Can the Orioles Homegrown Ace Bounce Back and Lead the Rotation in 2026?
If there’s one word to describe the Baltimore Orioles’ 2025 season, it’s injuries. Entering the year with playoff expectations after back-to-back postseason appearances in 2023 and 2024, the Orioles have seen none of their goals come to fruition. The team has faced a ton of adversity from the start, resulting in Baltimore holding the seventh-worst record in MLB at 52-63, just two years removed from a 101-win campaign that brought the franchise back to relevance after an extended rebuild. In 2025, the Orioles have been one of the hardest-hit teams on the injury front. Over the course of the season, 26 players have spent time on the injured list at various points, ultimately prompting general manager Mike Elias to sell off players on expiring contracts at last month’s trade deadline, most notably Ryan O’Hearn and longtime center fielder Cedric Mullins.
When looking at the Orioles’ roster, one player who has dealt with a prolonged battle with the injury bug, even before this season, is former 2018 first-round draft pick Grayson Rodriguez. The third-year pro, once considered one of MLB’s top pitching prospects, has recently faced the hurdle of overcoming serious injury setbacks dating back to the second half of the 2024 season. Prior to injuries becoming a major obstacle, Rodriguez posted a 3.86 ERA with 130 strikeouts and just 36 walks in 116.2 innings over 20 starts in 2024, building on the success he found to conclude his rookie season in 2023. As a result, the 25-year-old was expected to take a significant leap forward in 2025.
However, Rodriguez’s injury concerns carried over into Spring Training this year in Sarasota, Florida. After being shut down toward the end of the 2024 season due to right lat discomfort, both Rodriguez and the team were hopeful he could take the reins of the Orioles’ starting rotation. The front office opted not to make any major offseason additions to the rotation, operating under the belief that Rodriguez would become the new ace, supported by complementary arms like Tomoyuki Sugano and veteran starter Charlie Morton. Yet, during a Spring Training start on March 5th, Rodriguez felt discomfort in his shoulder, which was later revealed to be caused by multiple bone chips. As a result, it was recently announced, just before the Orioles’ series against the Philadelphia Phillies on Monday night, that the Texas native will undergo debridement surgery early next week to remove the bone chips in his right elbow. These chips had been a lingering issue throughout his rehab, with initial hopes that he could manage the injury without surgery. Unfortunately, that optimistic scenario didn’t play out.
With the surgery plan finalized this week, the Orioles and Rodriguez will now set their sights on a potential 2026 return to the mound for the former 11th-overall draft pick. If the Orioles have aspirations of bouncing back next season from their disastrous and injury-riddled 2025 campaign, they will need to rely on top talents like Rodriguez, when healthy, to be that dependable arm who can take the mound every fifth day and provide the kind of pitching dominance the team has lacked this year. Throughout the entire recovery process, dating back to mid-June when he last spoke, Rodriguez has made it clear that what matters most to him is pitching for the Orioles. He stated, “I think that’s probably one of the tough parts about it,” Rodriguez continued, “Obviously, you can’t ever figure baseball out, and if you say you’ve figured it out, it will humble you really quick.” After a 2025 season that has felt like everything that could go wrong did, the Orioles and their fans will be eagerly awaiting the return of their young stud next year, hoping it marks the beginning of renewed health and improved performance in 2026.
