It’s here: the final series of the Orioles’ 2025 season. I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to be upset when this season is over. At least not until it’s mid-November and I’m bored without baseball.
Tonight also marks the final start of an incredible season for Most Valuable Oriole Trevor Rogers, who carries an unfathomable 1.35 ERA through 17 starts. Typing that out just now, I still can’t believe it. Rogers is probably one of the only Orioles who is sad to see the season end. It’s hard to remember now that he began this year injured, in Triple-A, and seemingly not a part of the Orioles’ rotation plans at all after his disastrous team debut in 2024. And now look at him: a guy who would get serious Cy Young consideration if only he’d made about 7-8 more starts.
This is the guy you want pitching for the Orioles against a Yankees team that’s hungry for a division title. The Yanks have already clinched at least the first wild card, but they’re angling to overtake the Blue Jays atop the AL East. The two teams are currently tied at 91-68, but Toronto holds the tiebreaker by virtue of winning the season series against New York. So to overtake them, the Yankees will need to win at least one more game than the Jays do for the next three days. The Blue Jays will be hosting the Rays.
Whichever team does a better job of beating up on a division doormat this weekend will likely win the AL East. The Orioles hope they’ve got some fight left in them to play spoiler. Jackson Holliday and Samuel Basallo are both back after brief injuries, giving the Orioles nearly their best possible lineup (though I would prefer Jeremiah Jackson to Tyler O’Neill). And they’ve certainly got the right guy on the mound to steal a win in the opener.
Orioles lineup:
2B Jackson Holliday
3B Jordan Westburg
SS Gunnar Henderson
RF Tyler O’Neill
LF Dylan Beavers
C Adley Rutschman
CF Colton Cowser
DH Samuel Basallo
1B Coby Mayo
LHP Trevor Rogers
Yankees lineup:
1B Paul Goldschmidt
RF Aaron Judge
CF Cody Bellinger
DH Giancarlo Stanton
3B Amed Rosario
LF Austin Slater
SS Anthony Volpe
C Austin Wells
2B José Caballero
RHP Will Warren
