Baltimore Orioles Star Shockingly Receiving Support for All-MLB Team

There isn’t a team in baseball that has been as disappointing as the Baltimore Orioles through the first month of the 2025 MLB regular season.

With legitimate World Series aspirations, the team has gotten off to a woeful start. They are in last place of the American League East with a 12-18 record and only the Chicago White Sox and Colorado Rockies have fewer wins than them currently.

There are a multitude of reasons for their lack of success on the field to this point, with the biggest contributor in many people’s opinions being their starting pitching.

Outside of Tomoyuki Sugano, the team is receiving nothing from their rotation with Zach Eflin sidelined. Charlie Morton has already been moved to the bullpen and Kyle Gibson got lit up by the New York Yankees in his season debut.

There is no way around it; the pitching has been abysmal.

But the lineup hasn’t been much better over the first month.

The Orioles have been painfully inconsistent at the plate with several players not coming close to meeting expectations.

One of those players has been catcher Adley Rutschman.

A brutal second half in 2024 has been carried over into 2025, where he had a .222/.330/.364 slash line through April with four home runs and two doubles. 

He hit two home runs on Opening Day, setting the stage for what looked to be a bounce-back, but the power stroke has disappeared.

There are some concerning signs defensively with a -2 Fielding Run Value. He has been well below average in Blocks Above Average, Caught Stealing Above Average and Framing, per Baseball Savant.

Despite the slow start, there are still some MLB experts who believe that he is one of the best catchers in the game and will turn things around sooner rather than later.

Over at MLB.com, Jason Foster shared predictions for the All-MLB Teams through the first month. Rutschman surprisingly received votes, just being beaten out by Cal Raleigh of the Seattle Mariners on the First Team and William Contreras of the Milwaukee Brewers for the Second Team.

They could certainly be forecasting improvement in his performance based solely off his track record and what he has done previously.

However, there are some advanced stats that hint toward a legitimate breakthrough occurring in the near future.

Rutschman has elite squared up, chase and whiff percentages. His xwOBA, xBA and xSLG are also well above average, which means he could have run into some bad luck throughout April.

Baltimore certainly hopes that is the case, since they need their star catcher to get on track to help set the tone for the rest of his teammates, who are also struggling.