Albernaz Sticks With Rogers Too Long, Orioles Blow 5 Run Lead In Loss To Toronto

The Orioles’ homespun narratives about their Opening Day starter don’t mesh with the reality of how pathetic he has been the last six weeks.

So while common sense and old-school baseball acumen would have dictated sitting Trevor Rogers after six scoreless innings against Toronto, and call it a win with him staked to a five-run lead after how awful he’s been, even with a lower pitch count, that’s not how Craig Albernaz played it. It blew up quickly on the novice decision maker and the starting pitcher Albernaz and his bosses are trying so desperately to prop up, and threw a wrench in a once-glowing homestand.

Rogers has suffered with shaken confidence and he’s appeared shattered all of May (Mike Bordick and Jim Duquette agreed with me on “The Daily Flock”).. For despite all of Albernaz’s parables about Rogers being solid (spoonfed from his feckless boss, Mike Elias, for sure), and weekly word salads about how close he is to being back to his 2025 form, Rogers entered this start off six straight losses with an ERA over 11.00 and a WHIP north of 2.0 in that span.

Albernaz got a stern reminder of those failings when Rogers faceed the heart of the order in the seventh. He didn’t yank him after Vlad Guerrero’s 102 mph base hit or Kazuma Okamoto’s 400-foot blast or Daulton Varsho’s double. Nah, it was only after rookie Charles McAdoo, in his first MLB game, hit a two-run homer that the novice game manager sprung from the dugout ahead of what would be a 6-5 loss at Camden Yards that his handprints were all over (along with Elias’s of course).

Toronto went on two score twice in the 8th off reliever Yennier Cano, Guerrero smoke another ball to plate two runners, and the Orioles had a fairly devasting, 6-5 defeat at Camden Yards and you could already picture Albernaz getting his talking point from the front office trying to tell you about those first six innings their starter provided.

"Yeah abslutely," Albernaz said about not yanking his starter sooner. "Yeah that’s the struggle - leaving hm in too late. He was efficient with his pitches … Left him out there too long."

The staff is always taking a kid-gloves approach with the person they selected to open their season and stand atop the rotation despite his significant struggles for most of his time in Baltimore (and Miami before that). "That's the Trevor we know and love," Albernaz said in gushing about the start.

Here’s the reality – Rogers again tried to pitch around his one (formerly, for 18 stars last year) elite pitch, the change-up, throwing it only once in the 8th inning despite that big lead. He leaned into a fastball the league has been crushing, when it mattered most, and got burned again.

"I got too amped up and went back to trying to blow fastballs by guys," Rogers said. while also applauding much of what he did.

Here’s the reality - the Blue Jays lineup has been anemic all season and they didn’t miss a thing getting a third crack at this guy. Albernaz can protest all he wants, Rogers has a 6.84 ERA as we head to June and he’s allowed at least three earned runs in each of his last season starts and he cannot be trusted every five days; but this isn’t a serious front office so you get excuses and cover and BS like this:

"He did a great job tonight," from the skipper, as if you get to selectively pick and choose from an outing. Sounds like an excuse-man, loser mentality. But, well, look at the Orioles since June 2024r.

Blown Chances

The Orioles offense was powered by the solo shot, with Jackson Holliday and Samuel Basallo and Pete Alonso hitting them. And Basallo drove in another run with a sac fly and continues to excel with runners on base but Alonso had a chance to do more damage with the bases loaded and chased two pitches outside the zone after Austin Voth had just walked the bases loaded, and they had a chance to do even more damage against him as the bulk man after ab opener.

Voth threw 70 pitches to get just 10 outs and only half of those pitches were strikes. He walked four and allowed five hits, and it turned out the five runs they scored off him (Gunnar Henderson drove in the other with a walk) weren’t enough with the skipper intent to give Rogers the ninth.

The Orioles mustered nothing against the other arms the Blue Jays employed – opener Adam Macko and late-inning guys Paul Seabold, Mason Fluharty and Braydon Fisher combined for 5 2/3 of work, yielding just three hits and no runs, with no Oriole walking against them.

The Jays, mired in a World Series hangover no longer, have now reeled off 11 wins in their last 16 games, while the Orioles (26-32) are now starting up at three teams .500 or better in the AL East.

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