A few more expectations for the 2025 O's season

Today a look at a few more notes and items we can expect to see during the 2025 season.

The return of this pitcher: The No. 11 overall pick in the 2018 MLB Draft, right-hander Grayson Rodriguez should return as a full-time member of the Baltimore rotation.

In 2024, he made what turned out to be his last start on July 31. He was scheduled to pitch Aug. 6 in the series opener at Rogers Centre in Toronto but was scratched just minutes before first pitch with what was later described as right lat/teres discomfort.

Getting this now 25-year-old right-hander back is a big lift for the rotation, which loses ace righty Corbin Burnes. Rodriguez went 13-4 with a 3.86 ERA over 20 starts and the Orioles went 14-6 in those games.

He gave up two earned runs or less 14 times. And if you could take away his two worst starts last year, where he allowed seven runs each time, he would have finished the season with an ERA of 3.02.

I have noted before that over his last 33 starts - since mid July of 2023 - Rodriguez is 18-6 with a 3.35 ERA and 1.18 WHIP in 193 1/3 innings. That is solid pitching.

In fact, Kansas City’s Cole Ragans last year made 32 starts over 186 1/3 innings with an ERA of 3.14 and WHIP of 1.14 and finished fourth in the AL Cy Young race.

The return of that pitcher: Mountain time is back in Baltimore in 2025 with the return of Félix Bautista.

One of the game’s best closers, he has missed the last two postseasons. He last pitched for the Orioles Aug. 25, 2023 and had Tommy John surgery in October of 2023.

In two seasons with the Orioles, 2022 and 2023, he has gone 12-6 with a 1.85 ERA with 48 saves and averaging 14.1 strikeout per nine innings to amass 5.4 WAR.

Not bad for a pitcher who averaged 7.4 walks per nine innings in 2021 at Double-A Bowie. That number is 3.5 walk/nine for his major league career.

The Orioles will be excited to have the flamethrower back on the mound saving games and in the clubhouse, flashing that smile seen often. He’s important to this club in both places.

How good can he be early on and how often can he pitch? These are open questions but getting him back healthy will lift an entire team.

More Mounty homers: The last season before the Orioles moved the left-field wall back at Camden Yards was the 2021 season. Ryan Mountcastle hit 33 homers to set an O’s rookie record. He broke the mark Cal Ripken Jr. set with 28 in 1982. He finished sixth in the American League Rookie of the Year voting. His 33 homers were the ninth-most by a rookie in AL history and he became the first Orioles rookie to lead the team in home runs outright since Curt Blefary did so with 22 homers in 1965.

But in the three seasons with the deeper wall, Mountcastle hit 22, 18 and 13 home runs.

In that 2021 season, he hit 22 longballs at Camden Yards, slugging .555 there with a home OPS of .871.

In the following three years at home, he hit 11, nine and eight homers at Oriole Park for 28 total. Combined over the 2022 through 2024 seasons, he slugged .443 with a .761 home OPS, losing over 100 points in both slug and OPS from 2021.

In that 2021 season, Mountcastle averaged a home homer every 12.77 at-bats. Since the 2022 season, that is one every 24.86 at-bats for him.

Needless to say, the closer left-field wall was welcoming news for Mounty.