The Orioles Lost Matchup: Diamondbacks Manager Reveals Why Former Ace Won’t Face Off
The Baltimore Orioles are going to be doing a lot of traveling at the start of the 2025 regular season.
They will begin the campaign on the road for four games against the Toronto Blue Jays, wasting no time in facing off against their former All-Star right fielder, Anthony Santander.
He departed in free agency, agreeing to a five-year, $92.5 million deal with their American League East rivals. Coming off a career-high 44 home runs and 102 RBI, Santander will be motivated to play against his former team.
After the series with the Blue Jays, the Orioles will return home for the first time, hosting another AL East rival, the Boston Red Sox, for three games.
Another road trip follows as they will play three games against the Kansas City Royals before heading out west to face off against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
That happens to be where their second All-Star departure of the offseason, starting pitcher Corbin Burnes, landed.
He agreed to a six-year, $210 million deal to land with the National League West contenders, creating a huge void in the Baltimore starting rotation.
However, the Orioles will not be facing off with their former ace during that series.
Diamondbacks manager Torey Luvullo spoke to the media on Sunday and revealed that it was a scheduling that will lead to Burnes not making his Arizona debut until the fifth game of the season against the New York Yankees on Apr. 1.
His second start would come against the Washington Nationals on Apr. 6 with Baltimore set to make their lone trip out to the desert from Apr. 7-9.
Things could always change between now and then, but for the time being, Burnes will miss facing his old team this time around.
That certainly would have made for a major early season headline facing off against his former team, but it wasn’t meant to be. Without another series scheduled for the regular season, the only time the Orioles and Arizona would meet up would be in a World Series matchup.
Last season, Burnes went 15-9 across 32 starts for Baltimore. He had a 2.92 ERA in 194.1 innings with 181 strikeouts.
It was the first time that he didn’t reach the 200-strikeout plateau since becoming a full-time starter in 2021, but it didn’t slow him down from anchoring the staff and producing at a high level.
The Orioles are going to have a hard time replacing what Burnes brought to the table as their ace.
