MIKE BURKE
Allegany Communications Sports
Only the 2026 Orioles can limp home from a 6-3 Western road trip in which they played nine consecutive games in three time zones.
After taking two out of three in St. Louis, then sweeping the Athletics in Sacramento, they managed just nine runs in three games at Coors Field against one of the worst pitching staffs in baseball and, if not for the miraculous catch by Colton Cowser on Monday, would have been swept by the Colorado Rockies, who no longer have the worst record in MLB because of the benevolence of the Orioles.
One of the most uncomfortable teams to try to follow over the course of a long season, the Craig Albernaz Orioles continue to let winnable games get away from them with a lack of timely hitting (we see you, Gunnar), often times a lack of any hitting (see first two games in Denver), poor defense despite a 10-game stretch without an error, mismanagement and a serious lack of I Got Your Back coming from the dugout.
Only the staff of pitching coach Drew French seems to have held up its end, as it has built a solid rotation and has, despite yesterday’s result, held a makeshift, injury-ravaged, closer-less bullpen together with a bag of magic beans.
All of which is why supreme baseball leader Mike Elias was willing to trade Taylor Ward, Tyler Wells and Adley Rutschman at the trade deadline. While, to their credit, the Orioles have no quit in them, they have consistently proven themselves to be a team that will enter any bad situation and walk away from it having made it decidedly worse. This is not a team that makes chicken salad.
With Rutschman making his Baltimore return tonight with the Red Sox for a four-game series, provided he is able to play, it will mark the first of many times over the next year before he becomes a free agent that the Orioles-Red Sox trade will be revisited.
After yesterday’s 6-5 extra-innings loss to the Rockies, the Orioles are 69-71 and 12-12 since trading their all-star catcher, and though they had their second winning month in a row in August and had a rarefied sniff of .500 air, the bottom line hasn’t moved since the trade was made.
Meanwhile, the Red Sox had been the hottest team in baseball, having gone 14-3 entering the deadline, but have since cooled to 14-11, having dropped three out of four to the Yankees last weekend.
As for Rutschman, who was on the injured list at the time of the trade, he has continued to battle lingering wrist and elbow injuries, batting .170 with a home run and a .500 OPS in 59 at-bats since joining the Sawx.
While that is slightly more offensive production than the Orioles have received from catcher Carlos Narváez, the primary big-league replacement in the trade that sent the Orioles a haul of Boston’s top minor-league talent, it’s hardly the production Boston is going to need from Rutschman down the stretch.
A small sample size to be sure, as Rutschman could clearly turn things around in September and October, but there is growing concern about him in Boston as manager Chad Tracy has said the catcher’s hyperextended elbow is still an issue and probably will be for the rest of the season.
It bears repeating for all of the Orioles fans who remain unhappy with the trade, Rutschman was deservedly loved and respected in Baltimore. But he just didn’t want to stay with the Orioles, having been approached by the club about a possible extension in November and then again in May.
He wasn’t going to stay when his contract ran out, so it was imperative for the Orioles to act, and they acted well given what they received in the deal.
Rutschman’s rash of visits to the injured list the past two seasons are also making the deal look more worthwhile on the Orioles’ part. Injuries are the risk an organization takes when it selects a catcher with the No. 1 pick in the draft. They’re the risk another organization takes when it trades a pile of promising prospects to acquire him seven years later.
And don’t forget: There might not even be a season next year.
So there’s still a chance the Orioles can win something.
Mike Burke writes about sports and other stuff for Allegany Communications. He began. covering sports for the Prince George’s Sentinel in 1981 and joined the Cumberland Times-News sports staff in 1984, serving as sports editor for over 30 years. Contact him at mikeburke934@gmail.com. Follow him on X @MikeBurkeMDT