Adley Rutschman got a standing ovation from the same fans who watched their team trade him away, and then he made them regret clapping by hitting a home run to open the scoring against the Orioles.
That’s the whole sport distilled into one at-bat. Thursday night at Camden Yards was Rutschman’s first game back in Baltimore since the Orioles shipped him to the Red Sox at the trade deadline back on Aug. 3, part of a bigger package, per ESPN — the kind of “we’re building for the future” move front offices make when they’ve decided a great player isn’t worth what’s left on somebody else’s timeline. Two outs, first inning, Rutschman steps in. The whole ballpark rises. The Orioles dugout rises with them. Then he puts one 377 feet into the right-center seats for a 1-0 Boston lead.
I’ve never seen a crowd applaud a guy right into a home run off their own pitcher.
https://x.com/MLB/status/2095655436741407011
My grandmother, who has no stake in the Orioles or the Red Sox and mostly communicates in Napoli-Serie-A grievances, sent me that clip anyway, because even she could tell something was happening. That’s the tell. When a moment travels that far outside the fanbase it belongs to, you’re not watching a nice gesture. You’re watching an organization get told, by its own crowd, that it got something wrong.
https://x.com/Jared_Carrabis/status/2095654936054735291
Rutschman wasn’t finished making the point. He got another ovation between innings for a video tribute, then came back in the sixth and put another one over the wall. The Red Sox won 6-5 in one of those games that flips three times before it settles, and Rutschman became the first player to have a multi-homer game on both sides of the same matchup — he’d already done it to Boston earlier this year as an Oriole. Now he’s done it right back, from the other dugout.
“The people in Baltimore have always treated me with an unbelievable amount of respect and love, and I’ve always felt that when I’ve been here,” Rutschman said afterward. Nice sentiment. Also, somehow, a knife.
One complication, since I promised myself I’d include one: a standing ovation and two home runs in September don’t actually settle whether Baltimore’s return on that trade was smart. Front offices get to be right in three years even when they look wrong in one night. Rafael Devers went through a version of this with Rafael Devers’ own emotional return to Fenway, and people are still arguing about who won that one depending on the month you ask them.
Nobody at Camden Yards was thinking about the ledger when Rutschman rounded the bases the second time, though.
They were thinking about the deadline deal that sent him to Boston and wondering out loud why they ever nodded along with it.
My sister would call this a “main character moment” and mock me in the group chat for caring this much about a division rival’s ex-catcher. She’d be right. I still watched both home runs four times each.
