Orioles' ace leaves game with injury; will he make next start?

According to Rogers, he had been dealing with a blood blister in his left big toe over the course of his breakout season, although it hadn't affected his performance on the mound until Friday.

“I didn't really have any issues with it prior [to tonight's game],” Rogers said to reporters. “I had been wearing a little protective bandage over it... it kind of flared up on me. Just was really hard to put pressure on the foot. In the past, it’s gone away. For whatever reason, it just lingered, and my command suffered because of it, just compensating on that.”

Fortunately for the Orioles, it appears that the toe issue is still manageable and will not require an IL stint. In fact, both Rogers and Baltimore interim manager Tony Mansolino anticipate that the lefty will be available for his next scheduled start; the latter stated that if the game had anything at stake, then Rogers would have stayed for another inning.

How Trevor Rogers brings stability to a battered rotation

It can't be understated how great the 27-year-old has been this year, as he's the stable component of an Orioles rotation that dealt with poor performance early in the season and has been ravaged by injuries lately. Rogers lowered his ERA to 1.43 through 16 starts and 100.2 innings pitched; he would be leading the majors in ERA had he thrown enough innings to qualify (Rogers didn't make his season debut until May 14 and permanently joined the rotation on June 18).

Over the course of the year, Rogers has pitched at least five innings in all but one start, and has yet to allow more than three runs. He was especially dominant in August, being selected as the American League's Pitcher of the Month after logging 42 innings across six starts and registering a 1.29 ERA, 0.86 WHIP, and 41 strikeouts against only six walks.

In sharp contrast, Baltimore's starting rotation has a 4.70 ERA, the seventh-worst in all of baseball. Even with Rogers' dominance and the recent returns of Kyle Bradish and Tyler Wells, this has been tempered by not only poor performances elsewhere, but from injuries to Tomoyuki Sugano (right foot), Dean Kremer (right forearm soreness), Zach Eflin (back), and Grayson Rodriguez (elbow); the latter two are out for the season, while Rodriguez didn't throw a single pitch in the big leagues all year.

With Rogers seemingly okay, he should be in line to make two more starts as the Orioles look to move on from a nightmare 2025 campaign.