The eagerly anticipated and long awaited Baltimore Orioles debut of 2019 number one overall draft pick Adley Rutschman took place on Saturday night. Remember the date, May 21st, 2022, as we may look back on it and say that is where it turned around for the franchise. The debut was witnessed by a crowd of 17,573 fans and this is what they saw: a second inning swinging strikeout (welcome to MLB, by the way), a fifth inning walk, a seventh inning triple and a ninth inning pop out. Rutschman finished the night 1 for 3 with a triple and a walk for a slash line of .333/ .500/ 1.000.
Rutschman joined Manny Machado (2012) and Matt Wieters (2009) as Orioles whose first MLB hit was a triple.
Oh, and there was a game played between the Orioles and the Tampa Bay Rays that the Rays won 6-1. Tampa Bay held the Orioles scoreless until the eighth inning when the Orioles hit three consecutive singles with two outs. Austin Hays (1 for 4, 1 run scored) started the rally and moved to third on Anthony Santander’s (1 for 3, 1 BB) single. Trey Mancini then (2 for 4, 1 RBI) singled to knock-in Hays.
Rougned Odor went 1 for 4 with a triple.
Kyle Bradish (1-3) started and allowed 5 runs on 5 hits, including 2 homeruns to Randy Arozarena, walked 2, struck out 5 and threw a wild pitch over 5.1 innings of work and was tagged with the loss.
Mike Baumann gave up 1 run on 3 hits and struck out 2 in 3.2 innings of relief. Among his hits allowed was a Kevin Kiermaier homerun.
2022 Record: 16-25