O'Neill's record-setting Opening Day home run streak ends at 6

BALTIMORE -- For all of this decade, there have been few bigger locks in baseball than Tyler O'Neill hitting an Opening Day home run. Year in and year out, the slugger showed up for the first game of the season and wasted little time going deep.

However, the streak was unlikely to go on forever.

On Thursday, O’Neill’s AL/NL record streak of six consecutive Opening Days with a homer ended, as the 30-year-old outfielder went 1-for-2 with a single, a walk and a run scored in the Orioles’ season-opening 2-1 win over the Twins at Camden Yards. It was the first time O’Neill didn’t hit a home run on Opening Day since his first MLB opener with the Cardinals in 2019.

“Homer wasn’t meant to be this time,” O’Neill said.

O’Neill homered on four consecutive Opening Days with St. Louis from 2020-23, matching a record shared by Todd Hundley (1994-97), Gary Carter (1977-80) and Yogi Berra (1955-58). He broke the mark in ‘24, going deep in his lone opener with Boston.

At that point, O’Neill was content if the streak ended. It wouldn’t be on his mind quite as much -- although he acknowledged last year how cool it would be to hit a home run in the Orioles’ 2025 opener vs. the Blue Jays in Toronto, as he’s a Canadian who was born in Burnaby, British Columbia.

O’Neill then made it happen, hitting a three-run homer in the third inning of his O’s debut. He called extending the record streak to six a “little cherry on top.”

This year, O’Neill took a similar approach to his Opening Day mindset.

“Pressure’s off, obviously. I don’t really have to prove anything in that regard,” O’Neill said last week. “Yeah, it’s on my mind. Would it be great to push it to seven? Yeah. Of course, it would be. And if I get the opportunity to do that, great. But if not, no big deal.”

After Thursday’s game, O’Neill wasn’t distraught by any means. He was happy to have played well in the opener. And he was most pleased by Baltimore’s victory.

“It was a good win, man,” O’Neill said. “Fans were bringing it. A lot of energy out there. Opening Day at Camden is so special. Just want to come out and put on a good performance, and the team did a really good job.”

O’Neill saw a lot of pitches early, drawing a nine-pitch walk against Twins right-hander Joe Ryan in the second inning. His single off righty Justin Topa in the seventh was a key knock in the game, as it gave the O’s runners on the corners with no outs, both eventually coming around to score.

It was an encouraging start for O’Neill, who signed a three-year, $49.5 million deal with the Orioles prior to the 2025 campaign and then had a disappointing first season with the team. He had three stints on the injured list last year and hit .199 with a .684 OPS in only 54 games, while Baltimore went 75-87 and unexpectedly finished in last place in the American League East.

After a strong spring for himself and a quality first win for the team, O’Neill likes both his own and his club’s chances for a bounce-back 2026 season.

“I feel really good about myself,” O’Neill said. “Just coming in here and being familiar with the clubhouse, familiar with the guys. Obviously, it’s a new staff and a lot of turnover there, but it’s been really, really easy and really fun to get to know those guys and just get a feel of how they are and how this identity in the baseball family kind of feels.

“Really like where this clubhouse is right now, and we’re going to have some fun times this year.”