The Orioles had their fun against the American League’s worst team in sweeping the White Sox in three games. Now things are about to get tougher.
The Birds kick off their last homestand of the year with a four-game set against the Yankees, a team they’ll be seeing a lot of to finish this season. Seven of the Orioles’ final 10 games are against New York. If the O’s play well, they’ve got a real chance to shift the AL postseason picture.
There’s probably no hope of bumping the Yankees out of the playoffs
entirely. New York currently holds the top AL wild card spot, and is 4.5 games ahead of the nearest non-playoff team, the Guardians. Even if the O’s were to sweep all seven games, the Yanks would almost certainly make the postseason anyway.
But what the Orioles can try to do is knock the Yankees out of home-field advantage for the first round. If the O’s can win both series, it opens the door for the second and third wild card teams — currently the Mariners and Red Sox, each two games behind — to overtake New York, forcing the Yanks to play the Wild Card round on the road.
It might not seem like much, but there’s a big difference between playing a best-of-three series entirely on the road as opposed to at home. Most significantly to me, it would mean seeing a lot fewer Yankee fans on the TV broadcast.
The Yankees still have a lot to play for, and they’re not going to be easing up on the throttle for this weekend’s series. The Orioles, who are 9-4 in September and have already won series against the playoff-bound Padres and Dodgers, have the opportunity to make things difficult for their hated AL East rivals.
Game 1: Thursday, 7:15 PM, FOX
LHP Max Fried (17-5, 3.03) vs. LHP Cade Povich (3-7, 5.05)
So, we’re gonna start things out with a classic Reverse Lock game, huh? This is the most lopsided pitching matchup of the series, pitting the erratic Povich against the three-time All-Star, Fried. It’s fascinating that these two would face each other, considering the physical similarities between the two. They’re two slim lefties of nearly identical builds (Povich is listed as 6’3” and 185 lbs; Fried is 6’4” and 190) and have startlingly similar mechanics. But when Fried was 25, Povich’s current age, he had already established himself as an above-average major league starter, with a further breakout coming the next year.
Povich hasn’t gotten near that level. Hitters make extremely good contact against him — his barrel percentage and hard-hit percentage are both among the worst in the league — and he tends to melt down after five innings, with an 8.78 ERA in the sixth inning this year. The only thing he does better than Fried is strike people out, with a 9.6 K/9 this year compared to Max’s 8.4. But that doesn’t matter much when the hitters who do put the ball in play are doing so much damage.
Maybe this up-close look at Fried will help Povich pick up some tips. The veteran lefty has been sensational in the first season of an eight-year, $218 million free agent deal with the Yankees. Fried simply does everything well. He doesn’t walk too many hitters, he doesn’t give up homers, he doesn’t allow hard contact. According to Baseball Savant, Fried has six different pitches that he’s thrown at least 10% of the time, and batters are OPSing .640 or less against each of them. He faced the Orioles earlier this year and threw a quality start, though it was hardly his best performance. He allowed three runs in six innings in a game the O’s eventually won.
Game 2: Friday, 7:05 PM, MASN
RHP Will Warren (8-7, 4.44) vs. LHP Trevor Rogers (8-2, 1.43)
It’s good to see Trevor Rogers back on the mound with no damage done after he left his most recent outing with an injured toe. The Orioles’ ace should get two more starts this season as he puts a bow on his incredible bounceback campaign. His 1.43 ERA through his first 16 starts is an Orioles franchise record, and he’s amassed a team-leading 5.6 bWAR despite not debuting until the end of May. He’ll probably get some down-ballot AL Cy Young votes, even with 10-15 fewer starts than pitchers who have worked the whole season. What a stellar surprise Rogers has been in an otherwise forgettable O’s season. This will be his first time facing the Yankees since 2021, when he was a Marlin.
Warren, a rookie right-hander, has rebounded from his disastrous cup of coffee in 2024 — when he had a 10.32 ERA in six games — to hold down the fort as a steady if unremarkable starter this season. He’s not particularly good at any one aspect of pitching (there’s a whole lot of blue on his Baseball Savant page, which is bad) but as a back-end starter, you could do worse. Warren has faced the Orioles twice this season, with one quality outing and one lousy one.
Game 3: Saturday, 7:05 PM, MASN, MLB Network (out of market)
LHP Carlos Rodón (16-9, 3.11) vs. RHP Tomoyuki Sugano (10-8, 4.39)
Rodón, in the third season of a six-year, $162 million deal, has improved every year and could now be considered the Yankees’ ace, topping even Fried. No pitcher is harder to get a hit against — his 6.1 H/9 leads all qualified AL hurlers — and he averages barely over a baserunner per inning with a 1.069 WHIP. If he has one flaw, it’s his 3.5 BB/9 rate, but he’s facing an Orioles lineup that is not particularly good at taking walks, ranking 26th in that category. In his previous start against the Birds on April 29, Rodón held them to two runs in six innings in a 15-3 Yankees blowout.
Sugano continues to ride the roller coaster in his first MLB season. He held the Blue Jays to one run in six innings in his last outing, but he’d given up 14 runs in his previous three starts before that. Assuming he makes his final two starts as scheduled, he’ll finish his debut major league season with exactly 30. The NPB veteran has been a steady presence in the Birds’ rotation, and there’s plenty of value in that, even if this ends up being his only season with the Orioles (and possibly in Major League Baseball). Fitting of his season, Sugano’s two starts against the Yankees have spanned from the highest highs — a career-best eight strikeouts on April 28 — to the lowest lows (a 3.2-inning, 10-baserunner slog June 20).
Game 4: Sunday, 1:35 PM, MASN
RHP Cam Schlittler (3-3, 3.41) vs. RHP Kyle Bradish (1-1, 2.45)
Schlittler is more than just a guy whose name Yankee announcers are terrified to mispronounce. He’s also a flamethrower, averaging 98 mph on his four-seam fastball this season. The 2022 seventh-round pick has bolstered the Yankees’ rotation since arriving in the majors July 9, posting a 10.2 K/9 and a 120 ERA+ in 12 starts. He can get wild, averaging 4.3 walks per nine, and he issued five free passes in his last outing. The Orioles would be well served to lay off pitches out of the zone instead of chasing them, but I think we know what’s going to happen.
I’m almost afraid to talk about how well Bradish’s return has been going for fear of jinxing him, but you have to like what we’ve seen so far. He has yet to allow more than two runs in any of his four starts, and he’s already racked up 30 strikeouts. His velocity might not be all the way back to where it was before the Tommy John surgery, but it’s close, and he’s doing everything you could hope for to pencil him in atop the 2026 rotation. Let’s keep it going, Kyle.
