The Cincinnati Reds welcome the Baltimore Orioles to Great American Ball Park on Friday for a quick three-game set. The 7:10 PM ET series opener will feature southpaw Trevor Rogers on the bump for the O’s, while the Reds will roll out veteran righty Brady Singer.
It’s a matchup that’s somewhat emblematic of the two similarly disappointing teams. Baltimore, at 40-48, sits 13 games out in the American League East division and mired in 4th place, and this is after they had a brilliant run in 2023-2024
with a young core that was the envy of the entire sport. Since then, though, they’ve stalled (or outright regressed), their failures in free agency and trades paired with a litany of pitching injures/problems not able to return them to the top of the highly competitive division.
Trevor Rogers, in many ways, is a pretty good representation of that this season. Last year was his first full year with Baltimore after being acquired from Miami in 2024, and in 109.2 IP he pitched to a brilliant 1.81 ERA and 2.82 FIP to earn some mid-ballot Cy Young Award votes. This year, though, he owns a 4.99 ERA and 3.99 FIP through 79.1 IP, his K/9 down significantly while his H/9 is up over 60% from 2025.
That’s a similar story for Reds starter Brady Singer, really. His strikeouts are down, his hits allowed are way up, and the front-facing 5.12 ERA seems to be a pretty good representation of just how bad he’s been. He allowed 19 homers all last season (in 169.2 IP) and has already yielded 19 in just 77.1 IP in 2026.
Maybe, just maybe, the Reds have the chops to make a run from their current 40-46 position in the NL Central’s cellar. They’ll get Hunter Greene back this weekend, which is huge, and they did finally manage to slay the Milwaukee dragon for a day in their most recent game to prove that no, in fact there is not a tangible curse preventing them from ever beating a good team again.
We’ll find out tonight at GABP!
