BALTIMORE -- Sunday Night Baseball returned to Camden Yards for the first time since 2018, and the American League-best Orioles showed just how good they are in front of ESPN’s national audience.

Adley Rutschman, Baltimore’s franchise player, has known just how good this team is for quite some time.

“Honestly, I love the way our guys play,” Rutschman said. “I think we’re really talented, and we play together. I’m excited to see what we can do.”

But here’s what the Orioles have already done: They’ve won the season series vs. the AL East rival Yankees -- a longtime powerhouse in baseball’s most competitive division -- for the first time since 2016.

On Sunday night, Baltimore pounced on Yankees starter Luis Severino, rallying for seven runs during a first inning in which it sent 11 batters to the plate. From there, the Orioles cruised to a 9-3 victory in their final meeting of the year with New York to take two of three games in the weekend series.

The Orioles went 7-6 against the Yankees this year. The last time Baltimore did this well against New York in a season series (10-9 in 2016) was also the last time the team reached the postseason.

“We have a little bit more competitive roster, so that makes it nice. And it’s a little bit more fair a fight than it has been in the past,” manager Brandon Hyde said. “So we’re able to pitch to them -- we didn’t in the past. And we’re able to score some runs -- and we had a tough time with that in the past.”

A lot has changed since Baltimore last hosted Sunday Night Baseball on Aug. 26, 2018 (also against the Yankees). After that 47-115 season, the Orioles overhauled their staff, hiring both general manager Mike Elias and Hyde, and they began rebuilding the organization.

It took years of work, and there were years of struggles, which were visible through the annual AL East rivalry series between Baltimore and New York. The Orioles went 20-47 against the Yankees from 2019-22.

Now, the Orioles -- who are 64-41 and 1 1/2 games ahead of the Rays in the AL East -- are greatly improved, and that showed with their play vs. the Yankees this season.

On Sunday night, each of the first six Baltimore batters reached base against Severino, and all of them came around to score. Anthony Santander hit an RBI double, Ryan O'Hearn followed with a two-run double and Adam Frazier blasted a three-run homer, boosting his career-high total to 13. The Orioles hadn’t had six consecutive batters score to open a game since July 18, 2017, when they beat the Rangers, 12-1, at Camden Yards.

Rutschman, who batted leadoff for the second straight day after never doing so in his first 211 big league games, singled twice in the opening frame, with his second knock driving in a run to make it 7-0.

Despite having not hit leadoff since he was a sophomore at Sherwood (Ore.) High School, Rutschman has gotten on base six times from the No. 1 hole while going 3-for-6 with three runs scored.

“I kind of just show up and do what they tell me,” Rutschman said with a smile.

It was the third time the Orioles plated seven or more runs in an inning vs. the Yankees this year. The two previous occurrences were both at Yankee Stadium -- an eight-run seventh in a 9-6 win on May 24, and a seven-run third in a 14-1 victory on July 6.

“You can’t complain when the team puts up a touchdown, and the extra point,” starting pitcher Dean Kremer said. “Our team, when they get going, they’re pretty fun to watch.”

“We’re capable of that any night,” Frazier said.

Between now and Tuesday's 6 p.m. ET Trade Deadline, Baltimore may get even better. The club is positioned to buy for the first time in the Hyde/Elias era, and there’s a good chance it will bolster its pitching staff to boost its odds of making a deep run through October.

That’s not on the mind of Orioles players, though. Their minds remain on playing well -- something they’ve done quite a good job of so far.

“I think the beautiful part is it’s out of any of our control, and so we’re just focused on putting together good games,” Rutschman said. “We have a great team, and we just kind of do what we can.”