The Orioles hit so many home runs last night that they put up a message on the video board that there were no more fireworks to be had. This turned out to not be the case in the most literal sense, as the small little post-victory burst of fireworks still went off. It was fun, though. Their challenge for today: Do something almost as fun.
Due to expected rain later in the day, what had been scheduled for a 4:05 start was moved up, with the agreement of both teams and the league, to this 12:05 start time. It’s an early start for an MLB game. If that’s a disruption to anybody’s routine, hopefully it throws off the Red Sox more than the Orioles.
Also hopefully the shift in the start time doesn’t cause any problems for people who were hoping to get their hands on the Orioles hockey jersey giveaway, which seems to be one of the more desired ones on the list in the 2026 season. It looks like a neat one and unique compared to the usual array of shirts and hats with maybe a hoodie mixed in.
This is a reeling Red Sox team. We got to see some of why in last night’s game. The list of the struggling players includes today’s Boston starter, Garrett Crochet. He’s rocking a 7.88 ERA across his first five starts. As this is only year 1 of a five-year, $170 million contract for Crochet, I dare not hope that he will continue to be so bad. The batted ball luck has not been on his side, with a .368 BABIP allowed. That’s likely to come down. He’s still been getting elite numbers of strikeouts.
A win here would put the Orioles back above .500. The 2025 Orioles were never above .500 again after having a 3-2 record through their first five games. At times, this year’s team has felt eerily familiar to last year’s. Other times, they have shown they might be better able to weather their early problems and avoid the collapse that removes any possibility of something good happening later.
Orioles lineup
This is an “OK, we’re facing a lefty today” lineup that upsets me a lot less than some of the ones we’ve seen recently, because the only totally out of position guy is Alexander in left field. Hopefully it works out.
The Orioles are sending their own lefty the mound in the form of Trevor Rogers. So far in 2026, he’s not making like it’s 2025 again. I’ve said before and will say again that he was never going to carry a sub-2 ERA over a full season this year. Hopefully he can pitch well enough today to start lowering himself towards a 3.25 or so. If he can hold around there, I think the Orioles would be happy with that.
Red Sox lineup
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Isiah Kiner-Falefa – 2B
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