Tuesday night’s loss in Minnesota provided clear evidence of the Orioles’ brutal mistake of keeping Cionel Perez over Danny Coulombe.

Tuesday night’s game between the Baltimore Orioles and Minnesota Twins had already soured for the visitors.

After shutting out the Twins in the first and second innings, Orioles starter Cade Povich allowed Minnesota to score five times in the bottom of the fifth inning to take a 5-0 lead. With the Orioles’ struggling offense, it may as well have been 15-0.

But the pain Orioles fans would feel last night was only just beginning.

In a cruel twist of fate, relievers Danny Coulombe and Cionel Perez pitched Tuesday night, providing yet another palpable example of how badly the Orioles misfired on their decision to keep Perez over Coulombe.

Coulombe – who still has an ERA of ZERO through 15 appearances – entered the game in the sixth inning and proceeded to strike out Cedric Mullins on three pitches and Gunnar Henderson on five. Arguably two of the Orioles’ best hitters in 2025 were made to look silly by the former Oriole.

Adley Rutschman fared slightly better (if you can call it that), bouncing out softly to short to end the frame.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Danny Coulombe was more effective than Cionel Perez

In a very “on-brand” occurrence for 2025, Perez allowed two of the three hitters he faced to reach base. Jonah Bride reached on Coby Mayo’s second error of the game before the Orioles’ lefty issued a walk.

Then, Matt Bowman allowed Byron Buxton’s booming home run to left field, charging two runs, one earned, to Perez’s ledger over one-third of an inning.

This was another painful reminder for Orioles fans of the bizarre decision to keep Perez over Coulombe this offseason.

At the risk of beating a dead horse (or Oriole), the decision was the wrong one. Coulombe has been nearly perfect for the Twins, while Perez has allowed 17 runs (15 earned) over 13 appearances. Coulombe has issued one walk in 15 games.

Perez has issued 12. Any further stat comparisons will rub more salt in the wound, as fans try to grapple with a 9-1 loss in Minnesota and a 13-21 record heading into Wednesday’s game.

To be clear, Perez alone is not the reason the Orioles are 13-21. The starting pitching has been abysmal outside of Tomoyuki Sugano. Baltimore isn’t hitting, and Brandon Hyde’s job security doesn’t appear safe.

It’s no secret that early returns on the Orioles’ offseason have been…well, poor. But it is rare that a baseball game so clearly irritates fans as Tuesday night’s embarrassing loss in Minnesota did.

Not only did the Orioles lose, but they witnessed a clear example of how one decision – keeping Perez over Coulombe – could not have been more wrong.