The Baltimore Orioles got a fresh sting Monday, and it came with an old familiar face.
Five weeks after the Boston Red Sox dealt catcher Adley Rutschman to the Orioles for a package of five players, Rutschman launched a 112.1 mph home run against the Los Angeles Angels in the bottom of the second inning. The shot pushed Boston ahead 4-0 in a game the Red Sox went on to win 5-2, their fifth straight victory.
For Orioles fans, the moment carried a lot more weight than a routine early homer. The pitcher on the receiving end was Grayson Rodriguez, the 11th overall pick in the 2018 Major League Baseball Draft. That made the matchup even sharper, because Rodriguez and Rutschman were Baltimore’s first-round picks in back-to-back seasons, selected during the early days of the club’s teardown, the same summer the Orioles traded Manny Machado.
While Rutschman was doing damage in Boston, Baltimore finally snapped its own skid Monday, ending a six-game losing streak that had knocked the club out of the thick of the American League wild-card race.
The two players were once viewed as the brightest pieces of the Orioles’ rebuild. Rutschman arrived in the majors first, and by the time Rodriguez followed in 2022 and 2023, both looked like potential faces of what was supposed to come next.
That’s not how it played out. Rutschman went on to make three All-Star teams in his first five seasons, while Rodriguez had trouble carving out a steady role. Injuries didn’t help, and he ended up appearing in just 43 games with a 4.11 ERA in an Orioles uniform before being traded to the Angels last winter for outfielder Taylor Ward.
Ward is now with the Seattle Mariners.
The whole sequence was cruel enough on its own, and even the attempt to make a joke out of it couldn’t soften the blow. Some days, division rivals really do know how to twist the knife.
In Other News...
Orioles Late-Season Injury Picture Just Got More Complicated
The Orioles spent part of their series against the Guardians sorting through a late-season injury picture that keeps shifting around the edges. Keegan Akin and Ryan Mountcastle are both with the club, giving Baltimore at least a couple of familiar faces back in the mix, while the team also laid out where several others stand in their recoveries as the calendar keeps moving toward the finish.
Mountcastle will not play again this season because of an oblique injury, a reminder of how much attrition has worn on the roster, and the rehab updates do not bring a simple wave of reinforcements just yet. Luis Robert Jr. and Christian Franklin are working in Sarasota, Flix Bautista is at Triple-A Norfolk on assignment, and Kyle Bradish is being handled carefully after Tommy John surgery, with his workload watched closely as the Orioles keep managing one of the more complicated health charts on the board. [Read more 🡒]
Orioles Face Two Big Questions As Wild Card Push Gets Tighter
The Wild Card race has tightened enough that every little update matters, and Craig Albernaz had a familiar opponent in mind when he talked about the Orioles place in it. The Baltimore manager, who spent time on the Guardians coaching staff, knows how closely these two clubs are watching each other as the standings compress and the margin for error shrinks. For the Orioles, the late-season picture is being shaped not just by the schedule, but by the health of a roster that has had to juggle a few key moving parts.
Ryan Helsley, Tyler ONeill, Flix Bautista, Ryan Mountcastle, Keegan Akin, Luis Robert Jr. and Christian Franklin all figure into that evolving injury picture, and Baltimores recent stretch has made each of those updates feel more important. The club has been trying to keep pace while sorting through those absences and tracking its recent results, but with the Guardians right there in the mix, the bigger questions are starting to come into focus. How quickly those players can return, and how much they can help once they do, may decide just how long the Orioles stay in the hunt. [Read more 🡒]
Orioles Need An Answer On Blaze Alexander Before This Season Ends
Blaze Alexander has quietly worked his way into the kind of conversation the Orioles have to keep having as the season winds down. After a slow start and a return from injury, he has put together a strong stretch at the plate, hitting .302 over 286 plate appearances and showing the kind of on-base ability that can force a manager to look twice at the lineup card. For a club trying to sort out how its roster fits together, that kind of production from a flexible option matters.
The bigger question now is where Alexander fits if Baltimore wants to give him a more prominent look before the year is over. His ability to handle different spots gives the Orioles some room to experiment, especially as they weigh how the lineup should come together around players like Gunnar Henderson and Coby Mayo. Christian Encarnacion-Strand adds another layer to that same conversation, but Alexander has done enough to make it clear the Orioles need a real answer soon. [Read more 🡒]