BALTIMORE -- A message on the Camden Yards videoboard after the fifth inning on Friday night read: “No more home run pyro. Due to too many Orioles home runs, we have unfortunately run out of fireworks for the night.”
It wasn’t a joke, either. The ballpark is equipped with enough pyro to celebrate six O’s homers per game, and the club had already reached that threshold by the fifth.
That should tell you what type of night it was in Baltimore -- a fun one, and also one that reaffirmed president of baseball operations Mike Elias’ comments from earlier in the day that the 2026 Orioles are more than capable of preventing a sluggish up-and-down start from turning into a repeat of ‘25.
Adley Rutschman hit a pair of homers, while Gunnar Henderson, Dylan Beavers, Samuel Basallo and Coby Mayo also went deep in the O’s series-opening 10-3 win over the Red Sox. Baltimore improved to 13-13 with a victory in its first American League East game of the year.
The Orioles set new season highs for runs, home runs and hits (20).
It was the first time the O’s hit six homers in a game since a 12-2 win at Toronto on March 27, 2025 (Opening Day last season). That had also been Rutschman’s most recent multihomer game, as he began the ‘25 campaign with a two-homer performance.
Rutschman has been hot since coming off the 10-day injured list (left ankle inflammation) on Tuesday, going 5-for-9 with three homers and eight RBIs over his first two games back.
Baltimore hadn’t hit six home runs at home -- meaning emptying the celebratory pyro supply -- since June 19, 2021, when Ryan Mountcastle (three), Cedric Mullins (two) and DJ Stewart went deep during a 10-7 loss to the Blue Jays.
Slow starts have been an issue for the Orioles, who scored only three first-inning runs over their first 24 games. However, they plated a pair on Wednesday on Pete Alonso’s two-run homer in Kansas City, then four more on Friday via a leadoff home run from Henderson, a two-run blast by Rutschman and a solo shot from Beavers.
It was Baltimore’s first time scoring four in the first since March 31, 2025, its home opener last season, also against Boston.
Considering the six-homer Opening Day performance and the fast start in that home-opener win, the Orioles’ 2025 campaign showed early promise. But the season quickly took a turn for the worse, resulting in a 75-87 record and a last-place finish in the AL East.
What makes Elias confident that 2026 will have an upward trajectory from here?
“This team, having a lot of these guys, our young guys, having gone through that experience last year, I think they’re much more steeled against it, and very, very hopeful that they’re not going to allow something like that to happen,” Elias said. “I’m bullish about the team. I think that we’re moving in the right direction.”
Consider Friday night a significant step forward.