Who will I be watching most closely as two of the brightest stars in the game — Gunnar Henderson and Kansas City’s Bobby Witt Jr. — have the highest-stakes head-to-head clash of their young careers?

Neither, of course. Even thinking about either of them makes my mind immediately go to Adley Rutschman. The top overall pick in the 2019 MLB draft, Rutschman was selected one spot ahead of Witt, and along with Henderson (the Orioles’ first pick of the second round) has formed the foundation of all the good that has taken place in Baltimore in the five-plus years since.

Henderson, as we know, had one of the best seasons in the game, and to say that Witt was statistically better isn’t to denigrate the Orioles’ young star. But the marquee will feature those two this week, largely thanks to their ongoing star turns and Rutschman’s second-half collapse.

This isn’t about re-litigating that draft. If you’re reading this and you’re not named Mike Elias, you don’t get a vote here — and if Elias were given the choice, I doubt he would trade his draft that year for the Royals’.

Instead, this is about Rutschman taking his place back on the top tier of talents with those two. It will go a long way toward the Orioles advancing beyond this point, and honestly, it’s why he’s here. His slump in the last few months has been hard for me to untangle from the team’s struggles. I’ve never known where his ability to elevate those around him stopped and the influence of what’s around him on his own play began.

But the Orioles are playing well again. Rutschman needs to follow suit.

Part of the reason he was the Orioles’ top pick five summers ago was because he does a lot of things really well, and having done them at a high level in college, there was a high probability he’d do so as a pro. That’s what Rutschman was doing in the first few months of this year. He stopped hitting the ball hard near the end of June, though, and was barely league-average offensively from July 1 on.

It’s hard to explain how this could happen if Rutschman is healthy, and it doesn’t feel coincidental to me that his production fell off after he missed a game to be evaluated after a foul ball went off his hand on June 27. He hasn’t acknowledged any kind of physical issue, so take him at his word there.

Perhaps it was one of the many physical issues that baseball players find a way to grind through each day, catchers especially. Perhaps it has to do with the pressure that comes with being the franchise cornerstone as so many other key pieces around you, both on the mound and in the lineup, can’t join you on the field. I actually have a lot of sympathy for that and feel like that pressure is something a person like Rutschman, who almost lives for the success of those around him, would feel more acutely.

Whatever has happened just feels significant to me. At this point, it would be Rutschman inserting himself into the Henderson-Witt showdown. Even as Henderson was ascending and winning Rookie of the Year last year, it would have been hard to imagine a world where Rutschman wouldn’t feel like a featured attraction in a series like this.

It’s always felt kind of reductive to put any of the three against each other, though. They’ve all been really good their entire careers. Witt was the best player of the group this year, but if that changes next year — if Henderson has a 10 WAR, and Witt ends up with 8 — how much are opinions going to change?

Rutschman is simply in a different spot right now. I’ve always viewed him as a reliable five-win player, and considering how few catchers there are that can produce at that level, that’s a special thing. This series and these playoffs as a whole are a chance for Rutschman to remind everyone that he’s that kind of player and will be going forward.

I am certainly waiting for it.

BALLPARK CHATTER

“We did a lot of work behind the scenes as far as holds and mixing different kinds of picks and stuff, but just the mechanical changes and going back to what I did in ‘21 fixed a lot of that issue.”

— Corbin Burnes, on allowing stolen bases

The Orioles’ ace has allowed 41 stolen bases this year, and most of the time that hasn’t been a problem because he limits damage well and doesn’t give up base runners in clusters.In Witt and Maikel Garcia, the Royals have a pair of true stolen base threats to worry about, and the team’s 134 bags this season ranked 11th-highest in the majors.I buy that Burnes has the problem under control. The alternative — and the running game meaningfully affecting the Orioles’ chances of advancing — would feel like an unforced error. We’ll see this afternoon.

📫 Have a question? Write to me here.

🚀 TALENT PIPELINE

Creed Willems, the Orioles’ 21-year-old catching prospect, is the headliner of their Arizona Fall League contingent for this year. He reached Double-A Bowie this summer and ended with 17 home runs between there and High-A Aberdeen, with a .785 OPS. He cut down his strikeout rate from 26.7% in 2023 to 20.5% this year. He’s getting better and is at an age where many of his peers are just entering pro ball. Still, Willems remains divisive among evaluators for questions about how much contact he’ll make and whether his offense will be strong enough if he changes positions. It will be interesting to see how it goes out in Arizona.

STATS

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Ten years is a lifetime in baseball, so it’s surprising that there’s even one player remaining on either roster from the American League Championship Series between the Orioles and Royals back in 2014.Kansas City catcher/first baseman Salvador Pérez is having one of the best seasons of his career at 34 years old, and it’s really cool to see. He’s had an incredible career, and for him to ride out all those down years — and come out of it in a way that no one from the last winning generation of Orioles did — shows a bit of what was lost in the transition away from that group and the rebuild that followed.

📰 FOR FURTHER READING

🔍 Which teams are playoff ready? The Orioles had some challenging stretches during the season that led them to hosting a wild-card series instead of winning the division and earning a bye. This analysis from FanGraphs, however, suggests that right now their roster would have the third-highest winning percentage in the league at .550. I’m not looking for evidence that this team is good when it’s whole. It just finds me. (FanGraphs)

🤔 Season in review: A lot has happened this year with the Orioles, and as the calendar turns to October, Andy has a nice telling of how we got here. (The Baltimore Banner)

🎙️ The Adam Jones Podcast: It was great hearing from Mark Trumbo this week on The Adam Jones Podcast. I really enjoyed covering him, although his, “I’m thinking about what you just asked in hopes of giving a thoughtful answer” expression was a lot like other people’s unhappy expressions, so that took a lot of getting used to. He used to grade the quality of my postgame questions, which for some reason I remember fondly. If you see this — Hey, Mark! (The Baltimore Banner)