Sunday’s placement of the Orioles’ series finale with the New York Yankees in prime-time on national television only served to provide a larger audience to cringe and look away.

Even a bit of relative improvement from Dylan Bundy and the slow growth of an offensive identity couldn’t prevent a 5-3 loss to the visiting Yankees before an announced 17,343 at Camden Yards, condemning the Orioles to a set of ignominious feats.

Their eighth loss in a row also marked their fifth four-game series without a win and second against an American League East rival in two weeks. The Boston Red Sox came in and took four games in three days earlier this month, and this set of defeats dropped the Orioles to a league-worst 37-94, putting them on pace for 116 losses. They’ve been swept 17 times overall.

This sad march toward the finish has been billed by manager Buck Showalter as an opportunity for a host of players to establish themselves as major leaguers. That’s not been accomplished in the form of winning baseball.

“They’ve been told and they know that,” Showalter said. “You’d like to have them get some return with some Ws, but that’s been a challenge, putting a lot of games together.”

Said Jace Peterson: “ You start thinking about that kind of stuff, and before you know it, you kind of become miserable if things don’t go your way. Really, right now, we’re just trying to win ballgames, and it’s not been the funnest as far as the outcome of the game.”

The national ESPN audience at home wasn’t even treated to watching exciting young center fielder Cedric Mullins, who sat out with a sore hip. What they got instead was a look at an Orioles phenom of old, Bundy, who despite looking better couldn’t quite turn around what’s been the worst stretch of his career.

Bundy (7-13) looked strong in a perfect first inning, which featured a pair of strikeouts on 17 pitches, before the Yankees got to him. Bundy’s bugaboo this season, the poorly located fastball hit for a home run, reappeared with one out and two on in the second inning when Luke Voit hit a towering two-run homer on a middle-middle heater to put the Orioles down 2-0.

An inning later, Miguel Andújar, who had four multihit games in the series, doubled to score two more Yankees and bury the Orioles even further.

It wasn’t all bad for Bundy, who struck out seven — his most since July 29 — with his 16 swinging strikes, the most he’s logged since May 24.

“I thought it was a tiny bit better, a step in the right direction,” Bundy said. “Still two pitches there, and that pretty much cost me the four runs.”

Despite three scoreless innings from Yefry Ramírez, former Oriole Zach Britton and David Robertson kept the Orioles down in the late innings to help New York complete a three-game jump in the standings behind Boston, ending Sunday six games out of first place.

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