Rogers Best Start Of Season Carries Orioles To Win Over Dodgers

Trevor Rogers cruised through six innings at Dodgers Stadium Saturday night allowing one harmless hit and two total baserunners.

That’s a sentence I didn’t expect to ever write, especially with Shohei Ohtani back from paternity leave. But that was the case and Rogers out-pitched Yoshinobu Yamamoto and the Orioles bounced back from Friday’s gutting 9th-inning meltdown with a 3-2 win, nearly giving it away with two more terrible fielding miscues in the end..

The first six games of this road trip were going to challenge an Orioles lineup that has really struggled on the road with this level of quality starting pitching. And while this wasn’t an overwhelming offensive output it was a splendid showing against a Cy Young candidate like Yamamoto. Rookie catcher Samuel Basallo shined with two-strike base hits, Leody Taveras had quality bats after falling into a two-week funk and Blaze Aleander continued his ridiculous 45-game tear with a two-run hit down the third base line and they worked counts and pushed Yamamoto aside after six innings (102 pitches).

"Bases loaded there just trying to get a good pitch to hit," Alexander said on the MASN broadcast after the game.

But Rogers stole the show.

This was the first time in a long time he truly looked like the starter who dominated for the second half of last season. He avoided hard contact and got way more swing and miss than he had been, striking out six. He did this by again avoiding what has been his feature pitch throughout his career – the change up – and he threw his four-seam fastball – which has been pounded this season- around 60 percent of the time and the Dodgers could do nothing to mitigate it.

Rogers gave up almost no hard-hit balls and racked up 13 whiffs and was working with more sustained velocity than has been the norm. One of those very few squared-up balls came off the bat of Miguel Rojas to dead centerfield with two outs in the seventh, but it stayed in the park.

"I thought he was going to get a no hitter," Alexander said of Rogers's outstanding outing.

Rogers seems to work well with Basallo, who got a critical challenge correct for a called strike and also threw out a base stealer early in the game to help the starter settle down. Basallo continues to play more regularly than anyone could have expected and that will remain the case for a while.

More Work For Big Sam

“Starting” catcher Adley Rutschman took a glancing throw from a second baseman off his side of his helmet the other night and is now on the seven-day concussion IL; third catcher Sam Huff remains on the roster and outfielder Michael Siani was recalled to take Rutschman’s roster spot.

The Orioles publicly questioned the toughness of their 21-year-old catcher, Basallo, who was supposed to be eased into MLB given how little he caught in the minors. A rookie skipper who implied Basallo, at this stage of his career, must learn to play through more nagging injuries and nicks, stoutly defended the veteran catcher before the game.

“We’re going to support the (heck) out of Adley and make sure he’s okay and take it day to day and see how he feels,” Albernaz told reporters.

Basallo is signed long-term and Rutschman has one year remaining on his deal after this season and the entire industry believes there is no chance he is re-signing in Baltimore (he should be dealt).

Make this make sense.

Just to be clear, Basallo has more plate appearances than Rutschman and has caught just 65 fewer innings than Rutschman with the midpoint of the season approaching. Several men have caught nearly 150 innings more than Rutschman already this season, and James McCann also started ahead of Rutschman in a playoff game, but somehow this is the messaging that comes out of this organization.

It’s just another example of why this franchise will win nothing with Mike Elias in charge. It will never come close.

Bird Seed

Jackson Holliday, not exactly proving to be a warrior himself in the toughness department as another first-overall pick on the roster, was replaced by Jeremiah Jackson late int he game at second base ... With closer Ryan Helsley getting crushed since returning from the IL, Andrew Kittredge got the 9th inning with strugging high-leverage guy working in a set-up role Saturdaym and Ohtani quickly took him deep. Taylor Ward saved a double and Kittredge walked Freddie Freeman on four pitches before making way for Yennier Cano in search of a double play ball. Coby Mayo booted a ball at third (the Orioles defense stinks) to bring the winning run to the plate. Leody Taveras dropped an utterly routine flyball to score a run and extend the game. before Cano struck out Kyle Tucker.

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