CLEVELAND — One game won’t define a trade, but Thursday wasn’t the best start.

The Orioles’ acquisition of Trevor Rogers ahead of Tuesday’s trade deadline was a surprise. He wasn’t the upgrade believed to be a need for the Orioles, instead providing the organization a depth piece with team control. And to get him, Baltimore had to part ways with Connor Norby and Kyle Stowers — two MLB-ready bats.

Whether the Rogers trade was a good one for the Orioles will be determined well beyond Thursday’s series opener against the Guardians. Rogers, a former All-Star, is controllable through 2026, while Norby and Stowers will finally get an opportunity to play in Miami. But his first impression wasn’t a good one.Rogers was hit hard in his Orioles debut, allowing five runs in 4 1/3 innings, as Baltimore fell to the Guardians, 10-3, in a matchup between the American League’s two best ballclubs. The defeat dropped the Orioles into a tie atop the American League East with the New York Yankees.

Baltimore is 65-45 and not in sole possession of first place for the first time since July 13. New York (65-45) was last alone atop the division June 26, but the resurgent Yankees with newcomer Jazz Chisholm Jr. have won five straight.

Rogers surrendered six hits and walked three, with David Fry’s three-run blast in the third the decisive blow. The 26-year-old at times flashed his potential — getting a few ugly whiffs on sliders — but allowed 12 batted balls with exit velocities harder than 95 mph.

“It was definitely a whirlwind today, something that I really haven’t been through before,” Rogers said. “I’m not going to sit here and make excuses. Still got to execute the game plan, and really didn’t give my team a chance today.”

Before he was traded, the 6-foot-5 left-hander was pitching the best he had since perhaps his All-Star campaign as a rookie in 2021. Over his previous nine starts, Rogers pitched to a 3.17 ERA, allowing two or fewer runs in all but one. The five runs he coughed up were his most in a start since May 4.

Rogers joined the team just hours before he took the mound. Manager Brandon Hyde said he met Rogers only about three hours before the 6:40 p.m. start against the MLB-best Guardians (66-42). Hyde said it wasn’t a concern to have Rogers start on the same day he arrived.

“Not when you’ve been in the big leagues before,” Hyde said.

Rogers said he met catcher Adley Rutschman when they arrived to Progressive Field a few hours before first pitch.

“We pretty much shook hands, introduced each other, and he said, ‘I got you tonight,'” Rogers said. “I’m like, ‘All right, let’s get after it.’ We kind of talked a little bit in the pregame meeting, so we’ll definitely build it from here on out.”

Rogers started slow in the first, allowing a sacrifice fly to superstar José Ramírez and an RBI single to Josh Naylor as Cleveland took an early lead. Fry’s long ball to left field traveled 407 feet and would’ve been a homer in 27 of 30 MLB ballparks — but not at Camden Yards. The unorthodox left field wall combined with Rogers’ handedness was perhaps a reason the Orioles had interest in him given opposing teams normally load their lineups with right-handed hitters against southpaws.

While Rogers stumbled, his offense and bullpen weren’t much better.

The bats tallied only five hits and three runs — the fewest of each since July 24. They were 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position, the lone hit Gunnar Henderson’s RBI double to score Colton Cowser in the first to give Baltimore a brief 1-0 advantage. Anthony Santander blasted a solo homer — his 33rd of the season — in the fourth, and Rutschman tallied an RBI on a groundout in the eighth.

Baltimore’s bullpen allowed five more runs in the seventh to end any chance of the offense making a comeback. Albert Suárez, who was moved into a long relief role after Rogers’ acquisition, gave up a two-run blast to Ramírez and Jacob Webb surrendered a three-run big fly to Bo Naylor.

“Didn’t swing the bat really well and wasn’t our best game on the mound,” Hyde said.

Rogers (2-10) said he didn’t think early in the season he would be traded from a Miami team that made the playoffs last year. But as the National League-worst Marlins scuffled and he began to pitch better, he began to hear “rumblings” that he could be with a contending club soon.

“I knew there was hope for me to get traded,” Rogers said. “I heard some rumblings and it happened on the last day and I’m very thankful that the Orioles saw something in me and brought me over here.”

Rogers hasn’t been able to rediscover the magic of a stellar 2021 campaign that featured a 2.64 ERA at just 23 years old. From the start of 2022 going into Thursday, Rogers’ ERA has been 4.92, but he missed most of 2023 with injuries to his biceps and lat muscles, and his recent string of success before his Orioles debut was perhaps a sign that he’s overcome those maladies.

“Coming to this organization right in the dog days of August, playing some really fun baseball the last two months, it’s something that I really haven’t been able to be a part of, being hurt all last year,” Rogers said. “So I’m just fired up to be here and really looking forward to the last two months.”

The Orioles have nine games remaining on their road trip as they attempt to stave off the surging Yankees.

The next three contest against the Guardians will be a challenge, but it will ease up next week when they face the Toronto Blue Jays and Tampa Bay Rays, two division foes who sold at the deadline.