Baltimore blast: Adley crushes first Camden homer

BALTIMORE -- Adley Rutschman has taught those in Baltimore a twofold lesson in patience. First is in regards to the start of his Major League career, a cooled beginning wholly uncommon from his illustrious college days. And second was his lack of theatrics at home, going 14 games without a home run in his friendly territory.

Both of those trends were cast aside on Thursday.

Rutschman lofted the first home run of his career within the confines of Camden Yards during the Orioles’ series-opening 4-1 win over the Angels, a second-inning blast just high enough to clear the out-of-town scoreboard in right field, but not quite enough to land on the flag court. Rutschman would have had another in the fifth, but he learned the brunt of “Walltimore” in left field for the first time.

No matter. Rutschman continued to show Baltimore that the show has arrived, helping fuel the club on both sides of the ball to its first five-game winning streak since August 2020.

“A home run's a home run. Would I have liked to go off the Warehouse? Probably,” Rutschman laughed. “I'll take a home run.”

The fourth blast of Rutschman’s career, after three on the road, traveled 366 feet with an exit velocity of 101.6 mph. Mike Trout simply had to watch from center field, and Shohei Ohtani from the dugout as Rutschman wore the Home Run Chain for the first time at home.

“Huge hit, and guys were pumped for him,” said Orioles manager Brandon Hyde. “A great swing, and sure it felt good to get to do it the first time in front of the home fans. First of many to come.”

Along with Rutschman’s productive performance at the dish was his game-calling behind it. He helped steer Jordan Lyles to his fourth consecutive start of at least six innings, with the only run nicked off him coming on a sac fly following his departure after facing just one batter in the seventh.

Lyles has a 2.86 ERA across his last four starts -- with notably two of them coming on the road, where he’s fared far worse this season -- and three while pitching to Rutschman. All of these efforts have contributed to something even more promising: the Orioles’ rotation ERA of 2.46 in the 20 games since June 16 is the lowest in the Majors.

Rutschman has been a constant presence.

“His game-calling has been outstanding,” Hyde said. “Both guys, [Robinson] Chirinos and Adley, have been outstanding working with our pitchers, working with game plans. … Just doing a great job with that communication during the game, also. Adley's just getting more comfortable every single day. He's really catching extremely well."

One pitch in particular stuck out to Lyles on Thursday. It was his 100th, an inside sinker that froze Angels shortstop Luis Rengifo on the inside hip. And it was Rutschman’s chess move.

“That was his call,” Lyles said. “I wasn't even thinking about it, but he put it down, and I was like, 'Let's get it. Let's go after it.' That was on him.”

And then there's Rutschman's bat. With his homer, he’s hitting .259/.326/.531 (.857 OPS) with four home runs, 10 doubles and 11 RBIs across his last 22 games. Those are relatively modest marks all told, but far superior to the .451 OPS he posted through his first 16 games.

One more: the Orioles are 24-19 since Rutschman’s callup on May 21.

“I haven't been in the big leagues for that long, but what I do know is this team comes out to compete every single day, and guys go and do their work and they work on getting better,” Rutschman said. “I think that in itself speaks volumes.”

Thursday’s home run might not have even been Rutschman's greatest feat in Baltimore this week, after he sent the crowd to an uproar with a game-tying two-out double in the ninth inning of Monday’s walk-off win over the Rangers.

Rutschman was asked after that game-changing swing if hearing the yells from the crowd ever got old.

“I hope not,” he laughed then. “That's a pretty cool feeling to see and hear the fans behind you, and behind our team.”

All it took was a little bit of patience.