Heading into the back-half of May, the Baltimore Orioles were struggling mightily.
Former Manager of the Year Brandon Hyde was fired, the team was sitting almost 20 games under .500 and fans were beyond upset with the performance from the team. Little did we know that a big answer was someone coming back from injury and was ready to raise havoc on the mound.
Trevor Rogers made his season debut during game two of a doubleheader against the Boston Red Sox on May 24. He would toss six innings of shutout baseball, giving up just two hits and striking out five. This would just be the beginning of a 12-start run where Rogers has arguably been the best pitcher in baseball.
In those 12 starts, Rogers has compiled a 6-2 record with a 1.41 ERA. The 27-year-old has pitched 76.1 innings, given up 45 hits and 12 earned runs, has walked 16 and struck out 67. Rogers has pitched four shutout appearances, just two starts where he went less than six innings and even has four outings where he walked zero batters.
The big question with this is: Where did this come from?
In 2021, we saw Rogers finish second in NL Rookie of the Year voting and earned an All-Star nod after having a season where his ERA was 2.64 in 133 innings. But after that impressive campaign, he kind of fell apart.
Between 2022-2024, Rogers posted a 5.09 ERA and struggled with injuries, including a lat strain in September of 2022 and a bicep strain that benched him for the 2023 season after just four starts.
Rogers is breaking franchise records with his 2025 run, posting the lowest ERA any Oriole has had in their first 12 starts of a season, surpassing the great Hoyt Wilhelm (1.50) and O’s legend Jim Palmer (1.69). For reference, Wilhelm’s record lasted a whopping 71 years prior to Rogers eclipsing it with his 10th quality start of the season Monday night in Boston, which is a career-high for the southpaw.
“I have the confidence to go out there and know what I’m going to do and just execute my game plan,” Rogers said.
His latest outing against the Red Sox was Rogers’ eighth straight start in which he threw at least six innings and allowed two runs or fewer. It’s the longest such stretch by an Orioles pitcher since the aforementioned Jim Palmer went eight straight from May 20 to June 18, 1978.
Rogers’ 1.41 ERA is the best among pitchers with at least 60 innings pitched this season.
“This is ace-type of stuff right now that we’re seeing in a short sample,” interim manager Tony Mansolino said. “Aces do it for three, four years, but what he’s doing right now is ace-type.”
It’s nice to see Rogers perform the way he has and bring a little spark to a young Orioles team that has struggled most of the year. As Mansolino hinted, the crafty lefty has ace potential heading into the final month of the season, and it’s highly possible that he has fought his way into becoming the top guy in the O’s rotation next year, alongside Kyle Bradish.
What are your thoughts on Trevor Rogers’ historic 2025 campaign? Let us know in the comments below! Make sure to follow The Baltimore Battery on Facebook, X, Bluesky and TikTok, and use the hashtag #baltimorebattery when sharing our content!
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