Baltimore Orioles Officially Shut Down Their Star Pitcher

The Baltimore Orioles will be without their star pitcher for the rest of the season.

Jun 26, 2024; Baltimore, Maryland, USA; Baltimore Orioles pitcher Grayson Rodriguez (30) throws a pitch during the first inning against the Cleveland Guardians at Oriole Park at Camden Yards / Reggie Hildred-Imagn Images

While the Baltimore Orioles have started to get healthier in the past few days with many of their impact players returning to the active roster, they were dealt a significant blow on Wednesday.

Per Jake Rill of MLB.com, manager Brandon Hyde told reporters their star pitcher Grayson Rodriguez will not return in 2024 as they are shutting him down because of his lat injury.

That takes one of the Orioles' best starting pitchers out of the equation for the playoffs, making it that much harder for them to make a deep run like they had envisioned coming into the year.

Rill added that Hyde said there "weren't any setbacks" in terms of Rodriguez trying to get healthy enough to return, but "he just wasn't progressing enough."

Baltimore will now turn their attention to getting him ready for the start of next season.

This is the latest example of an injury that has plagued this team throughout the year. Rodriguez is now the fourth Opening Day starter who suffered a season-ending injury at some point during the campaign after they previously lost Kyle Bradish, John Means, and Tyler Wells.

The Orioles tried to address their lack of high-end starting pitching at the deadline when they made trades for Zach Eflin and Trevor Rogers, but following the latter's struggles during the early part of his tenure, he is no longer on the active roster and is down in Triple-A.

Baltimore will now be led by Eflin and their ace Corbin Burnes in the Wild Card round, hoping those two and Albert Suarez can give their offense a shot at scoring enough runs to win games in the playoffs.

It's a tall task, but crazier things have happened.