Baltimore's season keeps getting interrupted by the same guy for different reasons. The Orioles placed Adley Rutschman on the 10-day IL with inflammation in his left wrist, and it's not even close to his first trip there this year. He already missed time with a left ankle injury back in April, then a scary concussion in June after getting hit in the helmet by a throw. Now it's the wrist. Three separate IL stints for the same catcher in one season is brutal, and it's hard to build any consistency behind the plate when your best player keeps disappearing.
MLB Trade Rumors broke the corresponding roster moves that came with Rutschman's latest trip to the IL.
The corresponding move is almost a footnote next to the Rutschman news, but it's still a story of its own. Rudy Martin Jr. got designated for assignment to clear a 40-man spot, and the wild part is he never even suited up for the Orioles at the big-league level. Baltimore had acquired Martin from the Royals after he exercised an upward mobility clause buried in his minor league deal — Kansas City basically chose to trade him rather than add him to their own roster. He was raking at Triple-A Omaha before the move, but he's out the door in Baltimore without ever getting a call-up.
In his place, the Orioles selected catcher Chadwick Tromp's contract from Triple-A Norfolk, giving Baltimore three catchers on the active roster between Tromp, Samuel Basallo and Sam Huff. That's the silver lining here — the Orioles aren't scrambling for bodies behind the plate, they've got depth. But depth isn't the same as Rutschman, who's hitting .251/.331/.433 with 8 home runs in 67 games this season when healthy enough to play.
That batting line isn't vintage Rutschman, and part of that is almost certainly the toll of getting banged up over and over. He's a switch-hitting Gold Glove-caliber backstop who's been the face of the Orioles' rebuild since he debuted, and every time he goes down it's a gut punch for a lineup that's leaned on him to set the tone. For a team trying to hang around a playoff race, losing your everyday catcher for a third stretch of the year is the kind of thing that quietly sinks a season more than any single loss does.
For fantasy managers, this one stings too — Rutschman's stock has been in freefall all year thanks to the injury bug, and another IL stint right as the stretch run heats up is about as bad a look as it gets. The question now is whether this is a quick 10-day fix or another lingering issue that drags on. Given the pattern this season, nobody in Baltimore is holding their breath for a clean bill of health.