A month after the Orioles shipped their franchise catcher to Boston at the deadline, Adley Rutschman walked back into Camden Yards wearing red and white instead of orange and black. The reception wasn't hostile. Orioles fans stood and cheered for the guy who caught for them since 2022, and by the sound of it, they meant it.
Adley Rutschman gets a standing ovation from Orioles fans in his return to Camden Yards, and then goes deep in his first at-bat against his old squad!
According to Ian Browne, Orioles catcher Carlos Narvaez actually stepped out of the box to give the crowd extra time to cheer, and Rutschman tipped his helmet before stepping in. Then he turned on a pitch and sent it out to right. One fan can be heard yelling "We love you, Adley" moments before he did it. It's the kind of moment that doesn't happen for most guys who get traded a month into a lost season, but Rutschman spent parts of 5 seasons as the face of a rebuild that actually worked, and it showed.
He wasn't done. Rutschman went deep again later in the game, becoming just the 2nd player since at least 1900 to change teams and homer multiple times in his first game back against his former club in the same season, per Elias — joining former Blue Jay Willis Otanez, who did it against the Orioles back on July 8, 1999.
Adley Rutschman has TWO homers in his return to Camden Yards!
Rutschman wasn't the only new Oriole-turned-Red Sox making noise. Luis Robert Jr., who came over in a separate deal, hit his first home run as an Oriole earlier in his own return arc — wait, backwards: it was Robert going deep for Boston against Baltimore, going back-to-back with Pete Alonso. The Red Sox got 4 homers total on the night, a big number for a team that had dropped 6 of its last 8 heading in.
Luis Robert Jr.'s first homer as an Oriole! (Via: @Orioles)
Baltimore didn't just sit there and take it. Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Eli White each had hits to tie the game, per Browne, before Nick Sogard put Boston back ahead for good with a go-ahead shot in the eighth — his 2nd home run of the game and the first non-Rutschman homer of the night for the Sox.
Nick Sogard comes up CLUTCH for the Red Sox! (Via: @MLBONFOX)
The final was 6-3, Red Sox, and it capped a night that mattered for more than just the standings. Rutschman was still on the injured list with a wrist issue when Boston acquired him at the August 3 deadline in a deal that sent a package headlined by pitching prospect Anthony Eyanson back to Baltimore, and he didn't make his Red Sox debut until August 13. He's since dealt with a hyperextended elbow, too, so a two-homer night in his first trip back to the building where he became a star is as good a sign as any that he's finally settled in — and a rough one for the organization that spent years building around him.