Orioles’ Fate Hangs in the Balance: All-Star Catcher’s Performance Under Scrutiny, as Baltimore’s Season Rides on His Every Swing and Throw!

With the start of the 2025 campaign nearly here for the Baltimore Orioles, the team is hoping to continue on the path that the franchise is on.

For the past two seasons, there hasn’t been a team in the American League that has won as many games as the Orioles. That is an impressive feat, but it also hasn’t resulted in postseason success.

Last year, Baltimore was looking like the team to beat in the American League in the first half of the season. However, the team really struggled both offensively and their pitching staff also saw a decline in production.

This resulted in the Orioles limping into the playoffs as the first Wild Card team. Despite having home field advantage, the team lost to the Kansas City Royals in two games.

Despite having a deep and talented lineup, Baltimore saw one of their stars really struggle for pretty much the entire second half of the year.

Jeff Passan of ESPN.com  recently spoke about the 2025 campaign possibly hinging on the success or failures of All-Star catcher, Adley Rutschman.

“Certainly there is nothing wrong with ceding the best-player-on-the-team title to Gunnar Henderson, but Rutschman flatlining — he hit .207/.282/.303 in 234 plate appearances after the All-Star break — was alarming.”

For the past several years, the All-Star catcher has been one of the best in the league for Baltimore. The former first overall pick in the 2019 MLB draft has lived up to the hype so far with two All-Star appearances and a silver slugger so far in his young career.

However, in 2024, there was a bit of a dip in production at the plate. While the 27-year-old slashed .250/.318/.391 with 19 home runs and 79 RBI overall, the numbers in the second half of the year were alarmingly poor.

For a player the caliber of Rutschman, batting around the Mendoza line and having an on-base percentage under .300 was shocking to see.

While everyone was waiting for him to burst out of his slump at some point last year, it simply just never happened.

Even though it is strange to say, the franchise should have some concerns about him going into the campaign.

The talented catcher struggling for such a long period of time is something that he will have to prove early on in 2025 was just a fluke and possibly injury-related.

If he gets off to a slow start this coming year, the Orioles’ offense could struggle like it did down the stretch. While Gunnar Henderson is an emerging superstar, he still needs help in the lineup, and the team will be relying on Rutschman to bounce back.