The Orioles need to embrace a six-man rotation.
Might as well start now.
This starting staff has been the biggest positive surprise of the season as a collective, and they are in a rich vein of form in the month of June, binging a 3.90 ERA as a rotation into the start of the series with the White Sox , 10th in MLB for the month. Considering the injury histories and inconsistencies of guys like Kyle Bradish and Trevor Rogers , that's pretty impressive.
But this group isn't loaded with workhorses and many of this group are being asked to do things they haven't done before - either pitch this much in the majors or try to throw 150 innings after not throwing even 40 in either of the previous two seasons or take on more pressure than expected for a team that is falling well below collective expectations.
And with Dean Kremer - a proven league-average-ish inning eater - ready to return from a long absence as soon as Wednesday - there are a handful of significant reasons why going with six starters makes too much sense for this backwards organization to ignore.
Rookie Trey Gibson would be the obvious candidate to go to Norfolk when Kremer is activated. Don't do it. Albert Suarez has cleared waivers a bunch this season and would do it again. Let's get real, this team looks like a seller and it can't even compete for a top playoff spot in a year the American League is totally watered down. They absolutely must get real about using this time to evaluate key youngsters in this organization.
Gibson qualifies.
He's the best pitching prospect above AA in the org, he has interesting stuff and while he's been wild as heck very early in his MLB career, this front office always defaults to stunting its youngsters and not empowering them enough and they need to weed out what's real and what's not. This kid is showing some positive signs with swing and miss. The best pitcher they have developed from inside the organization during Elias's entire pathetic nine-year run here is Brandon Young .
So, yeah, Gibson needs a look and then Nestor German after the deadline when more pieces are sold off.
They need to back off him because they have marred his third full season by letting him pitch through "considerable discomfort" in 2024 before getting Tommy John surgery .
Getting him through the entire season was always going to be very tricky. Sending him to the minors for a few weeks or something like that won't fly given how small the margins are for this team already digging themselves a huge hole. And after the last two season it would be huge for Bradish's confidence after missing so much time, but having him through the 180 innings he's on pace for seems crazy.
If a team as excellent at developing pitchers as the Mariners believes a six-man rotation with piggybacking and stacks makes sense for them, given all the quality arms they have, damn right none of these five guys can say they absolutely have to pitch every five days.
Trevor Rogers isn't exactly a stallion and they've had to back off him before and it was only a few weeks ago they were thinking about yanking him after five innings to help his confidence. Shane Baz was their leading in inning pitched heading into the White Sox Series; he is thrown this many innings once before in his career. And he ain't exactly a portrait of consistency himself.
Young is getting this long of a runway at the MLB level for the first time. We're not sure Gibson belongs but needs to find out. No need to overthink this. More is more for this group, and the Orioles have dabbled with this before.
If it's working out and Chris Bassitt comes back at some point, let him be a long guy in the pen at this stage of his career or whatever. Maybe he replaces someone and they still stick with six, because Bassitt will be prone to continue breaking down, too, at 37. Maybe we get another look at Cade Povich at some point too.
Six should be the magic number for this group.
This article was originally published on www.si.com/mlb/orioles/onsi as There Are 3 Obvious Reasons The Orioles Need To Go To A 6-Man Rotation .
