This week’s series between the Orioles and Seattle features a switch-hitting superstar catcher emerging as a legitimate MVP candidate.
It also includes Adley Rutschman, whose three-hit effort in Tuesday’s 5-1 win is the latest data point of hope that a much-needed turnaround is finally coming. But we’ve been pointing to isolated outputs like this for a long while now.
Seeing what Cal Raleigh, 28, is doing for the Mariners — 23 home runs and a .999 on-base plus slugging percentage through June 3 — reminds of the value the 27-year-old Rutschman is supposed to bring to the Orioles and did for the first two calendar years of his career. While we enthusiastically linked Rutschman’s major league debut with Baltimore’s midseason ascent to contention in 2022, the club’s precipitous fall dating back to last summer coincides with the collapse of his own performance. That’s not to suggest the Orioles’ woes are solely Rutschman’s fault, but a two-time All-Star selection and fringe MVP candidate — he finished 12th in AL voting in 2022 and ninth in 2023 — regressing to someone with bottom-10 production among qualified major league hitters since last July has been disastrous.
It’s a decline no one has been able to fully comprehend, let alone reverse as May marked the fifth consecutive full month of baseball in which Rutschman produced an average (.182) below .230 and an OPS (.561) under .695. He produced an OPS of at least .770 in 12 of the 13 full months of baseball prior to that, reflecting how consistent he’d been over his first two seasons. Entering Wednesday, Rutschman owns a slash line of .202/.291/.309 and just nine home runs over his last 499 plate appearances going back to July 1, 2024.
That’s not a slump; that’s now a quarter of his major league career.
While undoubtedly continuing to troubleshoot behind the scenes, the Orioles have done as little as possible to draw attention to Rutschman’s prolonged struggles as he has batted no lower than fifth in the order since this all began last summer and has remained the primary No. 2 hitter in the order in 2025. Whether that’s a deliberate attempt to continue showing confidence in the former first overall pick or pure stubbornness from management, Baltimore ranks 28th in the majors in OPS from the No. 2 spot in the order this season. The Orioles also rank 28th in OPS from the catcher position, a problem that goes beyond Rutschman with injured backup Gary Sanchez proving to be a bad $8.5 million investment this past offseason.
The optimist will try to point to Rutschman’s “expected” stats suggesting bad luck and a 2025 profile — which includes superb chase and whiff rates as well as an improved walk rate — that has looked better than what we saw over the second half of last year, but one should’t need to look so hard to find positives for someone deemed worthy to pick over future Kansas City superstar shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. six years ago. While there’s no reversing that 2019 draft decision, the Orioles getting Rutschman back to being a difference maker and All-Star-caliber player is paramount. Otherwise, scrutiny will only intensify as top prospect and Triple-A catcher Samuel Basallo moves closer to a promotion.
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Yes, the presence of both Rutschman and Basallo was once imagined as a great problem for the Orioles to eventually have, but the former trending in the wrong direction for so long is nothing short of alarming. And while the outside world will continue to ponder what’s happened, Rutschman and the Orioles have to figure this out.
How can one trust general manager Mike Elias and the current regime to reverse this club’s overall fortunes for the future if they can’t fix someone who had proven to be such a valuable major league commodity before the last 11 months?
You hope Rutschman’s third three-hit game of the season on Tuesday night is the start of a sustained resurgence, but we’re long past the point of one game being any kind of convincing evidence. And seeing what Raleigh has meant to the Mariners this season only reminds of how far Rutschman has fallen.
Starting turnaround
Since falling a season-worst 18 games below .500 with a loss to Boston in the opener of a May 24 doubleheader, the Orioles have won seven of nine and recorded their first four-game winning streak since late June of last season.
What’s been the difference?
It starts with the rotation as Baltimore starters have pitched to a 1.99 ERA in 54 1/3 innings over the last nine games. And while that stretch including five games against the struggling Red Sox and the AL-worst Chicago White Sox certainly helped, this is easily the best the rotation has looked all season.
At 23-36, the Orioles still have a long way to go to reaching a level warranting more serious discussion about saving their 2025 season, but playing better baseball is always refreshing. The rotation leading the way has been the surprising part.
