Kyle Goon: For one night, Adley Rutschman forces Orioles fans to ask ‘What if?’

In that sliver of Camden Yards tucked right against Eutaw Street, where the flag court meets the center-field stands, was where imagination lived Thursday night.

It is a spot so precise that it was a marvel that Adley Rutschman was able to swat a ball there not once but twice off the otherwise workmanlike pitching of Brandon Young — an old friend he was catching just months ago.

In a single night, Rutschman hit more homers (2) than in his previous 15 games with the Red Sox (1), clearly spurred on by a Camden Yards crowd — wearing Boston and Baltimore jerseys — that showered him with applause: “It was special to feel that kind of love,” he said.

If you closed your eyes, you could imagine the world in which the Orioles had never traded him at all.

What a world that would have been. For one night, at least, the idea shimmered like a dream in the late-summer heat.

It was only a few months ago that president of baseball operations Mike Elias said of Rutschman: “We would like to keep him here forever.” But, between nearly two years of playing as a lesser version of himself and maddeningly inconsistent play from the rest of the Orioles, by Aug. 3, Elias made the most abrupt reversal of that position possible — trading him to Boston for a bouquet of talented prospects.

It has been a bummer for everyone involved, a bitter reflection of organizational shortcomings, as well as a number of personal ones. After two years of being a bat as reliable as a metronome, Rutschman diminished in a way he’s never quite been able to recover from. Even though he was one of the best defensive catchers in MLB, most of the rest of the Orioles were, and honestly remain, a defensively appalling group that can’t reliably hold on to leads that their starting rotation can give them.

With no contract extension in hand for Rutschman and a long-term deal inked for Samuel Basallo, it helped iron out Elias’ conviction that Baltimore and its onetime franchise catcher were sliding in different directions, latched on to different timelines.

Even Rutschman’s fiercest defenders would have to acknowledge that the 2023 magic — of which he was an essential piece — faded with time. If Rutschman had ever reached his old plateau, Elias never would have dared dangle him in trade talks in the first place.

What if that trade never happened, though? What if Adley never lost his thump? What if the Orioles played well enough to justify a trade deadline buying spree? Would the Orioles be in the wild-card spot right now instead of forever pursuing yet failing to grasp it?

It’s a fantasy at this point but one brought to bittersweet life as Boston and Baltimore began one of the year’s most decisive series.

Rutschman has never been the best quote — “it’s a lot of feelings going on,” he said pregame without much elaboration on what those feelings might be exactly — but the best reflection of his state of mind is what he can do on the field.

Mere seconds after doffing his batting helmet to a crowd that would not stop roaring for nearly a minute, Rutschman obliged his audience with the first of his homers, ripping a curveball 377 feet to his familiar right-field perch. He had hit 37 home runs before in Camden Yards, and most had been sprayed to that side as he swung as a left-handed hitter.

The second homer was caught off a sinker, up and in near Rutschman’s hands. Leody Taveras barely moved as it sailed over his head. According to Elias Sports, it was just the second time since 1900 that a traded player would go on to two home runs against his former team in their first matchup the same season.

It was still worth clapping for Orioles fans who appreciated Rutschman tapping into his old brilliance — but watching him trot to the Red Sox dugout to put Wally the Green Monster’s mascot helmet on his head in celebration was a twist of the knife.

If Rutschman had been in the lineup instead of Carlos Narváez (who came back in the Boston deal and was 0-for-3) Thursday night, what a formidable group that would have been.

Pete Alonso and Luis Robert Jr. smacked back-to-back homers themselves, giving the Orioles the lead in the fourth inning. In the ninth, Christian Encarnacion-Strand gave the Orioles a whiff of comeback hope with a two-run shot to left field.

If Rutschman’s two dingers had been for the Orioles instead of against them, well ...

At least for Rutschman, it’s not really a thought to dwell on.

“I don’t think that’s a healthy mindset to be in: living in what-ifs or what can be in the future, what was in the past,” he said. “I just try to take everything as it comes, live as much as you can just in your present.”

The trade, at least in the short term, will continue to hurt the Orioles in more ways than one. When they plugged Yennier Cano in for the eighth inning, Rutschman jogged over to the on-deck circle to conference with Red Sox hitters. Four pitches later, Nick Sogard caught Cano’s sinker at the bottom of the strike zone to send it 395 feet over the center-field wall.

“I kind of had my idea of what I wanted to do,” Sogard said. “I went over to him [Rutschman] and said, ‘Hey, this is what I’m thinking. What do you got on that?’ And he liked it.”

Few players know Baltimore pitchers as well as Rutschman. At least on the first night of this four-game series, that knowledge had a dire cost for the O’s.

Rutschman’s one-night performance could be a blip in the 2026 campaign. He has struggled since the trade, batting under .200. His ailing elbow has limited his effectiveness across the last month, so who knows if he can live up to the capital the Red Sox gave up when the playoffs hit.

But his Baltimore return felt like a curtain call — a reel reminiscent of his greatest hits, a performance that prodded at that old stubborn question: What if Adley still played for the Orioles?

We’ll never truly know the answer. But, deep down, it’ll be hard to avoid the tempting thought that the hypothetical grass would be greener on the other side of the Camden Yards wall.

Seeing it manifest, even for a single night, makes it feel all the more real.