The Orioles looked to be carrying the momentum over from their 5-2 record the previous week, taking two of three from Boston in Fenway and then blowing out the Blue Jays to open the weekend series. Unfortunately just as the O’s reached the cusp of taking hold of a Wild Card spot things unraveled over the weekend. The Birds dropped both weekend games to finish 3-3 on the week, merely treading water and remaining four games under .500.
The Orioles opened the series in Fenway on Tuesday with Shane Baz on the mound. He turned in seven innings of four-hit ball for his second consecutive quality start and the first back-to-back wins of his season. After surrendering a leadoff triple to Jarren Duran, Baz settled in and retired ten straight at one stretch. Pete Alonso provided the offense in the third, launching a two-run shot over the Green Monster to put Baltimore ahead 3-1. Coby Mayo added a solo blast, and Blaze Alexander drove in a run on a sacrifice fly. Wilyer Abreu and Marcelo Mayer scratched out Boston’s two runs on sac flies of their own, but it wasn’t enough, and Rico Garcia struck out a pair in the ninth for his fourth save for a 4-2 win.
Things didn’t go as well on Wednesday, as Chris Bassitt lasted just three innings, surrendering an RBI single to Abreu in the first and a two-run homer to the Boston outfielder in the third before exiting. Albert Suarez then gave up a five-run fifth, capped by Mickey Gasper’s two-run triple and run-scoring doubles from Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Caleb Durbin. Payton Tolle cruised through six scoreless innings for Boston. Adley Rutschman’s RBI triple accounted for the lone Baltimore run in an 8-1 defeat.
Thursday’s rubber match was over almost before it started. The O’s sent twelve men to the plate in a six-run first that featured five hits, three walks and a hit batter, with all but one run coming with two outs. Taylor Ward set the tone by lacing the game’s first pitch 402 feet to center for a double, then capped the frame with an RBI single, part of a three-hit afternoon. Rutschman singled home a run to extend his on-base streak to 15 games, and Coby Mayo cleared the bases with a double for three RBI. Leody Taveras chipped in a run as well.
Staked to the lead, Trevor Rogers carried a no-hitter into the fifth, retiring the first eleven he faced and finishing with 5.2 innings of one-run ball. Samuel Basallo doubled home a run in the fifth and Colton Cowser added a sacrifice fly to make it 8-0. Contreras drove in both Boston runs, on a sixth-inning single and a 403-foot homer in the ninth. Brayan Bello took the loss after allowing eight runs over five innings, and the O’s left Boston with an 8-2 win and the series.
The O’s kept the good vibes going on Friday. Adley Rutschman put together the best game of his season, going 4-for-4 with a homer, two doubles and five RBI to anchor a 13-3 demolition. Brandon Young worked into the seventh, allowing three runs on seven hits across 6.1 innings, continuing a run of solid starts. Coby Mayo added a two-run shot, Jeremiah Jackson chipped in two hits and two RBI off the bench, and Colton Cowser collected two hits and a run. The O’s broke the game open with a five-run sixth and tacked on seven more over the final two frames against a tiring Toronto bullpen.
Saturday flipped the script. Kyle Bradish struggled with his command after several exceptional outings, lasting just four innings while allowing five runs on nine hits with three walks. Toronto did the bulk of its damage in a four-run third, capped by Ernie Clement, who tripled, homered and drove in three. Pete Alonso kept Baltimore close with a two-run homer, and Cowser and Blaze Alexander added solo shots, but the offense managed only six hits and went hitless with runners in scoring position losing 6-4.
Sunday’s rubber match was the one that stung the most. The Orioles broke a scoreless game with a four-run fifth against Kevin Gausman, getting a solo homer from Cowser and a two-run blast from Taylor Ward. Shane Baz carried that 4-0 lead into the sixth having allowed just three hits, but the inning unraveled. Yohendrick Piñango led off with a homer, and after Henderson’s error and a ridiculous no-call on Clement’s path to second extended the inning, Toronto strung together hits from Kazuma Okamoto, Andrés Giménez and an infield single from Nathan Lukes that deflected off Yennier Cano, plating five runs. Only one was earned. Valenzuela tacked on a solo homer in the eighth off Rico Garcia as the Blue Jays completed the 6-4 comeback.
A six-game week split between Boston and Toronto produced no shortage of candidates for Player of the Week, with the Orioles homering nine times across the two series and getting contributions up and down the order.
Blaze Alexander kept his strong stretch going, picking up where a hot May left off. He hit .333 with a 1.107 OPS over the week, collecting two doubles and a homer with three RBI and a stolen base across 12 at-bats. Alexander has forced his way into regular playing time with this kind of production, and he is making it difficult to sit him.
Pete Alonso continued to anchor the middle of the order, hitting .304 with two homers and four RBI in 23 trips. His two-run shot over the Green Monster on Tuesday provided the difference in a 4-2 win and pushed his team-leading RBI total to 38, and he added another two-run blast in Saturday’s loss to Toronto.
Colton Cowser kept his recent turnaround going, homering in back-to-back games on Saturday and Sunday on his way to a .353 average and a team-best 1.106 OPS for the week. His two homers and four RBI in just 17 at-bats were a welcome sign for a bat that has run hot and cold this season.
Shane Baz made a strong case for the award, who turned in two of the better starts of his season. Across two outings he logged 12.2 innings with nine strikeouts, a 2.13 ERA and a 1.11 WHIP, splitting the decisions at 1-1. He was sharp at Fenway on Tuesday with seven innings of four-hit ball and just as good on Sunday in Toronto, carrying a 4-0 lead into the sixth before the inning fell apart around him on an error and a disputed call. Of the three earned runs he allowed all week, only one came in that Sunday start. He deserved better than the loss that dropped him to 3-6.
However, this week the award goes to Adley Rutschman, who carried the heaviest load and produced over a full slate of starts. Rutschman hit .360 with a 1.047 OPS in 25 at-bats, racking up nine hits, two doubles, a triple, a homer and a team-high seven RBI. The centerpiece was Friday’s 4-for-5, five-RBI, four-run explosion in the 13-3 demolition in Toronto, the kind of complete offensive game the Orioles have waited on all season. Adley had slid a bit after a hot start to the season, but this week he really got back on track.
Down on the Farm
The headliner at Triple-A Norfolk was catching prospect Creed Willems, who continued one of the better stretches in the system. Willems hit .389 with a 1.198 OPS over the week, adding two homers, three RBI and a .476 on-base mark across 18 at-bats. He keeps tracking as one of the more interesting bats in the organization, and the production has not slowed regardless of level. Christian Encarnacion-Strand was the hottest hitter in Norfolk, going 8-for-17 with three homers and five RBI, while Heston Kjerstad had a quieter week as he works to recapture his timing, hitting .259 with a pair of doubles but no walks or home runs in 27 at-bats. On the mound, Trey Gibson looked the part of a pitcher knocking on the big-league door, spinning 6.1 innings of two-run ball with six strikeouts and a single walk.
Double-A Chesapeake was where the bats really came alive. Ethan Anderson led the charge with a monster week, slashing .381 with three homers and six RBI and an .857 slugging mark that paced the affiliate. Aron Estrada was right behind him, hitting .333 with two homers, a triple, four RBI and a steal, while infielder Frederick Bencosme chipped in a .389 average with two homers and four RBI of his own. Thomas Sosa kept hitting as well, going 7-for-14 for a .500 week. The pitching matched the offense in spots, with Joseph Dzierwa turning in 6.2 innings of one-run ball with four strikeouts and Sebastian Gongora picking up a win on six innings of one-run, six-strikeout work. The week was not without its rough outings, but the top of the prospect board did plenty to keep an eye on.
Question of the Week
When can we expect to see some of the injured Birds return?
The Orioles have been surprisingly healthy recently, despite scares for Basallo and Bassitt. Nevertheless, the O’s are carrying ten players on the IL, among the most in baseball, and there are several key players among them. So with the team finally clawing back toward respectability, the obvious question is when help is actually walking through the door. Let’s work through the three that matter most.
Start with Dean Kremer, who made just two starts before straining his right quadriceps in a workout and has not pitched since April 18. He sits on the 60-day IL, eligible to return June 19, and updates were essentially nonexistent until this week, when Albernaz revealed he had thrown live batting practice. That is a genuine step forward and hints at a looming rehab assignment, but it will not be a short one. A pitcher who has been off a big-league mound since mid-April needs to build arm strength back up the slow way, which realistically pushes any return toward late June at the earliest and more likely into July. The rotation has started to come together recently. Brandon Young has been steady, and the staff no longer screams for reinforcements the way it did when Eflin went down. However, there are still questions among the starters, and the recent injury scare for Bassitt, in addition to his poor performance, highlight how the Orioles could use Kremer back. While he is not a top of the rotation arm, Kremer has been quite reliable at setting the bar for the back end of the staff, and this rotation could certainly use that stability.
Dylan Beavers is the closest and the simplest injury case. The outfielder has been down since mid-May with a right oblique strain, the kind of injury that is notorious for lingering and resisting timelines. He was technically eligible to return on May 21 and blew well past it, which tells you everything about how cautiously the club is treating it. The good news is Albernaz says Beavers is hitting in the cage, and for an oblique that is the meaningful checkpoint, since rotational swings are the last thing to come back. A rehab assignment is the next step, even if the club won’t commit to how close he is to joining an affiliate. Realistically, that points to a return in the second half of June. His .243/.331/.369 line was not setting the league on fire before the injury, but a healthy Beavers lengthens the outfield mix and should provide some relief to the defensive woes hampering the team.
Ryan Helsley may be the one Birdland misses the most. The closer has not pitched since April 28, when elbow inflammation shut him down, and the back of the bullpen has been a different animal without him. The trajectory is finally moving the right way. He completed his first bullpen session on May 30 at Camden Yards and threw again in Toronto, and the club has floated a rehab assignment once the team returns home for the current homestand. Helsley himself said a few weeks ago that he is targeting sometime next month, which puts a realistic big-league return somewhere in mid-to-late June. Though I still have my worries he may ultimately end up with the dreaded Tommy John surgery.
The encouraging part is that he is throwing without setbacks and Rico Garcia has filled in capably with four saves’ worth of runway. The frustrating part is that a high-leverage arm signed to anchor the ninth has given the team a grand total of a few weeks of work. When he comes back, it reshapes the late innings in a way nothing else on this roster can.
So where does that leave us? Beavers should be the first one back, likely before the end of June. Helsley and Kremer are both tracking toward July, with Helsley the more impactful and the more straightforward of the two. The temptation is to treat all of this as a wave of reinforcements coming to rescue the season, but I would pump the brakes. The most important returnee is Helsley, because a real closer changes how this team finishes games and nothing in the current bullpen replicates that.
Kremer is a useful piece to help stabilize the rotation and Beavers could help solidify the outfield.
After the injury carnage that defined the early going, the encouraging truth is that this club has dug itself back toward .500 without most of these names. Getting them back should be a bonus, not a lifeline. And given how the season started, a bonus is something Orioles fans have more than earned.