PITTSBURGH — Even before spring training began, the Orioles spoke of fundamentals, that baseball buzzword that is a catch-all for success.

When teams win, they do the little things right. Or, at least, winning covers up when the little things aren’t done right. It’s almost a chicken-or-egg debate — but what is clear is that winning teams tend to field more cleanly, throw more strikes, hit more routinely with runners in scoring position.

The Orioles envisioned themselves doing all of those things. Manager Craig Albernaz said in December the prevailing message from his new players was to improve on “the little things,” and that’s why he planned to implement a “high focus on fundamentals.” Pete Alonso conveyed his vision for a “new Oriole Way” in January, and spring training brought more talk of a fundamental focus leading to winning.

So where is it?

The Orioles are nine games into this season — a sample too small to make drastic proclamations — but five losses in six games, including a sweep at the hands of the Pirates, dropped Baltimore to 3-6. Too frequently those little things, those fundamentals, were missing in this mess of a weekend in Pittsburgh.

There have been errors and walks and strikeouts galore. And, even when a fielder hasn’t been charged with an error, the misplays have stacked up. On Saturday, there were two balls pitchers should’ve fielded cleanly for outs. There were two balls over Dylan Beavers’ head in left field that he wishes he could do over.

On Sunday, confusion about which bunt defense play was called helped change a sacrifice into a single.

It’s early. But these games count just the same.

So how about those fundamentals?

“The biggest thing is, us this year, we still have a lot of work to do,” Albernaz said. “We had a great camp, great spring training. I know spring training is over with, but we were trying to redefine ourselves as getting back to fundamental baseball, playing clean baseball, doing the little things right, and we’re still not done. We still have to get better, and that’s on myself and the coaching staff to keep on pushing our guys to get better each day, especially in those areas.”

That was a daily focus in the spring. At one point, right-hander Chris Bassitt called on his teammates to redo a defensive drill to make sure these issues wouldn’t manifest in the season.

“For you to actually want to try to win the World Series, you have to do all the little things right,” Bassitt said in March. “We have to raise expectations around here that we’re not just talented, we also care about all the little things.”

The care may be there. But the execution has been lacking, including from Bassitt on the mound. He allowed six runs in two innings Sunday after conceding four in 4 1/3 innings in his first start. Bassitt said the message is obvious to his teammates what must improve, even at this early stage. He didn’t elaborate what that message was, because it is, after all, obvious.

To Albernaz, the message is to improve the fundamentals, even during the season when practice days are harder to find during a never-ending game schedule.

“I’m a believer in, if players don’t want to do extra work and get their bodies tired, you’ve got to make sure you perform in the game, because the game is the ultimate indicator of what you need to work on,” Albernaz said. “We have to stay with our work and continue to work on the fundamentals, even in batting practice or before the game starts. So we have to really double down on that.”

At this stage last year, there was a frequent refrain from then-manager Brandon Hyde and the players that there was no cause for panic. They stumbled to the finish line in 2024 and never got going in 2025.

On April 10, 2025, The Banner published an article in which players and Hyde said various versions of “it’s a long year” and “we’ll figure it out.” They never did.

On May 17, the Orioles fell to 15-29 and Hyde was fired the next morning. That was a much larger sample — 44 games — but there are emblematic themes that correlate 2025 to early 2026. Among them: a rash of short starts, an inconsistent lineup and a defense that requires improvement.

Consider this: Left-hander Cade Povich’s 5 2/3 innings in relief Sunday are tied for the third-longest appearance from an Orioles pitcher in nine games. Only left-hander Trevor Rogers has completed six innings.

Last year, Baltimore finished 23rd in the majors with negative-23 outs above average. The Orioles are on a similar trajectory this year. Entering Sunday, the Orioles were 26th with negative-4 outs above average, per Statcast.

And, on the whole, the Orioles’ lineup has done well working counts and generating walks (they entered Sunday with an 11.3% walk rate, which ranked eighth). But they have struck out at a frequent clip, too, and Sunday was a poor example of approach. Baltimore finished with 14 strikeouts and no walks.

“The biggest thing is just to play clean baseball, do the best you can to play clean baseball and keeping guys healthy,” Alonso said. “If you get your guys healthy and get the best guys out there and play clean baseball, you got a shot. If we do that, just play quality baseball and just kind of just stay within ourselves, we’ll be just fine.

“Just because you have a slow start doesn’t mean anything towards the end,” Alonso continued. “There’s plenty of teams that have proven that over the course of time. I mean, it’d be great to go out and win nine in a row or however many games. But, again, this is a marathon and we have plenty of opportunities and chances to get better and win a lot of ballgames.”

A 3-6 start, after all, is hardly much of a hole from which to climb. Alonso began a season 3-6 with the New York Mets in 2024, and they went on to capture a National League wild-card spot with an 89-73 record. Albernaz’s 2025 Guardians, for whom he was associate manager, rebounced from a 3-6 start to win 88 games and clinch the American League Central.

The AL East, generally, is a different challenge altogether.

So, as the Orioles prepare for their fourth series of the year, a three-game set against the White Sox, they find themselves still discussing fundamentals. They spent the spring harping on it.

As it turns out, they still have work to do before their fundamental focus becomes reality.

“We can do all the things, we can do all the practice, take all the ground balls, take all the swings in the cage, take all the swings during our BP time,” Alonso said. “Just because you put in the work doesn’t necessarily guarantee execution, and it comes down to individual efforts, concentration and execution when the moment comes.”