The Baltimore Orioles got their offense’s stabilizer back this week. Catcher Adley Rutschman was reinstated from the 10-day injured list before Tuesday’s game in Kansas City and went directly into the starting lineup.
Rutschman had been out since May 11 with a left oblique strain suffered on a swing-and-miss against Boston. The original timeline was three to four weeks. He pushed the medical staff to clear him in 12 days. Manager Brandon Hyde said postgame that Rutschman had passed every progression test the team set for him, including back-to-back full bullpen sessions and live batting practice without recurrence.
His return matters more than the slash line you will see on the back of his baseball card. The Orioles’ offense, projected by every preseason analyst to be one of the best in the American League, has limped through May without him. Baltimore is hitting .238 as a team in his absence. The lineup that powered the team to 91 wins last year has produced exactly three runs per game over the last 14 contests.
Part of that is Gunnar Henderson, who has been in a slow start that no one expected, and part is Anthony Santander, who is in the final year of his Orioles contract and pressing through what looks like a slump-driven free agent walk year. But the biggest part is the absence of Rutschman, who is the connective tissue of this lineup the same way Yadier Molina was for late-2010s St. Louis.
The catcher’s value to the Orioles is not just on offense. Baltimore’s young pitching staff, led by Grayson Rodriguez and Cade Povich, leans heavily on Rutschman’s game-calling and pitch-framing. The Orioles’ pitching staff has posted a 4.21 ERA without him compared to 3.42 with him. The framing data shows the same gap. Backup Gary Sanchez has hit better than expected, but his work behind the plate is well below average.
Rutschman went 1-for-4 with a walk and a run scored in his return, but the more important box score line was the defensive one. He caught seven and a third innings, threw out a runner attempting to steal second, and called Cade Povich’s best outing of the year (six and one-third innings, two runs, eight strikeouts).
The Orioles are 26-23 and sit five and a half games back of the Yankees in the AL East. They are not buried. They are a hot ten games away from being right back in the conversation as the team most preseason projections had them being. Rutschman is the single biggest reason that ten-game run is possible.
The schedule helps. The next two weeks include series with the White Sox, Royals, and a four-game set with the Twins at Camden Yards. Eleven of the next 14 games are at home. If the Orioles are going to make a real run at June, this is the window.
Rutschman is back. The lineup looks right again. The pitching staff is calmer. The Orioles’ season is not over. It was just waiting on its catcher.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
