The Cincinnati Reds welcome the Baltimore Orioles to Great American Ball Park on Friday for a quick three-game set. The 7:10 PM ET series opener will feature southpaw Trevor Rogers on the bump for the O’s, while the Reds will roll out veteran righty Brady Singer.
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It’s a matchup that’s somewhat emblematic of the two similarly disappointing teams. Baltimore, at 40-48, sits 13 games out in the American League East division and mired in 4th place, and this is after they had a brilliant run in 2023-2024 with a young core that was the envy of the entire sport. Since then, though, they’ve stalled (or outright regressed), their failures in free agency and trades paired with a litany of pitching injures/problems not able to return them to the top of the highly competitive division.
Trevor Rogers, in many ways, is a pretty good representation of that this season. Last year was his first full year with Baltimore after being acquired from Miami in 2024, and in 109.2 IP he pitched to a brilliant 1.81 ERA and 2.82 FIP to earn some mid-ballot Cy Young Award votes. This year, though, he owns a 4.99 ERA and 3.99 FIP through 79.1 IP, his K/9 down significantly while his H/9 is up over 60% from 2025.
That’s a similar story for Reds starter Brady Singer, really. His strikeouts are down, his hits allowed are way up, and the front-facing 5.12 ERA seems to be a pretty good representation of just how bad he’s been. He allowed 19 homers all last season (in 169.2 IP) and has already yielded 19 in just 77.1 IP in 2026.
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Maybe, just maybe, the Reds have the chops to make a run from their current 40-46 position in the NL Central’s cellar. They’ll get Hunter Greene back this weekend, which is huge, and they did finally manage to slay the Milwaukee dragon for a day in their most recent game to prove that no, in fact there is not a tangible curse preventing them from ever beating a good team again.
We’ll find out tonight at GABP!
