Pete Alonso puts his hands to his mouth, walks onto the orange carpet and then stretches his arms outward.<\/p>\n
The pregame ceremony Thursday ahead of the Orioles\u2019 Opening Day at Camden Yards marks Baltimore\u2019s first real opportunity to embrace Alonso. As broadcaster Kevin Brown says Alonso\u2019s name, the 42,134 fans at Oriole Park rise to their feet and scream, embracing him as the face of their ballclub.<\/p>\n
As he stretches out his arms, he embraces Baltimore.<\/p>\n
Alonso\u2019s Camden Yards coronation has it all. A perfect day. A beautiful and rejuvenated ballpark. A standing ovation. And an Alonso helmet tip before his first at-bat. There is even a polar bear ice sculpture to commemorate Alonso\u2019s Orioles debut.<\/p>\n
What makes it all even sweeter for Alonso and Baltimore fans is the final score.<\/p>\n
The Orioles defeat the Minnesota Twins, 2-1, to cap off a sparkling Opening Day. After a disastrous 2025 season, Baltimore spends the winter trying to wash the bad taste out of its mouth. Opening 2026 in the win column serves as quite the palate cleanser.<\/p>\n
While the cheers for Alonso steal the show early, it is the pitchers who dominate the contest. Twins right-hander Joe Ryan is excellent with 5 1\/3 scoreless innings, but Orioles left-hander Trevor Rogers is even better.<\/p>\n
Rogers punctuates his rise from failed trade acquisition to Opening Day starter with seven scoreless frames and five strikeouts for the win. He becomes only the eighth pitcher in Orioles history to toss at least seven scoreless innings on Opening Day, joining a list that includes Rick Sutcliffe, Jim Palmer and Dave McNally.<\/p>\n
The game remains scoreless through six and a half innings, but Baltimore\u2019s bats come alive in the seventh against Minnesota\u2019s bullpen. Designated hitter Samuel Basallo, the Orioles\u2019 21-year-old slugging sensation, and right fielder Tyler O\u2019Neill, whose miraculous Opening Day home run streak comes to an end Thursday, lead off the inning with back-to-back singles.<\/p>\n
Center fielder Colton Cowser, aiming to hit a sacrifice fly, does just that, flying out to deep left field to easily score Basallo and give the Orioles a 1-0 lead. That advantage doubles after a two-out single by second baseman Blaze Alexander, one of president of baseball operations Mike Elias\u2019 many offseason additions, brings home O\u2019Neill.<\/p>\n
The Twins score off starter-turned-reliever Tyler Wells in the eighth to cut their deficit in half. But closer Ryan Helsley, whom the Orioles sign to a two-year, $28 million contract this offseason, enters to \u201cHells Bells\u201d by AC\/DC, blows the Twins away like a hurricane and slams the door shut to send Baltimore fans home happy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pete Alonso puts his hands to his mouth, walks onto the orange carpet and then stretches his arms…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":646093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2288],"tags":[2315,2309,47,5,2316,2314,2317,2313,2325,56721,19,2310,2328,2304,2318,2308,2319,60,4,2305,2303,1406,4377,2307,2320,2327,2321,185,2311,2312],"class_list":["post-646092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb-postseason","tag-athletic-sports","tag-ball-and-bat-games","tag-baltimore-orioles","tag-baseball","tag-baseball-competitions","tag-baseball-finals","tag-baseball-games","tag-baseball-playoffs-and-champions","tag-baseball-teams","tag-dave-mcnally","tag-major-league-baseball","tag-major-league-baseball-competitions","tag-major-league-baseball-playoffs","tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","tag-major-league-baseball-seasons","tag-major-league-baseball-teams","tag-major-league-baseball-teams-seasons","tag-minnesota-twins","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-playoffs","tag-mlb-postseason","tag-opening-day","tag-oriole-park-at-camden-yards","tag-outdoor-sports","tag-pitcher","tag-seasons-in-american-sport","tag-seasons-in-baseball","tag-sports","tag-team-sports","tag-turf-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=646092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}