Borgschulte also leaving Orioles coaching staff

The changes coming to the Orioles coaching staff will be more extensive than anticipated earlier this week.

The co-hitting coach arrangement with Ryan Fuller and Matt Borgschulte is completely gone. The Orioles aren’t retaining Fuller, and a source confirmed today that Borgschulte is returning to the Twins organization.

Borgschulte was Triple-A St. Paul’s hitting coach in 2021 before the Orioles hired him. He’s accepted a position as a Twins hitting coach.

Minnesota is shaking up its staff by moving on from hitting coaches David Popkins and Rudy Hernandez and assistant Derek Shomon.

The Orioles are down to offensive strategy coach Cody Asche, who pretty much served as a third hitting coach. They haven’t confirmed the departures or how the staff will be structured in 2025.

Bench coach Fredi González and major league coach José Hernández also aren’t returning next season, creating four known openings.

Borgschulte and Fuller joined the major league club in 2022, with the latter serving as full-season hitting coordinator and Double-A Bowie’s hitting coach prior to his promotion. The decline in offensive production in the second half this season carried into the Wild Card Series, with one run scored in two losses to the Royals.

Injuries to Jordan Westburg, Ramón Urías, Ryan Mountcastle and Jorge Mateo contributed to the team struggles heading into the playoffs, but other players fell into slumps. Adley Rutschman batted .207 with a .585 OPS after the break. Anthony Santander hit eight home runs in August but also batted .198 with a .271 on-base percentage, and he posted a .222 average with five homers in September. Gunnar Henderson hit two home runs in July and batted .234 with a .303 on-base percentage in August.

Mountcastle homered once in 36 games after the break.

The club’s .692 OPS in August was 23^rd in the majors and the 125 runs scored in August and 108 in September ranked 15^th in the majors.

“The main theme that’s pretty evident from this season regardless of the cause is that the offensive side of the team was not there to the degree that I expected in the second half,” executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias said at his press conference following the playoff ouster. “As I said a few weeks ago, a lot of my moves and concerns had been toward the pitching side. That sort of ended up not being our shortcoming in the second half of in October, so that’s on me, but we’re going to take some time to look at things professionally, talk to everyone in the warehouse, every bit of information that we can and come up with a plan to not have this happen again.”

“First half, we were top of the league in most offensive categories and runs scored, OPS, generating runs,” manager Brandon Hyde said that day. “In the second half, I think injuries, coupled with some guys having some disappointing second halves, going through some struggles, it was a lot more of a challenge to score runs and we relied on the homer, which when you're facing really good pitching that's tough to do.”

Brandon Warne with @AccessTwins was first to report Borgschulte's return to Minnesota.