Grayson Rodriguez shoved in his season debut, and the Birds’ bats continued their unstoppable roll.
All right, people, I’m calling it: the 2024 Orioles have a chance to be pretty good.
The O’s continued their blistering start to the new season with another epic demolition of the Angels, 13-4. The Birds’ bats upped their game from their already sensational Opening Day performance, this time doing the majority of their damage in a single inning, an incredible nine-run explosion that turned a tight contest into a laugher. Gunnar Henderson finished a double shy of the cycle, while Grayson Rodriguez dominated with a six-inning, nine-strikeout performance.
The rest of baseball should take notice. These Orioles are a force to be reckoned with, in all facets of the game.
Let’s jump straight to the bottom of the sixth, which would become one of the most glorious offensive innings in Orioles history. It began innocently enough, with a Ryan Mountcastle walk. Ryan O’Hearn, making his first start, followed with a hard-hit single to right that advanced Mountcastle to third. That spelled the end of the line for Angels starter Griffin Canning after five innings and a pair of batters. Little could manager Ron Washington have known what utter havoc the Angels bullpen was about to wreak.
First out of the gate was veteran right-hander Luis García, one of several relievers the Angels signed this winter to help fortify their bullpen. Perhaps, uh, they should ask for their money back. Austin Hays greeted García with a sharp single to left, plating Mountcastle, and Cedric Mullins ambushed his next offering for a double into the right-field corner, bringing home O’Hearn. Jordan Westburg then poked a single to center past the drawn-in infield. Hays and Mullins both raced plateward with the third and fourth runs of the inning. And the O’s weren’t even halfway done!
Then the Angels handed the Orioles a gift. Ramón Urías tapped a grounder to shortstop that was about as routine a double play as you could draw up. Zach Neto fielded the ball cleanly, and then just…dropped it, for no discernible reason. He got nobody out. That play wasn’t García’s fault, but the hurler got the hook anyway, replaced by Guillermo Zuñiga, who was not any better in the least.
Gunnar Henderson jumped on Zuñiga for a gapper to right-center that rolled to the wall, driving in a pair of runs as he hustled to third with a triple. The Camden Yards crowd was in a full frenzy, and still the O’s weren’t close to finished piling on the runs in the sixth.
An Adley Rutschman walk brought up Anthony Santander, the ninth batter of the inning, who put the exclamation point on the Orioles’ eye-popping offensive eruption. Santander golfed a low changeup from Zuñiga and muscled it just to the top of the grounds crew shed in right field. Three-run homer. NINE-RUN INNING. AND THERE WERE STILL NO OUTS!!! I’M RUNNING OUT OF FONTS TO EMPHASIZE HOW INCREDIBLE THIS WAS!!!!
Finally, a trio of flyouts ended the Angels’ suffering in the sixth, but the Birds held a commanding 12-1 lead. And to think, this was actually a close game for a while, as the O’s entered that inning with a mere two-run advantage. They built that lead instantly, when Gunnar Henderson led off the Orioles’ bottom of the first with a booming home run to center field off of Canning, his first of the year. Gunnar’s bid for 2024 AL MVP continues unabated. Henderson had three hits in the game, needing only a double for the cycle, but was pinch-hit for by Tony Kemp in the eighth as Brandon Hyde emptied his bench in the blowout. Mountcastle provided the Orioles’ second and third runs with an RBI double apiece in the first inning and the third.
Grayson Rodriguez took it from there. The Orioles’ sophomore starter looked fantastic in his season debut, not quite up to the high standard set by Corbin Burnes but not far from it, either. Like Burnes, Rodriguez worked six strong innings and allowed just one run on a solo homer (this one by Taylor Ward in the fourth). Grayson got some help from his infielders on the Angels’ few well-struck balls — a nifty Mountcastle scoop in the first, and a diving catch by Urías in the fifth — but for the most part Rodriguez took care of business himself, racking up nine strikeouts by mixing his high-90s heater with a devastating changeup that had Angels hitters flailing. Grayson looked every bit like the pitcher who took the league by storm after his minor league reset in 2023.
Two games, two brilliant outings by O’s starting pitchers…and roughly a billion runs scored by the O’s offense. It’s a good combination.
The only blemish in this otherwise stupendous Orioles win came in the top of the ninth, when Cionel Pérez, making his 2024 debut, gave up two scorched hits and then clutched at his side, prompting Brandon Hyde and the training staff to pull him from the game. Hyde announced afterward that Pérez was suffering from lower back discomfort and will be re-evaluated tomorrow. Here’s hoping for the best for Cionel. Mike Baumann was Pérez’s emergency replacement and his unpreparedness was obvious, as he slogged through 29 pitches and gave up three hits. The Angels tallied three runs, two of them charged to Pérez, before Baumann finally put the game to bed. The outcome was never in doubt, it just took a while to get there.
With that, the Orioles improved to 2-0. The Orioles have outscored the Angels 24-7 (by which I mean runs scored, not 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, although it certainly feels like that’s the case as well). MLB’s Sarah Langs reported that the Birds’ +17 run differential is their best in franchise history through their first two games.
I like where this 2024 season is headed. How about you?