Adley Rutschman has arrived.

Sure, the top prospect in base­ball and the Ori­oles’ farm sys­tem reached the majors more than a month ago. But the play­er who inspired all that hype has been bub­bling in recent days, com­ing to the sur­face in full force in Thurs­day night’s series open­er against the Chica­go White Sox. Rutschman home­red and added an RBI dou­ble to sup­ply Baltimore’s first three runs and caught the Ori­oles’ third shutout in six games in a 4–0 vic­to­ry at Guar­an­teed Rate Field.

“He’s a type of tal­ent that can change the dynam­ic of a club­house when he gets hot, which he will pret­ty soon,” start­ing pitch­er Dean Kre­mer said. “He’s def­i­nite­ly a game-chang­er both behind the dish and at the plate.”

The per­for­mance was the great­est evi­dence yet that Rutschman’s bat is approach­ing the lofty expec­ta­tions placed upon it when he first joined the Ori­oles (32–39). Over the past two weeks, Rutschman is bat­ting .326/.370/.651, with 10 of his 14 hits going for extra bases. Bal­ti­more is 16–15 since pro­mot­ing him to the majors.

“I’m a very process-ori­ent­ed per­son,” Rutschman said. “I’m just gonna con­tin­ue to try and get bet­ter every day. It’s a learn­ing process, and there’s gonna be a lot of ups and downs in base­ball. You’re just try­ing to stay as con­sis­tent as you can.”

Added man­ag­er Bran­don Hyde: “Any young play­er — he’s real­ly tal­ent­ed — there’s always an adjust­ment peri­od in the big leagues. He’s gonna have his ups and downs, but he’s got big-time tools and a ton of abil­i­ty. You saw the pow­er tonight. And he just caught a shutout. He’s a rook­ie. It’s his sec­ond one in a week, so he’s been great.”

He snapped a score­less tie in the fourth inning. With one out, Ryan Mount­cas­tle — who entered play tied for the Amer­i­can League lead in extra-base hits for the month — dou­bled, tak­ing third on an error in the out­field. That added base proved mean­ing­less, with Rutschman dri­ving a John­ny Cue­to cut­ter a pro­ject­ed 402 feet to right field at 107 mph for his sec­ond major league home run.

Anoth­er Mount­cas­tle knock in the sixth chased Cue­to and put two on for Rutschman, who lashed Rey­nal­do Lopez’s third pitch down the first base line. It scored Austin Hays, who offen­sive­ly couldn’t match the cycle he post­ed Wednes­day but daz­zled defen­sive­ly once again.

Rutschman, too, was sharp with his glove, catch­ing Kremer’s sec­ond straight shutout start and the score­less innings Félix Bautista, Dil­lon Tate and Jorge López pro­vid­ed behind him. Hav­ing pitched six clean frames in his pre­vi­ous out­ing and 5 2/3 more Thurs­day, Kre­mer became only the third Ori­ole since 2019 with con­sec­u­tive score­less starts of at least five innings. Rutschman helped him nav­i­gate traf­fic on the bases through­out the night.

“With me, he likes to keep it pret­ty light,” Kre­mer said. “Like, we laugh and gig­gle, what­ev­er, even in some of the most seri­ous times.”

It marked Baltimore’s sev­enth shutout in its first 71 games, the club’s most in that span in 25 years. Rutschman has caught three of the past four.

“I think whether you have a good day at the plate or a bad day at the plate, there’s always things you can do to con­tribute to the team, whether you’re play­ing or not,” Rutschman said. “That’s the kind of the con­trol­lable aspect that I try to take into every day, and that stays con­sis­tent whether you’re in Double‑A, Triple‑A or the big leagues. I think that’s some­thing that doesn’t real­ly change that you thought might.”

Hays again … and again

If the word to not run on Hays’ arm in the out­field is spread­ing around the league, it seem­ing­ly hasn’t made its way to Chica­go yet.

After throw­ing out a run­ner at third base while play­ing cen­ter field Wednes­day, Hays kept a run off Kremer’s line with a per­fect throw home a half-inning after Rutschman’s homer. He wasn’t done defen­sive­ly, div­ing across the chalk of the right field line to grab Jake Burger’s fly in the eighth.

Hays’ six out­field assists are the sec­ond most in the majors, trail­ing only Cleve­land out­field­er Myles Straw’s eight. Baltimore’s 16 out­field assists are tied with the Texas Rangers for the most of any team.

“He’s got so much car­ry, and then the accu­ra­cy, you just don’t see that very often,” Hyde said. “Feels like he’s mak­ing a defen­sive play a night, and he made two tonight.”

Hays’ night was part of a col­lec­tive defen­sive show­case from the Ori­oles’ out­field, with cen­ter field­er Cedric Mullins and left field­er Antho­ny San­tander also rang­ing for sev­er­al dif­fi­cult catch­es to sup­port Baltimore’s pitch­ing staff. Mullins pro­vid­ed Baltimore’s final run with an RBI sin­gle in the ninth.

“They’re play­ing Gold Glove defense,” Hyde said. “They won us to game tonight defensively.”

Around the horn

» Right-han­der Austin Voth will make his sec­ond start for the Ori­oles on Fri­day to fill Baltimore’s open rota­tion spot. Rook­ie Kyle Bradish will start Saturday.

» Ori­oles prospect Ter­rin Vavra home­red to open Norfolk’s game but left after he was hit in the head with a pitch in his next plate appearance.

» Right-han­der Matt Har­vey threw six score­less innings for High‑A Aberdeen in his 2022 debut. Har­vey, on a minor league con­tract, is serv­ing a sus­pen­sion for vio­lat­ing the league’s drug pol­i­cy through July 7 but is able to pitch at lev­els beneath Triple‑A before that.

» The Ori­oles trad­ed minor league infield­er Patrick Dor­ri­an to the Mil­wau­kee Brew­ers for cash considerations.

ORIOLES@WHITE SOX

Fri­day, 8:10 p.m.

TV: MASN

Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM

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