Jon Meoli: Trevor Rogers’ path back to dominance is clear. For 6 innings, he showed why.

Jim Palmer hunched down at the top step of the Orioles’ dugout and drew a baseball field.

The fingers that helped the MASN analyst spin a Hall of Fame career on the mound pushed around the dirt at Camden Yards on Thursday afternoon to illustrate his message to Trevor Rogers.

The middle of the plate is where you get hurt, but Rogers is at his best when he locates consistently on both sides of it. Even if opponents hit it, they’re going to hit it where your fielders are.

We know Palmer has seen a lot of baseball. We know he remembers it all, sometimes in frightening detail. Turns out he can see the future, too.

That’s how Rogers attacked Toronto for six innings Friday — in, out and up — and as he did, he cashed in about a month’s worth of poor batted-ball luck, with nearly everything Toronto hit finding Orioles leather.

In the seventh, he caught too much of the strike zone with a pair of fastballs up and paid dearly with a pair of home runs.

The path forward for Rogers is clear. He spent four months as one of the game’s best pitchers last year by pitching the way he did until the seventh — and avoiding big innings like the one that chased him Friday.

“Baseball is such a mental game,” manager Craig Albernaz said before the game. “Mental warfare within yourself.”

Rogers’ battle is simple. He might as well have been perfect last year, with a 1.81 ERA over 19 starts. In trying to be that again, Albernaz said, he’s catching too much of the plate and paying the price.

But by locating his fastball in and out, as he did to the righty-heavy Blue Jays lineup, Rogers can be just as effective as he was at his best. We saw that Friday.

He pounded Toronto with fastballs the first time through the lineup and, as Palmer promised, the Blue Jays hit them where they were pitched. When he located a fastball in to Ernie Clement in the first inning, he pulled it right at left fielder Taylor Ward.

When Rogers spotted a fastball up and away to Myles Straw, he lined it to second baseman Jackson Holliday.

“I was avoiding the middle of the plate, something I did really well last year,” Rogers said.

It was like that for six innings. There were some well-hit balls that on another day might not have been outs, and Rogers has known that experience all too well this year — opponents’ batting average on balls in play this year is nearly 100 points higher than 2025, .323 versus .226.

But, when you’re largely executing your plan and your pitches, you can live with the results. That wasn’t the case in the seventh inning when Rogers wasn’t sufficiently elevating his four-seamer.

Vlad Guerrero Jr. jumped on one for a single, and Kazuma Okamoto homered on the next pitch, another four-seamer that wasn’t high enough in the zone. Daulton Varsho hit a good sweeper on the outside edge the other way for a double, then scored on a four-seamer that caught too much of the plate by the debuting Charlie McAdoo.

Ten pitches in the seventh was all it took for Rogers’ night to turn. Albernaz said after the game that he left Rogers in too long. Rogers said he should have put his ego aside and passed the game to the bullpen with the Orioles’ five-run lead intact, given he hadn’t pitched that deep in a game in some time.

So tucked within one of the most disheartening losses in an Orioles season that boasts plenty of them is a reminder that Rogers’ best is still within reach. This bumpy patch has been severe, but it hasn’t been like this all year.

Rogers had a 1.89 ERA over three starts and was through four scoreless innings against the Diamondbacks on April 14 before allowing four runs in the fifth, ending his outing. What followed were four starts — two before and two after a bout with the flu — in which Rogers allowed 21 earned runs on 24 hits in 14 1/3 innings.

Albernaz counted his outing Sunday — in which he allowed four runs in 4 2/3 innings — as progress. He likely will feel similarly about this one.

And, with so many encouraging signs coming from the rest of the starting rotation of late, the Rogers of the first six innings — which in so many ways looked like the Rogers of last year — will be another piece the Orioles hope falls into place as they look to turn their season around.

“The fastball locations were right where they needed to be, and that opened up the changeup, the bigger breaking ball — the sweeper was on full display, too,” Albernaz said. “He did a great job tonight.”