Imagine I told you that the Orioles went into Tropicana Field tonight and got to starting pitcher Shane McClanahan for four runs in five innings. You’d be excited, right? McClanahan is one of the best lefties in baseball this year, and the Orioles are terrible against lefties. He came into this game on a 21.2-inning scoreless streak. Four runs in five innings is pretty darn good!
Well….it is. But let me tell about the rest of the game. Because spoiler: the Orioles got their butts kicked.
Trevor Rogers continued to make the case that 2025 was not a case of him figuring things out, but rather a fluke. After getting knocked out of the game after four innings and six runs in his last start, Rogers got even worse. Tonight, he was knocked out after 3.2 innings and eight runs.
I guess let’s start at the beginning or whatever. Rogers allowed one unearned run in the first inning, and he honestly had a pretty good start to things. He did give up a leadoff double that was almost a homer to Yandy Díaz, who feasted on Orioles pitching tonight. But Díaz would have been stranded if not for an error made by Gunnar Henderson. Instead, he came in to score on a sac fly.
In the second inning, Rogers really had no one to blame but himself. The frustrating thing is that he looked like he was almost out of trouble before things exploded. The speedy Chandler Simpson started the inning with a double, but was thrown out at third on a ground ball to shortstop. A Taylor Walls double put runners on the corners, but Rogers got a big strikeout for the second out.
Instead of getting the third out, Rogers let the next five batters reach base, starting with Díaz. Single, single, single, walk, double. The double, by Jonny DeLuca, would have been a single but took a weird deflection off Jeremiah Jackson’s glove as it went into the outfield. Regardless, after that DeLuca hit, the Rays had scored six runs.
After a 1-2-3 third inning, Rogers started, but did not finish, the fourth inning. The defense gave him some trouble as Blaze Alexander couldn’t get to a hit from Ryan Vilade that turned into a triple. That knocked in Junior Caminero, who had walked. It also drove Rogers from the game. He was replaced by Cameron Foster, who seemingly got an inning-ending groundout. But DeLuca was too fast and beat out the throw. Vilade scored to close the book on Rogers, and Cameron ended the inning without further damage.
The final pitching line on Trevor Rogers: 3.2 IP, 8 H, 8 R, 7 ER, 2 BB, 3 K. He threw 88 pitches, and his ERA went up to 6.87. What are they gonna do with this guy? The Orioles aren’t exactly flush with starting rotation options.
When Rogers exited the game, the bullpen picked up right where he left off. Foster came back out for the fifth inning and allowed four runs of his own. He loaded the bases with no outs on a double, walk, and a single. A groundout knocked in the Rays’ ninth run of the game, then Caminero cleared the bases with his 13th home run of the year.
Dietrich Enns followed Foster. He was also terrible. Three hits and three walks resulted in four more runs for the Rays. That made 16, if you’re still bothering to keep count.
Should we go back to the offense for a bit? It didn’t make a difference in the end, but the O’s had a pretty good game at the plate. As I said earlier, they got to McClanahan for four runs in five innings. They got on the board in the third inning on a Taylor Ward double followed by an RBI single from Adley Rutschman.
They added three more in the fifth, after the game was already out of hand. Weston Wilson got his first home run of the year. McClanahan walked Alexander and Rutschman, who both came in on a double from Pete Alonso. In the middle of all that, Henderson struck out. He was hitless in the game.
The Orioles continued to score after McClanahan left the game. Rutschman hit his seventh home run in the seventh. And in the eighth inning, they added on one more run before Alonso struck out with the bases loaded.
It’s a shame that the Orioles scored six runs in the game and it was still never even close. Rutschman had two hits, a walk, and reached on an error. Alonso had his first three-hit game as an Oriole. Wilson and Jackson had two-hit nights. Ward, Alonso, Jackson, and Alexander had doubles.
The Orioles were down by 10 going into the bottom of the 8th, which meant it was position player pitching time. Wilson made his third pitching appearance of the year. The first two batters reached via hit, then Jonathan Aranda hit a ground ball back to the pitcher. Wilson went to second for the first out and Aranda basically walked to first base to give plenty of time for the double play. He got the final out on a fly ball to lower his season ERA from 27.00 to 15.83.
There was a moment of panic (by me, and hopefully only me) when Rutschman got hit on a backswing in the eighth inning. He was down for a few moments but finished the inning. Knowing the Orioles’ luck, he’d get hurt in a meaningless moment.
Down by 10 in the ninth, the Orioles were retired 1-2-3. Thanks for putting us out of our misery there, guys.
Orioles lose, 16-6. Tomorrow they have Kyle Bradish on the mound so maybe they can avoid a second straight night of this foolishness.
OTTAWA – Kori Cheverie saw Monday night coming.