It’s Kyle night in Toronto! Stowers makes his big league debut in left field while Bradish looks to build on two solid starts in a row.
Two months into the season and the Orioles are finally playing the division rival Blue Jays. It is a scheduling oddity that arose from the labor dispute that delayed the season by about two weeks. Originally, these two teams were supposed to open the season against one another at Camden Yards. Instead, they meet for the first time here and then don’t see each other again until August, at which point they will play every two weeks through the end of the season. I predict we will be very sick of the Blue Jays by October.
As this is the Orioles first trip to Toronto since COVID vaccine restrictions have been put into place, there are some notable roster moves ahead of this game.
As expected, both Anthony Santander and Keegan Akin have not made the trip to Canada, confirming that neither is vaccinated against COVID-19. They will not be able to play any games in Toronto for the foreseeable future.
The positive side of this is that Kyle Stowers and Rico Garcia are now on the active roster. Stowers will be making his major league debut. Garcia, whenever he pitches, will be making his first big league appearance since 2020, when he appeared in 12 games for the Giants.
Although it has been speculated for about 24 hours now that Stowers would be debuting here, it sort of came out of the blue before that. The Orioles have a solid outfield setup, but with Santander ineligible there were innings available. Rather than limp through with Ryan McKenna the team is going to see what Stowers can do. It’s exciting!
For more info on what to expect from Stowers, you can check out my analysis piece from earlier today.
Orioles Starting Lineup
- Cedric Mullins, CF
- Trey Mancini, DH
- Austin Hays, RF
- Rougned Odor, 2B
- Ryan Mountcastle, 1B
- Adley Rutschman, C
- Tyler Nevin, 3B
- Kyle Stowers, LF
- Jorge Mateo, SS
Kyle Bradish, RHP (1-3, 6.45 ERA)
Blue Jays Starting Lineup
- George Spring, CF
- Bo Bichette, SS
- Vladimir Guerrero Jr., 1B
- Alejandro Kirk, C
- Teoscar Hernández, RF
- Santiago Espinal, 3B
- Lourdes Gurriel Jr., DH
- Raimel Tapia, LF
- Cavan Biggio, LF
Alek Manoah, RHP (7-1, 1.81 ERA)