It’s a Rangers-heavy kind of week on the Orioles’ schedule. Five days after the two teams wrapped up a three-game series at Camden Yards, they square off for three more, this time in Arlington. And each team will face a rematch against a pitcher who dominated them in the previous series.
The Rangers got the upper hand in the first matchup, battling back to win the final two games after the O’s shut them out in the opener. But Texas hasn’t been able to string together any kind of sustained success this year. They enter this series two games under .500 and in fourth place in the AL West, trailing even the Angels. It’s a continuation of the Rangers’ underperformance from last season after winning their first World Series in 2023.
Part of the Rangers’ problem is that they simply can’t hit. Their .227 average, .294 OBP, and .364 SLG all are second-worst in the American League, better only than the lowly White Sox. For a team with a lot of big-name hitters — Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, Adolis García — it’s a surprisingly punchless group. Semien and García have both struggled at the plate, as have former All-Star Jonah Heim and new acquisition Jake Burger. Veteran DH Joc Pederson has been horrendous in his first year with the Rangers, batting .131 with a .507 OPS, and is now hurt. The Rangers have had a particularly hard time hitting at their home park, Globe Life Field, and nobody really knows why.
The flip side is that Rangers pitchers are benefitting from the low-scoring home digs. Texas has the best ERA in the AL at 3.24, as well as the best WHIP (1.14). Their starting rotation is led by three veterans who currently have a 161 ERA+ of better: two-time Cy Young winner Jacob deGrom and two-time All-Star Nathan Eovaldi — both of whom the Orioles will face in this series — and righty Tyler Mahle, currently on the IL. Their bullpen is solid enough and was particularly sharp against the Orioles last week, holding the Birds to one run in nine innings — with the exception of Chris Martin, who gave up homers to all three batters he faced. He shouldn’t have quit his day job with Coldplay.
If the ballpark plays out like it has for most of the year, expect a low-scoring series. Can the Orioles find a way to manufacture some runs against some very tough pitchers?
Game 1: Monday, 8:05 PM, MASN
LHP Trevor Rogers (1-0, 1.62) vs. LHP Patrick Corbin
Tired: The Trevor Rogers trade is the Orioles’ worst since Glenn Davis.
Wired: The Trevor Rogers trade is the Orioles’ best since Frank Robinson.
All right, let’s not go that far just yet. But Rogers has definitely improved his standing in the minds of Orioles fans after delivering a masterpiece against these Rangers in his last outing, his second scoreless performance in three starts this year. Rogers blanked Texas for eight innings, the longest scoreless outing by an O’s pitcher since 2023, while allowing just three hits and not walking a batter. He’s certainly earned an extended tryout in the O’s rotation. Will the Rangers have a better game plan for Rogers this time around, or can he keep the good times rolling?
Rogers will face the same opponent as last week, Corbin, who had been pitching pretty well until the Orioles got ahold of him. They tagged him for five runs, the first time all year he’d given up that many. So far Corbin has fared better for Texas than in his last four years with the Nationals, when he had a cumulative 5.71 ERA. He hasn’t pitched particularly deep into games, though. In his last seven starts, only once has he worked more than 5.1 innings. The Orioles’ offense has struggled against lefties, but this is their best opportunity of the series to score some runs against a Rangers starting pitcher.
Game 2: Tuesday, 8:05 PM, MASN
RHP Charlie Morton (4-7, 5.63) vs. RHP Jacob deGrom (8-2, 2.08)
Shelling out big money for a free agent pitcher is an extremely risky decision for a team. It can either be an expensive disaster or a brilliant, rotation-anchoring acquisition. Jacob deGrom’s five-year, $185 million contract has been…both, actually. The first two years were a bust, as deGrom underwent Tommy John surgery and pitched only nine games. But he’s stayed healthy in 2025 and has looked every bit the ace the Rangers signed him to be, emerging as a candidate to win his third Cy Young Award. Last week in Baltimore, deGrom came within six outs of his first career no-hitter before Colton Cowser’s eighth-inning single ended that bid. Don’t be surprised if he pitches another gem.
Charlie Morton is arguably the Orioles’ most dependable starter at the moment, which definitely are not words I would have expected to be typing a month ago. Since returning to the rotation after his banishment to the bullpen in May, Morton has a 2.90 ERA and 37 strikeouts in six starts. He faced the Rangers last week and gave up three runs in five innings. His only previous start at Globe Life was in 2023 as a Brave, when he shut out the championship-bound Rangers in 6.2 innings, striking out 10.
Game 3: Wednesday, 8:05 PM, MASN
RHP Tomoyuki Sugano (6-4, 4.06) vs. RHP Nathan Eovaldi (4-3, 1.87)
Now in his 14th major league season, Eovaldi is pitching better than he ever has before. His 1.87 ERA would be the second best in baseball if he had enough innings to qualify (he’s currently 12 short, thanks to a month-long IL stint with triceps tightness). Before he hit the shelf, he’d been nearly unhittable. Eovaldi allowed only two earned runs in the entire month of May, spanning five starts, for a 0.68 ERA. He was averaging less than one baserunner per inning. Eovaldi has faced the Orioles 19 times in his career, his most against any team except the Yankees, and is 8-3 with a 3.59 ERA. He’s been particularly troublesome for Cedric Mullins, who has just a .594 OPS in 32 career PAs against Eovaldi.
Sugano, unlike the Orioles’ other two starters in this series, is trending very much in the wrong direction. The Birds’ most reliable starter in April and May, Sugano has been torched for 16 runs in 17.2 innings in his last four starts, an 8.15 ERA. Perhaps the hot U.S. summer is starting to wear down the 35-year-old Sugano, who was accustomed to pitching in climate-controlled domes in Japan. The O’s tried giving him some extra rest before his most recent start, but he gave up seven runs anyway. Let’s see if the veteran can make the necessary adjustments to return to the effective hurler he was in the season’s first two months.
Poll
How many games will the Orioles win against the Rangers?
13%
3 (Orioles sweep!)
(4 votes)
6%
0 (Orioles get swept)
(2 votes)
30 votes total