It still hasn’t stopped being weird to me that Trevor Rogers is an ace. The lefty has no swag on the mound, no blazing heater, no pedigree except for that one All-Star nomination back in 2021. All of Birdland hated the man when he came over from Miami in ’24, costing us Kyle Stowers (it still stings a little) and then pitching to a 7.11 ERA in four starts.
But this season for Rogers… defies explanation or description. Pre-game, MASN showed this chart:
The only thing to complain of with Rogers’ season
is that he hasn’t had all that many starts—not his fault, of course. But with his last two starts looking a little shaky, by these standards, you worried that the magic is unsustainable.
We needn’t have worried. It seems the only thing that can slow down Rogers these days is a pitch count. And while he topped the centennial mark in the sixth inning, you can’t complain with the results: six innings of shutout ball, his fifth scoreless outing on the season and sixteenth with two runs allowed or fewer. The O’s tacked on three runs in the sixth and seventh innings, the outfield defense (especially Dylan Beavers and Colton Cowser) was electric, and Orioles relievers didn’t screw it up. All that adds up to a clean 4-2 win.
Let’s recap Rogers’ performance first. It was certainly ace-worthy. In the first, he set down the Yankees’ dangerous 1-2-3 hitters in order. Paul Goldschmidt flew out harmlessly. Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger were frozen on 95 mph fastballs dotted on the edge of the zone: Judge’s was inside, if we’re being fair, but Bellinger’s was zing, damn, wow that’s pretty.
It is crazy to see Giancarlo Stanton load up, preparing for a Rogers fastball, and still swing through it, as he did in the second. A filthy changeup tied up Amed Rosario, a .321 hitter vs. lefties. Austin Slater got caught staring, giving Rogers five K’s in the first six hitters.
The third inning, a 33-pitch slog, nearly proved Rogers’ undoing. A long fly ball off the bat of Anthony Volpe forced centerfielder Colton Cowser to the warning track. Exhale. Then, with two outs, Austin Wells walked and Goldschmidt got hit on the back foot (Rogers’ first HBP since May). That brought up Aaron Judge with two on—never what you want. But that was as far as the Yankees got: For the second time this game, Aaron Judge got caught staring an inside-corner fastball. The shutout stayed intact.
Let’s cut to some Orioles offense for a moment. It’s not much, so we won’t stay here long. The Yankees’ Will Warren is something of a dark horse, with a 4.44 ERA but a nice fastball (+10 run value). Well, Ryan Mountcastle doesn’t care about any of that, as evidenced by him simply pulverizing a 94-mph fastball high in the zone in the second inning. The blast left his bat at 114 mph, the hardest-hit homer by an Oriole this year (he also has the hardest-hit ball of the year, at 116.7 mph—smokin’!). It was 1-0 Orioles.
After last night’s soggy effort against Max Fried, it was good to hear some noisy cracks of the bat. There’d be two more that same inning, but no more runs. Samuel Basallo rapped a single to right and Colton Cowser hit an oppo-field double to put runners on second and third. (A non-Basallo runner would have scored on Cowser’s two-bagger, but Basallo is so good at so many things, so let’s not get greedy.) Alas, Coby Mayo popped out, and the rally was over.
Back to the Trevor Rogers Show. After the Yankees pushed up his pitch count in the third, longevity threatened to be Rogers’ Achilles Heel tonight. He stood at 63 pitches entering the fourth. Walking Giancarlo Stanton with one out didn’t help. But an inning-ending Amed Rosario double play to end the inning did.
Rogers pushed through five. A strikeout and popout brought up Anthony Volpe, who showed a lot of scary power tonight. Volpe drove a ball to the gap in right-center, but a sprinting, snow-cone catch by Colton Cowser ended the danger, and closed the book on the fifth.
Onto the sixth. With his pitch count nearing 100, Rogers’ time felt numbered. He surrendered a leadoff single before Paul Goldschmidt hit a ball to the warning track. This time, it was Dylan Beavers making a highlight-worthy catch, with his back against the wall (literally). With one on, one out, Judge back up to the plate, and Rogers fading, it felt like this could be a turning point in the game. Judge turned on a sinker, lining it to shallow left—but a diving Beavers saved his pitcher again!
Then Cody Bellinger grounded out weakly, and Rogers had himself six scoreless, and yet another gem against one of the AL’s great offenses. Tip to your hat to Rogers. We’re running out of superlatives.
Now, this was a 1-0 game through five-and-a-half innings, and really shouldn’t have been. I say this because Will Warren is not the kind of pitcher who be giving the O’s A-team fits. After the second-inning assault, the hitters settled into a stupid pattern of swinging on the first pitch and making outs.
But they caught a lucky break in the sixth, courtesy of two Yankee fielding errors and two little dribblers that didn’t make it out of the infield. Jordan Westburg’s shattered-bat nubber had “plenty of English” (Ben McDonald, who else?) and it confused the hell out of Warren, who muffed it and was charged with an error. Gunnar Henderson hit a soft bouncer to Jazz Chisholm at second, who tried to shovel the pass to first, but nowhere in the vicinity of Goldschmidt. The O’s had runners on second and third, no outs, and the ball hadn’t left the infield. Mounty delivered an RBI with a sac fly to right. Now it was 2-0, Orioles. Warren’s last batter of the game was Dylan Beavers, he of the precocious old-man strike zone awareness, who walked on four pitches.
While MASN’s Jim Palmer chided the Yankees, in the thick of a fight for the AL East, for squandering “winnable games,” and Ben McDonald recited the stat that, since the trade deadline, the Yankees bullpen has a 5.54 ERA, the Yankees called on their ‘pen. Righty Fernando Cruz went and walked Jeremiah Jackson to load the bases for the dangerous Samuel Basallo. Basallo didn’t do anything jaw-dropping, but a run-scoring groundout is still an RBI, and it was now 3-0.
As for bullpens, the Orioles bullpen has been a hot mess lately. What would Dietrich Enns, Rico Garcia, and Keegan Akin do with a 3-0 lead?
Uh, cherish it and end this game quickly? I wish. It got ugly before it got better. After two quick outs, Enns allowed a single and a two-run home run to Jazz Chisholm Jr. 3-0 was now 3-2, and a collapse felt possible.
Fortunately, Orioles had one rally left in them. Against weird lefty sidewinder Tim Hill, Jordan Westburg hit an infield single and Gunnar Henderson, looking so pissed off at the plate it felt like he was trying to will himself to an RBI, chopped a high fastball the other way. Westburg huffed and puffed around the bases, and this game was 4-2.
Six more outs to go. Rico García got a quick strikeout, but he walked pinch-hitter Ben Rice. From the booth, Jim Palmer went, “Big mistake!” Aaron Judge was up with the tying run on base. Considering, I guess a single to left could have been worse? Garcia buckled down. Bellinger grounded out softly, and so did the fearsome Stanton.
That was as drama-filled as it got. In the ninth, Keegan Akin turned in one of the nicest appearances I’ve seen from him this year.
Great pitching, great defense (thanks to the Yankees for hitting a bunch of balls at the two “real” outfielders, Beavers and Cowser) and just enough offense. More of that this year, and we’d have had more results like this one. Let’s enjoy playing spoiler for now, and hopefully more of this next season.
