BALTIMORE — They came to salute Adley Rutschman. And he came to bury the Baltimore Orioles. With a smile, of course.
In his first game back at Camden Yards since the Orioles dealt their franchise catcher to the division rival Boston Red Sox
one month ago, Rutschman stepped away from the batter’s box in the top of the first inning. His old walk-up song, Kid Cudi’s “Alive,” blared from the sound system.The crowd rose, and Rutschman doffed his helmet and successfully quelled the tears he was worried would come.
“It was special, just to kind of feel that love,” says Rutschman. “It was really cool. Emotional moment, and really special.
“A really, really special moment.”
And then Rutschman got in the box, took a pair of pitches from former batterymate
Brandon Young and promptly deposited the third into the right field seats, 377 feet from home.
Five innings later, he did it again, wrecking a Young first-pitch sinker for his second home run of the game. In the eighth inning, he passed on some inside information on former teammate Yennier Cano to Nick Sogard, who responded with a go-ahead two-run homer.
And by night’s end, the cheers for Rutschman at Camden Yards were long gone.
He was the enemy now. And he just led them to a 6-5 victory Thursday, Sept. 3 in a game that was crucial to the Orioles’ wild-card hopes.
The victory pushed the Red Sox record to 76-65, and their lead for the American League’s No. 2 wild card to 5 1/2 games. The Orioles (69-72) could have pulled within a half-game of the third wild card, in a three-way tie with Texas and Toronto, breathing down Cleveland’s neck.
Instead, it felt like a karmic bill came due at Camden Yards. The Orioles gave up on Rutschman one year and two months before he was eligible for free agency, even as he was the beloved No. 1 overall pick in 2019 who eventually led them out of the darkness of a grisly rebuild.
No matter. Club president Mike Elias determined the club was playing too poorly before the Aug. 3 trade deadline and sold off parts, most notably Rutschman, who just a month earlier made his third All-Star Game appearance.
Less than a month later, Elias decided the Orioles were playing well enough to claim outfielder Luis Robert Jr. on waivers and assume the $5 million he was still owed – applying a chunk of Rutschman’s salary savings, in a sense, to Robert.
The former Met homered Thursday night. But Rutschman crushed the Orioles, in so many ways, beginning with that first swing.
“It was awesome. It was electric,” says Red Sox DH Roman Anthony, who homered himself in the ninth, providing the eventual winning run.
“I was so happy for him.”
There was a lot of that going around Thursday. Rutschman got a home-plate hug from former teammate Pete Alonso. Talked some mad smack in the middle of the infield – “I can’t say, man,” he said when pressed for specifics - with former teammates Gunnar Henderson and Blaze Alexander.
And the love went both ways, as the Red Sox shipped their former backstop, Carlos Narváez, to Baltimore in the Rutschman deal.
Yet some coincidences were just too weird.
Thursday marked Rutschman’s second multi-homer game this season. The first came on behalf of the Orioles on April 24 – against the Red Sox. Yes, a two-homer game on both sides of a rivalry in the same season.
Boston manager Alex Cora was fired the next day, the club languishing at 17-27. Interim manager Chad Tracy was rushed from Class AAA Worcester to take over in what he remembered as a “fire drill” of a day.
“I slept much better this time,” Tracy cracked before the game.
And this time, the Red Sox were on the right side of a Rutschman two-homer effort. It gave him 11 for the year and came after he took three games off for a nagging wrist injury, which played some role in his 9-for-53 (.170) start in Boston.
When asked if Thursday’s effort might help ingratiate himself to teammates, Rutschman smirked and simply said, “Home runs are fun, man. They’re really fun. Just happy to contribute.”
There was one more big contribution to make. With the game tied 3-3 in the eighth, a single, a Rutschman fielder’s choice and a strikeout of Wilyer Abreu brought switch-hitter Nick Sogard to the plate with two outs.
The Orioles summoned Yennier Cano, who accompanied Rutschman to Seattle for the 2023 All-Star Game. He’s nasty.
And Rutschman used the pitching change to make a beeline for Sogard and give him significant counsel on Cano, whose splitter is particularly distasteful.
“We were just talking over gameplan,” says Rutschman. “Yenni is a tough AB. There’s no easy, ‘Hey I got this advice for you and it’s going to make it really easy to hit now.’ It’s a tough at-bat, especially as a righty.’
“Just trying to give them the best chance for success.”
Sogard was a bit more effusive.
“I had my idea of what I wanted to do,” he says. “I went over to him and I was like, ‘Hey, this is what I’m thinking. What do you got on that?’ He liked it. So it worked out good.”
Oh yes, it did.
Sogard laid off three consecutive splitters and, in a 2-1 count, got a sinker to his liking. He roped it 395 feet just over the wall in right center field.
Red Sox lead. Red Sox win.
And Rutschman walked off with all the home cooking of a wonderful return – including a tribute video played after the first inning – along with a win for the team that wanted him.
“It was cool to see the reaction,” says Sogard. “Cool to see him get the flowers he deserved.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Adley Rutschman 'felt the love' in Orioles return. Then he buried them with two homers
