in the Orioles’ yearly tradition. He signed a one-year, $18.5 million deal with the Orioles on Feb. 13, nine days before his 37th birthday.It wasn’t much consolation for Orioles fans who’d had visions of the team landing a true #1 starter, but the signing of Bassitt made some sense. The former All-Star was an experienced AL East pitcher, spending the previous three seasons with the Toronto Blue Jays and posting an above-average 109 ERA+. And he said all the right things after joining the club, insisting that he signed with the O’s because he thought they had the talent to win the World Series.Orioles fans, scarred by the team’s previous forays into the old-guy starting pitcher market, asked one thing above all of Bassitt: don’t be the next Charlie Morton. The O’s had been burned a year earlier when they handed a $15 million deal to Morton to coax him away from retirement, only for the 41-year-old righty to implode with a 5.42 ERA before being jettisoned at the trade deadline. You wouldn’t think it would be a high bar for Bassitt to clear. And yet, he crashed right into it.Bassitt made a lousy first impression on Orioles fans when he coughed up four runs in 4.1 innings in his team debut, then got blistered for six runs in two innings his next time out. He didn’t even pitch five innings in an outing until his fourth start, a scoreless performance against the Guardians, but then went right back to stinking. After 10 starts in an O’s uniform, Bassitt’s ERA was 5.51 — even worse than the dreaded Morton mark. The Orioles, despite Bassitt’s bold claims, were nowhere close to winning a World Series, and Bassitt himself was a big reason why.On June 3, Bassitt left his start at Fenway Park after three innings, and not just because he was struggling again. He exited the mound with low back discomfort, an ailment that landed him on the IL for more than two months. Ineffective and injured, Bassitt’s t