The homer-happy O’s have a chance to win three of four north of the border, and Tomoyuki Sugano makes his MLB debut.
The Orioles have taken two of three games in their 2025 season-opening series in Toronto, and yesterday’s win came in pretty resounding fashion. The Birds homered twice off future Hall-of-Famer Max Scherzer before their starting pitcher, Dean Kremer, ever took the mound, and they continued to thump a Blue Jays bullpen that looks often quite hittable. Ramón Urías, continuing to prove that the Orioles are spoiled for choice in the infield (the outfield too, come to think of it) delivered the game’s biggest hit, a three-run double in the fourth inning that put the game out of reach. Finally in the ninth, Félix Bautista made his much-anticipated return to the mound, striking out the side.
Three games into the season, here’s what we’ve appeared to learn about this team:
• The ball is flying out of the yard. It seems possible that the major-league ball is juiced (just ask the Brewers) but none of the O’s home runs have been cheapies, at least.
• The starting pitching is good but not a pack of aces;
• This bullpen is going to make you hold your breath sometimes, especially the erratic Gregory Soto, Seranthony Dominguez and Bryan Baker.
Today, we’ll keep testing out those hypotheses in what should be a really interesting starter matchup.
One of these starting pitchers was below-average last season in MLB, the other was a star in Japan’s NPB. Today, Tomoyuki Sugano, the Orioles’ most interesting offseason signing, makes his MLB debut against Toronto’s Chris Bassitt (10-14, 4.16 in 2024).
Now in his tenth season, the right-hander Bassitt is a guy who’s been consistently better than you’d realized (at least, than I’d realized), with a positive ERA+ in all but three of his seasons. He’s finished in the Top 10 for the Cy Young three times, including in 2023, his first season with Toronto, when he finished an impressive 16-8 and a 3.60 ERA. That was also Bassitt’s first season breaking the 200-inning threshold. Last season was a downer for him, as he dipped into negative WAR territory for the first time since 2016 (-0.1 bWAR). He struggled with command, a 3.7 BB/9 rate the third-worst in his career, to go with a league-leading 16 hit batters. Bassitt has marked lefty-righty splits, so today’s lineup is predictably stuffed with lefties. Ryan O’Hearn, in particular, really likes hitting Bassit: he’s 5-for-11 against him with a home run and four RBI’s.
Back in his home country, Tomoyuki Sugano is on Mt. Olympus so far as pitchers go, but that doesn’t always correlate with success when Japanese pitchers make the jump to the Major Leagues. His track record in Japan’s NPB is faultless: in twelve seasons, he went 136-75 with a 2.45 ERA, including 42 complete games and 22 shutouts. He’s got a six-pitch mix and pinpoint command, but he’ll need to be crafty to miss bats with a 93-94 mph fastball. For whatever it’s worth, he had a good spring, posting a 3.00 ERA over 15 innings in five appearances with a nice-to-see 15 strikeouts, although the five walks were a little high for him. This will be a fascinating outing today.
Gambare Tomo-san! And let’s go O’s.
Orioles lineup
1. Colton Cowser LF
2. Adley Rutschman C
3. Ryan O’Hearn DH
4. Tyler O’Neill RF
5. Cedric Mullins CF
6. Ryan Mountcastle 1B
7. Jackson Holliday 2B
8. Ramón Urías 3B
9. Jorge Mateo SS
Blue Jays lineup
1. Bo Bichette SS
2. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. 1B
3. Anthony Santander DH
4. Andrés Giménez 2B
5. George Springer RF
6. Will Wagner 3B
7. Alan Roden LF
8. Tyler Heineman C
9. Myles Straw CF