BOSTON — There were times over the last year when Trevor Rogers wondered if he needed to find a new job, if his once-promising days as a major leaguer were already behind him at the ripe age of 27.

He had success early, making the All-Star Game and finishing second in National League Rookie of the Year voting. But since then he’s been plagued with injuries, and poor play has followed.

Then came the pressure of being the return in a trade last July for two once-prized prospects in Connor Norby and Kyle Stowers. Rogers wasn’t having a good season in Miami — he had a 4.53 ERA at the time — but general manager Mike Elias believed, he said at the time of the trade, that he could get Rogers back to the All-Star form he showed in 2021.

That wasn’t the case in his initial stint with the team last season. He lasted just four starts, pitching to a 7.11 ERA, and was shipped off to Triple-A Norfolk. As injuries piled up in Baltimore, creating a need for guys who could play like Stowers and Norby, this trade started to look like a flop.

Rogers’ mind, at times, questioned his worth as a player. He was putting in the work, he said, but not seeing results. A knee injury during spring training added to that frustration.

But on Saturday, in his first major league start of the season, Rogers proved that he has more in him as he pitched 6 1/3 scoreless innings. It couldn’t have come at a better time, the Orioles picking up a much-needed 2-1 win after dropping 10 of their last 11.

“I think, in the back of my mind, I always knew what I could do,” Rogers said. “You go through life and life’s going to suck sometimes and you never know when it’s going to turn around, but I know for certain it’ll never turn around if I quit on myself. So I just kept putting in the work, hoping in the back of my mind that it’ll turn around. Today was a big step forward.”

Rogers wasn’t just good — he put together one of the Orioles’ best starting pitching performances this season.

“I was really happy for Trev and really happy for the Baltimore Orioles watching him pitch,” interim manager Tony Mansolino said. “Just everything that’s surrounding him, watching him maybe struggle a little bit last year when we got him and just kind of some of the flak that the organization got for him. We just saw a guy that looked pretty good to me.”

The Orioles, entering Saturday, had the second-highest ERA in MLB at 5.84, ahead of only the nine-win Rockies. They expected Zach Eflin and Grayson Rodriguez to be a one-two punch, but Eflin has allowed 12 runs in his last two starts and Rodriguez is nowhere close to making his season debut after elbow and lat injuries have held him back from even throwing a baseball.

They’ve experimented with veterans, giving starts to Charlie Morton and Kyle Gibson, hoping their experience alone would be enough, but Morton has allowed 35 runs in 41 innings and Gibson was released after three starts. The only bright spot of the rotation has been Tomoyuki Sugano, who has a 3.07 ERA in his first MLB season after a decorated career in Japan.

Kyle Bradish and Tyler Wells are working back from Tommy John surgeries, but a return is still at least a month away.

So, needless to say, the Orioles needed someone to step up. And Rogers, on this night at least, just so happened to be the guy from his very first pitch. Catcher Maverick Handley knew right away that Rogers was different after noticing that his opening fastball was a little amped up.

“I was like, ‘Oh shit, he’s ready to play today,’” Handley said.

From there, Rogers only got stronger. He retired 19 of the first 20 batters he faced, allowing a leadoff single in the second but nothing more until the seventh, when he hit Rob Refsnyder with a pitch and then gave up a base hit to Kristian Campbell.

That would be it for Rogers, but Andrew Kittredge got the team out of the inning without allowing a run.

Rogers said getting his velocity back has been a focus of the Orioles, and he topped out at 95.8 mph on Saturday, compared to a high of 93.7 from his four starts last year. He focused on executing each pitch, he said, not worrying about how far he was in the game. Positive self-talk, he said, also played a key role.

Where the Orioles go from here is unknown, but it’s hard to imagine Rogers not getting another chance. As the 27th man for the second game of the doubleheader, Rogers was returned to Norfolk. But the move is procedural and does not burn an option, so they can bring him back anytime.

Regardless of what happens, Saturday was a stepping stone for Rogers, physically and mentally.

“It answered a lot of questions for me, a lot of self-doubt,” Rogers said. “I always knew in the back of my mind that I could help this organization, and I just wanted to do my job.”

This article has been updated.