Kyle Gibson’s season debut started off with a bang. Three, in fact.

The New York Yankees greeted the Orioles starter with back-to-back-to-back home runs to lead off the game Tuesday as part of a four-homer inning in Gibson’s first start with the club since 2023. The right-hander, joining a maligned Orioles rotation desperate for quality pitching, allowed five runs before Baltimore’s lineup had a chance to step to the plate in a 15-3 loss.

Center fielder Trent Grisham led off the game with a 412-foot blast that landed on Eutaw Street, the 12th time a Yankees slugger has earned a permanent plaque on the brick-and-concrete road beyond right field. Right fielder Aaron Judge then ambushed a first-pitch sinker for his ninth home run of the season and designated hitter Ben Rice followed with a 378-foot shot.

“Not many times have I done that in the first inning,” Gibson said. “So, just a weird instance where some of them were bad location. A couple of them weren’t. I’ll go back and look at it and try to see if I was doing something or getting in a pattern. But yeah, physically, I felt good, and that’s kind of the frustrating thing — when you feel good physically and the results don’t show that.”

It was the second time this season the Yankees have hit three consecutive home runs to start a game after they rocked the Milwaukee Brewers’ Nestor Cortes for eight runs in March.

The Orioles’ lineup never stood a chance against Yankees starter Carlos Rodón. The left-hander retired the first 15 batters he faced, carrying a bid for a perfect game into the sixth inning and not allowing a hit until Jorge Mateo doubled later in the frame. They brought one run around to score on an RBI groundout by Dylan Carlson, Gunnar Henderson swatted a solo home run in the seventh and Ryan Mountcastle hit a sacrifice fly in the ninth, but the Orioles never threatened to close the gap.

“Today was a tough one,” Mountcastle said. “That’s the great thing about baseball. We’ve got tomorrow. Hopefully we can bounce back and win the series tomorrow.”

That’s because New York wasn’t done after the leadoff home runs. With three runs on the board, Gibson’s first inning struggles continued two batters later when left fielder Cody Bellinger crushed a fastball 403 feet for the fourth homer of the inning. All four blasts were hit to right with Judge going to the opposite field and the other three lefties pulling the ball.

The Yankees then tacked on another run with back-to-back doubles by second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. and shortstop Anthony Volpe. Catcher Austin Wells then grounded out and third baseman Oswaldo Cabrera singled to turn the lineup over before Grishman lined out to center field to end the frame.

However, the bleeding continued into the second as Rice homered for the second time. Two innings later, first baseman Paul Goldschmidt collected an RBI single and Oswaldo Peraza, who replaced Chisholm after he suffered “right flank discomfort” on his double, drove in a pair of runs with a two-bagger of his own to chase Gibson from the game. The five home runs allowed marked a new career high for Gibson, a veteran of 12 major league seasons.

Baltimore has been on the receiving end of outings like this before. Right-hander Dylan Bundy became the first pitcher in MLB history to allow four home runs without recording an out when the Kansas City Royals tagged him for seven runs in a start May 8, 2018.

Gibson finished his start with nine runs allowed, the most by any Orioles (11-18) pitcher in a game since Aug. 11, 2023 when the Seattle Mariners roughed him up for nine runs as well. Reliever Matt Bowman then gave up three more runs in the fifth before giving way to Charlie Morton, the starter Gibson replaced in the rotation.

“It looks like he just left some balls in the middle in part of the plate to those left-handers,” manager Brandon Hyde said of Gibson. “Tough time commanding the ball early. I thought he got a little bit better in the second and third but probably ran out of gas there in the fourth. Charlie Morton really helped us out. Went 80 pitches a couple days ago and goes 2 1/3 for us to help out the team, so appreciated that very much.”

Morton, making only his third career relief appearance, allowed one unearned run on a fielding error by Henderson over 2 1/3 innings. It marked his first time in seven games this season that Morton didn’t allow three runs or more. Cionel Pérez and Bryan Baker combined to close out the final two frames, though each allowed a run in the process.

Catcher Maverick Handley, recalled Monday in place of the injured Gary Sánchez, replaced Adley Rutschman as a defensive substitution in the sixth to make his MLB debut. The 2019 sixth-round pick went 0-for-2 with two strikeouts.

Postgame analysis

Gibson was never going to be an instant savior for the Orioles’ rotation, but they did hope he could be the innings-eating starter that he’s proven to be throughout his career. It took only five pitches for everyone at Camden Yards, which included a loud contingent of Yankees fans, to know that wasn’t going to happen Tuesday.

His command was erratic in the worst way, leaving everything over the heart of the plate for a Yankees lineup known for its ability to handle such pitches to mash away. The Orioles will hope to write off this performance to first-outing rust for a pitcher who didn’t get a normal spring training, though they don’t have a choice either way.

Gibson represented the reinforcements the Orioles’ rotation needed. Until Zach Eflin or one of the Orioles’ other half-dozen injured starters are ready to return, this is the group they’ve got.

What they’re saying

Gibson on the path the Orioles need to take to turn their season around:

“You can’t just do it 10 games at a time. You’ve got to do it one at a time. And two or three at a time, and start knocking off some series. And before you know it, by the end of May, you can be four or five games over .500 and you’re feeling really good. Just like good teams can have bad months, they can have really good ones, too. And you look back, you look at the growth you can have in the month of March and the month of April, and maybe look back in the month of September and realize this is what helped you fight through some of the dog days.”

By the numbers

The Orioles’ six home runs allowed Tuesday were their most in any game since 2021, when the rebuilding-era Orioles did it twice. With one day left to go in April, their pitching staff has given up 165 runs this month — their second highest April total in Orioles history (1954 to present) behind only 2019, when they allowed 189.

On deck

The Orioles will look to bounce back and secure their second series win of the season Wednesday when Cade Povich and Carlos Carrasco go head to head at 6:35 p.m. Povich is coming off his best outing of the season, 6 1/3 innings of one-run baseball against the Washington Nationals, while Carrasco is looking to follow up a performance of five scoreless frames against the Toronto Blue Jays.

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