One Oriole will be trying to extend his own record Opening Day home run streak.
There were 122 games last year where at least one Orioles player hit a home run. In these games, the Orioles went 77-45. When they did not hit a home run, they went just 14-26. Similar stories play out all over MLB in recent years, especially in the postseason. The best thing that you can do to win is hit homers.
This being the case, the fact that the Orioles leading home run hitter from a year ago, Anthony Santander, is now on their Opening Day opponent the Blue Jays, could be bad. Same with Gunnar Henderson, the #2 home run hitter a year ago, starting on the injured list. The next-highest 2024 home run total among returning Orioles belongs to Colton Cowser, with 24.
The Orioles did at least attempt to deal with this over the offseason with their signing of Tyler O’Neill to take Santander’s place in the lineup a lot of the time. O’Neill has some interesting Opening Day history working for him. He’s homered in five straight Opening Days going back to 2020, an MLB record.
After homering 31 times in just 113 games last year, can O’Neill extend his own record and make it six straight Opening Days with a home run? There is an extra appealing aspect to this narrative, because this will be the first career Opening Day in Canada for the Canadian native O’Neill. That extra motivation could be the kind of thing to get him locked in today. Unless, you know, it’s not.
It could be the former Oriole Santander who benefits from that motivation, though at least in his career to date, Rogers Centre isn’t one of his favorite parks, with six home runs hit in 27 games and just a .673 OPS overall. He homered for the Orioles on Opening Day a year ago, along with Cedric Mullins, in an 11-3 win.
Jays starting pitcher Jose Berríos has been a homer-heavy pitcher over the last three seasons. He’s started 32 games a year, so that’s part of it, but still: 85 home runs allowed is a lot. He is, on average, likely to surrender a home run today. Zach Eflin allowed eight home runs in nine Orioles starts a year ago.
Perhaps past history with Adley Rutschman (3 HR in 24 PA) or Ryan Mountcastle (2 HR in 25 PA) when facing Berríos will be positives for those batters. Mountcastle has been a notorious Jays killer in his career, with 18 homers in 65 games against the Jays, including 8 in 29 games at Rogers Centre. Or perhaps lefties in the lineup, like Colton Cowser, Mullins, and Ryan O’Hearn, will benefit against a righty pitcher who, as you might expect, gives up more of his homers to lefties.
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