BALTIMORE — For the second time in two months, Orioles catcher Adley Rutschman has landed on the 10-day injured list with a strained oblique.
After suffering a left oblique injury in mid-June that sidelined him until late July, the 27-year-old Rutchman is now dealing with a strain on the opposite side. And with the season set to conclude in 5 1/2 weeks, it’s fair to wonder whether the two-time All-Star catcher will play again in 2025.
“It’s hard to speculate on that. I think it’s similar. My understanding is that it is a low-grade [strain]; it’s very mild,” interim manager Tony Mansolino said. “Knowing Adley how I know him, he’s going to do everything he can to get back and play at some point this year. I don’t think he’ll pack it in and shut it down. Now, if the injury’s bad enough, then so be it. But we’re hopeful, optimistic that there’s a possibility we will see him again.”
In 348 plate appearances this season, Rutschman is batting a career-low .227 with nine home runs, 29 RBIs, and a .684 on-base plus slugging percentage. Since returning from the IL on July 28, the switch-hitting catcher has produced a slash line of .227/.278/.379 with one homer and seven doubles in 72 plate appearances.
While this marks the latest disappointment in a career that’s been sliding in the wrong direction going back to last summer, Rutschman’s absence will open the door for rookie Samuel Basallo to assume the primary catcher job. With the Orioles opening an eight-game homestand against Houston and Boston on Thursday, Basallo was making his second major league start behind the plate with Mansolino anticipating the 21-year-old catching five or six of these contests against the Astros and Red Sox.
The Orioles had planned to split Basallo’s starts at catcher, first base, and designated hitter when he was promoted to the majors last Sunday, but that vision changed when Rutschman was scratched with “right abdominal discomfort” before Tuesday’s game at Fenway Park.
“Sammy will catch. Right now in my mind, it’s probably a couple days [starting] and then be off,” Mansolino said. “We’ll kind of go from there. We might see him at first base at some point, but I’m not sure if we’re going to do that quite yet just because he’s going to be spending so much time getting behind the dish and trying to learn how to be a catcher in the big leagues and call the right pitches for a brand new staff essentially.
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“We’re probably going to have to take our off-days as off-days and make sure he stays healthy. He also has a little bit of a track record on the injury list, so we’ve got to take care of him.”
Few doubt the upside of Basallo’s left-handed bat, but opinions are mixed about his long-term viability as a catcher. One reason why the Orioles delayed his major league arrival was the preference to give him more catching experience in the minors. He caught just 33 games at Triple-A Norfolk this season while making a combined 40 starts at first base and DH.
Infielder Jordan Westburg remains “day to day” after hurting his right ankle in Monday’s game against the Red Sox.
“We’re optimistic slightly that he might [avoid the IL],” Mansolino said. “It might be another scenario where what we did with his hand earlier [in late June] when he misses four, five, six days, and we try to save those last four days instead of taking the 10-day penalty with the IL. We’ll kind of see, but he is feeling better today.”
To take Rutschman’s spot on the 26-man roster, the Orioles recalled outfielder Daniel Johnson from Triple-A Norfolk, which leaves Basallo and Alex Jackson as the other catchers on the active roster. Mansolino said veteran catcher Gary Sanchez (knee) will remain sidelined through at least mid-September.
Orioles “feel for Felix”
While many were bracing for the worst when Mansolino announced last week that Felix Bautista would miss the rest of 2025 with a “significant” shoulder injury, news of the former All-Star closer undergoing surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff and torn labrum was still difficult to hear.
8Just a few days shy of the two-year anniversary of the elbow injury that ended his historic 2023 campaign and cost him all of 2024 while recovering from Tommy John surgery, Bautista, 30, is now facing another long-term recovery that leaves the state of his major league career in question. One doesn’t need to be a medical expert to recognize the seriousness of a major shoulder injury following a major elbow injury for someone who has relied on elite velocity and spent years honing his craft in the minors to finally make his major league debut in 2022.
Bautista is expected to miss at least 12 months, meaning he’s likely to miss the entire 2026 season.
“This is tough for Felix. You have the elbow injury [when] you’re at the top of the world in terms of being a reliever in Major League Baseball,” Mansolino said. “The road that he had to get to that point, he wasn’t this super prospect that just flew through the minor leagues. He had to go into a second organization and spend a long time in the minor leagues. To get to Baltimore and do what he did was really remarkable. The future was so bright, and then, boom, the elbow. Then, you come back and you get back to being Felix again, and then now the shoulder. We just feel for Felix. It’s tough for Felix, and it’s sad in some ways.
“But the good news is we’ve got a great medical staff. We’ve got great people in the medical world that they’re going to get him back to being himself at some point. It’s just going to take a little bit of time.”
In 161 1/3 career innings in the majors, Bautista owns 67 saves and a 2.01 ERA while averaging a whopping 13.8 strikeouts per nine frames.
