The Baltimore Orioles are mired in last place in the AL East, hardly the situation anyone predicted for this team at the start of the season.

The primary culprit? A rotation that is hanging on by a thread, with Grayson Rodriguez and Zach Eflin both down with injuries and Kyle Bradish, Trevor Rogers and Tyler Wells all still on the IL themselves. The O’s entered play on Tuesday with the third-worst starters ERA in the Majors at 5.62, ahead of only the Colorado Rockies and Miami Marlins; just finding someone who could keep them competitive for four or five innings had become a struggle.

So in his desperation, GM Mike Elias turned to an old friend: veteran righty Kyle Gibson, who’d pitched for the team in 2023. At 37 years old, Gibson isn’t going to set the world on fire — in his last stint with Baltimore, he pitched to a 4.73 ERA over 192 innings.

But the Orioles don’t need flashy; they just need something, a steady hand who can keep the team’s head above water. Surely Gibson could at least eat some innings without doing too much damage, right?

Unfortunately, that thought went up in smoke exactly five pitches into Gibson’s 2025 debut.

Kyle Gibson endures first-inning nightmare in return to Orioles

Granted, the New York Yankees are a tough landing spot for any pitcher. Still, if Baltimore was looking for a sign that Gibson would have a steadying effect on their rotation … well, they got whatever the opposite of that would be.

Two pitches into the game, the righty served up a leadoff homer to outfielder Trent Grisham; okay, so he’s still getting his feet under him and Grisham’s been red-hot of late.

Then Aaron Judge went back-to-back; no shame in getting taken deep by the best hitter in baseball. Then Ben Rice made it three homers in a row just five pitches into the game, and everyone was all out of excuses:

Somehow, things would get even worse. The struggling Cody Bellinger took Gibson deep again two batters later, and Anthony Volpe would drive in Oswald Peraza with an RBI double to make it a five-run opening frame.

Look, we’re not sure what Elias was expecting here exactly. Gibson hasn’t been an above-average starter since 2021, and he’s now into his late 30s; asking him to survive against one of the more dangerous lineups in baseball was never going to work out well.

The O’s didn’t have a ton of alternatives here — late April is not the time to be looking for MLB-ready pitching — but that’s Elias’ fault too, as he sat on his hands and failed to meaningfully address his rotation over the offseason.

If Elias was hoping that Gibson could bail him out and make everyone forget about the Charlie Morton signing, those hopes got stuffed in a trash can.