Adley Rutschman revives memories of the most forgotten stretch of his Orioles career

After being counted out following a season spent battling multiple oblique injuries, Adley Rutschman has returned with a vengeance. Despite dealing with an ankle injury, Rutschman finished the month of April slashing .356/.406/.661 punctuating his first month of the season with a grand slam. This comes as a great relief to Orioles fans because, since Rutschman joined the major league team, the Orioles' success has been closely tied to his own, so with him swinging a hot bat, it feels like only a matter of time before the Orioles rise out of the fat middle of the standings.

Rutschman's slashline is a bit inflated by a recent power surge, and over the course of the season, that slugging percentage will gently slide back to Rutschman's career numbers, but the high batting average and high on-base percentage have always felt like something that Rutschman could sustain.

Adley Rutschman is reminding Orioles fans who he was before all the injuries

When people think of "prime Adley Rutschman," they are usually referring to his first two seasons, which are his best by WAR and most other stats. He was very consistent over those first two seasons; in both years, his OPS was over .800, he was near the top of the league in K/BB% and doubles. He was widely considered the best catcher in the league.

Most people remember that. What gets forgotten because of how Rutschman has struggled the last couple of years is that he was an ascending player. He was getting better. Again, because of where the stat line ended up, 2024 is thought of as a "bad season" for Rutschman, but it didn't start that way.

From 2022 to 2023, Rutschman had gone from slashing from .254/.362/.445 to .277/.374/.435, which, with the exception of the slugging, was an all-around improvement. Through about 350 PAs in 2024, it looked like he'd taken the next natural step towards his peak form and was slashing .300/.350/479, which, with apologies to OBP, is a better hitter. That was who Rutschman was supposed to be when the Orioles drafted him first overall, and with those stats, Rutschman was the obvious best catcher in baseball.

If Rutschman had had a season-ending injury right then, the bad 2025 season would have rolled off his back as an anomaly. Instead, Rutschman dealt with a host of minor injuries that he tried to play through very unsuccessfully, slashing .189/.279.280 in the second half of the season, which is maybe the most injured player slashline of all time.

Now that Rutschman is healthy for the first time in a year and a half, he's picked up where he left off in that forgotten first half of the 2024 season, and he's back on the trajectory that he'd been on his whole career. As long as he stays healthy, he is going to put up a classic five-WAR Adley Rutschman season and make the people who were trying to have him traded for Alex Bohm or a gaggle of unknown prospects look very silly.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow