The Orioles and Red Sox played to a 6-6 spring tie. What really matters is the Mountain is back.
There’s nothing that matters so much in spring training as having everyone either stay healthy or get healthy. Monday afternoon’s otherwise-meaningless spring training game tie between the Orioles and the Red Sox had one of these key markers in Birdland. The game marked Félix Bautista’s first time in any kind of game action since his 2023 Tommy John surgery.
Bautista came in for the fifth inning after each of Charlie Morton and Tomoyuki Sugano pitched two scoreless innings. Yes, the fact that Bautista went three-up, three-down means less since he was facing the bottom of a road spring scrub lineup, but still: He got all three batters out, looked good doing it, and it seemed like his arm was fine. That’s what really matters.
On Twitter, The Baltimore Sun’s Matt Weyrich tracked Bautista’s velocity. He was hitting 96-97mph on his fastball and mostly 86-87 on the splitter. After his outing, Bautista told reporters that he expects to be back to 99-100 by the time Opening Day rolls around.
Before the game, manager Brandon Hyde said that he’s going to be careful with Bautista, particularly looking to avoid multi-inning outings and pitching on back-to-back days. That will be a challenge for the bullpen to overcome, but not as much of a challenge as not having Bautista at all.
After his inning, the MASN cameras caught Bautista in the dugout looking emotional about getting back on the mound. “(My first outing is) something I thought about every day,” he said through an interpreter. Bautista even got an Adley Rutschman hug as he finished his inning. They’re still fun.
As for the game itself: The Orioles built a 5-0 lead over the first five innings of the game. Their offense was delivering against the Red Sox even as Morton, Sugano, and Bautista combined to pitch five shutout innings. Rutschman opened the scoring with a first inning home run. With Rutschman OPSing just .631 when batting as a lefty last year, seeing him turn and burn was satisfying, even if it, too, is meaningless.
Heston Kjerstad also had a game of note at the plate, getting on base twice and scoring two runs. During the broadcast, Mike Elias said that he’s looking forward to seeing Kjerstad get a lot of at-bats in the outfield and at designated hitter this season.
The five-run cushion shrunk substantially in the seventh inning. Waiver wire fodder Roansy Contreras, who is out of minor league options, gave up four runs over an inning of work. That’s largely because of giving up two home runs. The Orioles picked up one more run in the bottom of the inning to make it 6-4, then reliever Yaqui Rivera surrendered another pair of runs. That set up the final 6-6 score.
Prior to the game, Hyde delivered some updates on other injured Orioles. Jordan Westburg, who’s been out for several days while dealing with a back issue, could be back on Wednesday. Hyde also said that Gunnar Henderson has “turned the corner” with the soreness in his right side. Hopefully the next update about each of these guys following tomorrow’s day off will be positive as well.