Six of the O’s’ first 10 series are against teams projected to have a winning record, providing the perfect proving ground for an Orioles team facing adversity.
If you’re anything like me, then the remaining 2+ days between now and Opening Day can’t pass fast enough. While the luster of this Orioles team has faded somewhat thanks to offseason departures and a minor injury crisis, this is still a Baltimore squad with sky-high potential. Opening Day in Toronto is when the speculation begins to end and the play on the field starts to speak for itself.
The last two seasons, hot starts to the year laid the foundation that O’s ultimately turned into the first pair of consecutive playoff appearances in nearly 30 years. Across 2023 and 2024, Baltimore went 38-19 in March and April. In 2023, that fast start kept them within striking distance of a scorching hot Rays team. Last year, the O’s found themselves a game ahead of the Yankees in first place.
In both seasons, a hot offense is what powered Baltimore to their highly successful opening months. In 2023, they got out of the gates with 34 HRs in the first month—the most homers they hit in any month that season. Last year, the Orioles launched 45 HRs and posted a .762 OPS, both the second-best marks of any month in 2024. After the offense fell asleep during the last two months of last season, Birdland will hope 2025’s team can erase those memories with early offensive eruptions.
However, given the Orioles’ opening slate of games across their first month, a hot start will be tough to come by. Baltimore plays three of their four AL East rivals in their first 10 series, including two sets against the Blue Jays. They’ll play road series against 2024 playoff teams in the Royals and Tigers, as well as a visit to Corbin Burnes’ new team in Arizona. Of the nine teams they’ll face in the opening month, FanDuel projects only the Jays, Nationals and Reds to finish the season below .500.
However, the could be an upside to stress testing this Orioles team early into the season. The offense is expected to be good—perhaps even better than last season’s team that finished fourth in runs/game and second in total home runs. Across the first 10 series, this newly fine-tuned lineup will be put to the test against All-Stars, a reigning Cy Young winner and some of the newest star pitching additions in the AL East. How the Orioles’ established stars, rising talents and newcomers fare in these early marquee matchups should tell us if this offense has a chance to be elite, or just pretty good.
What Birdland will surely be more anxious about—in both the positive and negative sense of the word—is seeing how the somewhat makeshift starting rotation fares in these early clashes. As we recently highlighted, this is a rotation with experience and depth, but its overall quality is up for debate. In the Diamondbacks, Yankees and Red Sox, Baltimore will face three of the top 10 run producers from last season. The O’s will face off against rising star Bobby Witt Jr. when they head to KC for a playoff rematch. They’ll also get two cracks at Vladimir Guerrero Jr. as he heads into a contract season in Toronto.
Several key matchups should define this opening month as the O’s look to remain hot in March and April.
Pitcher matchups to watch:
LHP Garrett Crochet, BOS (in Baltimore, 3/31-4/3), LHP Cole Ragans, KC (in Kansas City, 4/4-4/6), LHP Tarik Skubal, DET (in Detroit, 4/25-4/27) LHP Max Fried, NYY (in Baltimore, 4/28-4/30)
It’s not a coincidence that all the most telling pitching matchups in the early season are against left-handed starters. The Orioles were one of the best teams in baseball last year at hitting lefties, leading the American League in slugging percentage and wRC+ against southpaws. The additions of Tyler O’Neill and Gary Sánchez should only make the O’s lineup more potent against lefties. O’Neill led baseball last year with an absurd .750 slugging percentage off lefties and Sánchez has a career .476 slugging percentage against southpaws.
The matchup with Ragans will be a chance at revenge. Ragans dominated the Orioles twice last year in Baltimore, pitching 6.1 scoreless in April before coming back with six more scoreless innings in October. In both outings, the rising Royals ace befuddled the Orioles with his changeup, so Baltimore’s new-look lineup will have to show patience and attack Ragans’ fastball when given the chance.
Against Skubal, the Orioles don’t have any bad memories as they didn’t face the reigning Cy Young winner in 2024. The best left-hander in the American League hasn’t faced Baltimore since May of 2022, when he punched out 11 Orioles over six shutout innings. Facing Skubal in Comerica Park—where the Orioles are 6-8 over the last four seasons—is about as big of a test as this lefty-mashing lineup can get.
Finally, facing off against Crochet and Fried will give the Orioles a chance to rudely welcome the Red Sox and Yankees’ marquee pitching additions to the AL East. At one point, Crochet and Fried were both rumored to be Orioles trade/free agent targets—Crochet at last season’s trade deadline and Fried this winter. Instead, the O’s will get to test Camden Yards’ new left field dimensions against two of the AL East’s best southpaws.
(Worth noting: as the Diamondbacks rotation currently sets up, the Orioles will not face Corbin Burnes when they head to the desert 4/7-4/9.)
Hitter matchups to watch:
Charlie Morton vs. Anthony Santander (3/27-3/30 & 4/11-4/13), Tomoyuki Sugano vs. Elly De La Cruz (4/18-4/20), Cade Povich vs. Aaron Judge (4/28-4/30)
While we don’t know exactly how good Morton will be in black and orange, we know he’s going to throw a lot of curveballs. His reliance on his breaking ball makes for an interesting matchup against the former Oriole, Mr. Tony Taters himself. Santander was one of the best power hitters in baseball on curveballs last season, slugging .558 off opposing pitcher’s curves with a 41.5 % hard-hit rate. The truth is, too, that every Santander vs. the Orioles at-bat will be both exciting and confusing for O’s fans early on. They’ll all be a mixture of wanting the club’s long-time slugger to do well with his new team, while also hoping he doesn’t do too well and cost Baltimore some games.
For Sugano, every start will be a chance for O’s fans to get to know him better and for him to prove he can be effective against MLB’s best hitters. The former NPB MVP’s pitching approach is built on working his sinker/two-seamer to both sides of the plate and building his secondary pitches off of that. De La Cruz is not only one of the NL’s most electric rising stars but also excels at hitting sinkers. He was third in baseball last year with a .774 slugging percentage against sinkers and should provide the perfect “prove yourself” matchup for the 35-year-old rookie pitcher.
Just how good Orioles pitchers are is often defined by their ability to get the two-time AL MVP out, but that’ll especially be true for Povich in 2025. In the only game he faced Judge last year, Povich gave up a solo HR to the Yankees slugger on a hanging curveball. With his improved changeup, Povich shouldn’t have to throw as many breaking balls to hitters like Judge. However, Judge also excelled at hitting changes last year, finishing 6th in all of baseball with a .625 slugging percentage off opponent’s cambios. If Povich is going to prove he can get good right-handed hitters out, he needs to prove he can throw them his changeup and Judge will be his most telling test.