The Orioles dominated from start to finish in a 12-2 victory.
Look, I don’t want to get too carried away after the Orioles have played 0.6% of their 2025 season or anything, but here’s the deal. You need to start saving up for those World Series tickets now. Figure it out. You’ve got six months and change, and you’re definitely going to need them because the O’s who showed up and demolished the Blue Jays, 12-2, on Opening Day, are surely going all the way.
After an offseason where nearly every fan in Birdland was consumed by questions like, “What if Adley Rutschman doesn’t bounce back?” and “What if the Orioles really needed to do more about the starting rotation?” you could hardly have scripted a better first game than this one. The Orioles set a new club record for home runs hit on Opening Day by hitting six homers. The old record was four.
Anthony Santander, who led the Orioles in homers a year ago, is now on the other team, and Gunnar Henderson, the runner-up, is on the injured list. That didn’t matter. Six dingers. Santander took an 0-4 against his former team.
Rutschman has been an Opening Day star in the two previous times he’s gotten to play. He kept that going in his very first at-bat of 2025. If you were like me and you were asking that question about Rutschman, he answered your doubt with a thunderous reply. Blue Jays starter José Berríos threw a pitch and Rutschman went off on it, blasting the ball an estimated 436 feet.
The traditional Orioles bullpen catch the ball was thrown off on account of the ball landing beyond the bullpen. Rutschman went far beyond it. This was, according to Statcast, the third-longest homer of Rutschman’s career to date. Rutschman later hit what was to me an even more impressive-looking homer (though Statcast claimed it was 21 feet shorter) in the eighth inning. These were two of the three hits for Rutschman on the day.
Home runs into or over the Orioles bullpen in right field proved to be the theme of the day for the offense. Canadian native Tyler O’Neill brought three runs across the plate at once with a third inning homer. This was notable for O’Neill because he’d homered in each of the past five Opening Days, an MLB record he held all to himself. Make it six in a row. That’s still a record and now it’s even tougher to break. O’Neill had three hits as well.
This would be a strong tally right there and there were still three more home runs than this. Cedric Mullins, meme-deemed inescapable one, planted a pair of home runs into the O’s bullpen: A solo home run in the fourth inning and a three-run shot in the seventh that put the game well and truly out of reach. Mullins also joined the three-hit club for the day. Just for fun, Jordan Westburg also homered in the eighth and his finally went towards left-center field instead.
Every Oriole in the starting lineup got on base at least one time. Seven of the nine batters had at least one hit. Mullins, for the time being, leads all MLB batters with five runs batted in. He and Rutschman are the only two players with multiple home runs as of this writing.
All of this was overkill because Orioles #1 starter Zach Eflin was very good. Eflin chewed through six innings on only 78 pitches and allowed just three Jays baserunners in this time. If you’re really looking to nitpick, Eflin only struck out two guys, so it was quiet dominance rather than highlight-reel stuff. If it wasn’t for wanting to keep some relievers loose, Eflin surely could have gone into the seventh.
The only thing that went wrong for Eflin is that, after he walked Vladimir Guerrero Jr., he gave up a homer to Jays second baseman Andrés Giménez. Even this didn’t make the game all that tense, because it took what was a 6-0 Orioles lead and made it 6-2. The Jays never got any closer than that because they never scored again.
It’s nice that the Orioles offense did so well because there was absolutely no sweat later in the game when Seranthony Domínguez and Keegan Akin each had some traffic on the bases. Don’t dwell on this too much. The Orioles kicked some butts today, and also neither one of those guys even allowed a run.
Bryan Baker pitched the ninth and he had a 1-2-3 inning, in part thanks to a strong, on-target throw and tag by late-inning replacements Heston Kjerstad from right field to Jorge Mateo at second base to nab Jays catcher Alejandro Kirk as he tried to stretch out a double. This was not ultimately all that relevant to the game, but there are people who sleep on Kjerstad’s defense and also I’m not nice about Baker when he sucks, so, I should mention when he doesn’t.
Since the Orioles are playing in a domed stadium, they will not be following Opening Day with a day off tomorrow. The O’s and Jays will be right back at it for a 7:07 start time. Note that the game will air on Apple TV+ only so you can’t watch if you don’t have that. It will still be on the radio as normal. Charlie Morton is set to start for the Orioles, with former Oriole Kevin Gausman on the mound for Toronto.
Good luck to the University of Maryland men’s basketball team tonight.