Trevor Rogers’ brutal spring performance shouldn’t alarm Orioles fans (yet)

In failing to acquire a true ace over the offseason, the Baltimore Orioles are putting a ton of pressure on Trevor Rogers' shoulders. Over his first two spring outings, it appeared that the gamble was warranted. Rogers had thrown five scoreless innings over his first two spring training starts, heading into a World Baseball Classic exhibition against the Netherlands. Everything was going according to plan.

But then, the worst happened. Rogers got rocked. The lefty surrendered six earned runs on six hits, a walk, and gave up two long balls over 2 1/3 innings. He threw a whopping 58 pitches. Is now the time to worry or panic? Not quite.

Trevor Rogers got rocked by the Netherlands, but there are mitigating factors for Orioles fans to consider

Reading the box score, it sounds like it was a terrible day for the 28-year-old on the mound. Worst of all, this wasn't one of the WBC powerhouses like the United States, Japan, or the Dominican Republic that smacked him around. The Netherlands certainly has some quality big leaguers on its roster, but Ceddanne Rafaela, Ozzie Albies, and Xander Bogaerts are the country's biggest stars. That's not quite Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, or Vladimir Guerrero Jr. like the top contenders have on their rosters.

Box scores don't provide context, though, and in this case, context is required. Rogers was let down multiple times by his defense, and if that hadn't happened, he would have escaped some of these situations unscathed.

"Rogers’ stuff was really good. He had to get more outs than he should have. Fastball was crisp, breaking ball in the strike zone. He looked great,” Craig Albernaz said, via Rich Dubroff of BaltimoreBaseball.com. The Orioles committed four errors in total during the contest, with three of them coming with Rogers on the mound.

"I told [pitching coach Drew] French when I came out, ‘I don’t care what the scoreboard says, I thought like I got some good work out there.’  One of the goals today was [to] work out of the stretch a little bit more, and I definitely did that a lot of that today. It was just one of those days where they were seeing everything,” Rogers said.

Sounds like Rogers might not have had his A+ stuff, but still probably did enough to get better results had his defense not let him down.

It's not time to panic, but this is something to take note of. Rogers looked like a dominant ace when he pitched last season, recording a 1.81 ERA over 109 2/3 innings. The problem is consistency. His 2024 campaign had a very different feel with a 4.92 mark over 124 1/3 frames.

Rogers has some extra motivation to show out in 2026. Being the de facto ace and putting up another stellar season will help him cash in big once he hits free agency at season's end. For the Orioles, the lack of a top-of-the-rotation addition, plus the failure to extend Rogers, creates a pathway that only leads to bad outcomes.

Even if Rogers is up for the challenge when he's on the mound, that's only half the battle. The southpaw missed time with a partial right knee dislocation last season, and his career has been marred by injuries that have prevented him from topping 133 innings pitched in any single season.

So, while one bad start with extenuating circumstances isn't enough to cause a panic, Rogers still has much to prove in order to justify the Orioles whiff on a true ace.