The Orioles came into the 2026 season talking about rotation depth, and for once with actual justification. The team had failed to sign a big-name ace in the offseason, but they did have six starters for five spots (Trevor Rogers, Kyle Bradish, Shane Baz, Chris Bassitt, Zach Eflin, Dean Kremer)—seven, even eight, if you counted sometime starters Albert Suárez, Tyler Wells, and Cade Povich. The team even had, in theory, something in scant supply last season: health. Kyle Bradish was back from Tommy
John, Zach Eflin was recovered from back surgery and reportedly feeling better than ever, Shane Baz was ready to go a full year. The Norfolk shuttle would be for prospect call-ups, not emergencies.
Then the season started, and it’s been going a little like Mike Tyson’s observation about everybody having a plan until you get punched in the face.
Ace Trevor Rogers has looked fallible, with five and four earned runs in his last two starts, respectively. Bradish, meanwhile, is not inspiring full confidence: his velocity is pretty much normal, but his two-seamer and slider are markedly less effective weapons. Eflin had a great spring, then exited his very first start on March 31 due to right elbow discomfort, underwent imaging and a second opinion, and ultimately had Tommy John surgery. He is gone for the year and possibly beyond. As for Kremer, who didn’t even make the rotation out of spring training, he was recalled after other injuries, pitched competently, but just went back on the 15-day IL with a strained right quad.
And that’s how we ended up turning to Brandon Young, called up Thursday to start against the Boston Red Sox on Friday night. Not even the team’s eighth-best choice for the starting rotation back in spring, it’s now looking like he might be sticking around for a while.
Brandon Wayne Young’s path to the majors has been long and interrupted. An undrafted free agent, he signed with the Orioles in 2020, missed that year entirely due to COVID, showed promise in 2021, then underwent Tommy John surgery in 2022 after just three starts at Double-A. He spent 2023 bouncing between four affiliates while working his arm back. In 2024, he put it together: over 27 appearances between Bowie and Norfolk, he posted a combined 3.57 ERA and 132 strikeouts in 111 innings. It was enough to push him onto the Orioles Top 30 prospects list for the first time, appearing at No. 19.
From undrafted to sort-of top prospect, Young made his MLB debut the following year, in 2025. Interestingly, as now, it was injuries to Zach Eflin (a right lat strain then, Tommy John now) that vaulted Young into the O’s rotation. Cool opportunity, but results-wise, his season was mixed, at best. Over 12 starts and 57.2 innings, he went 1-7 and posted a 6.24 ERA. Yet amid those struggles, he produced two performances that ranked among the season’s best moments. On July 9 against the Mets, he threw an immaculate inning: nine pitches, nine strikes, three strikeouts, getting whiffs from Jesse Winker and Jeff McNeil on his changeup before blowing a 96 mph fastball past Luis Torrens. And then, on August 15 in Houston, he tossed a career-high eight innings, allowing only one hit, becoming the first Oriole rookie to throw eight scoreless innings while allowing one or zero hits since Chris Waters in 2008. He came within four outs of a perfect game. A hamstring strain ended his season shortly after.
Cut to 2026. Once again, Brandon Young didn’t figure to be central to the Orioles’ pitching plans, but intervening circumstances dictated otherwise. The big Texan began the season down in Norfolk, and his performance there started to turn heads. In three starts totaling 16.2 innings, he allowed just two runs and struck out 19. With a 1-0 record and 1.08 ERA, 0.54 WHIP and .111 opponent average, he was named International League Pitcher and Player of the Week, a fitting tribute to his strong start. Even better: on April 6, he was called up to the big leagues, where he threw five scoreless innings with two hits against the lowly White Sox, showing a command and ability to miss bats that was often absent from his 2025 work. Now, given another chance to start for the O’s, he’ll try his luck against Sox of a different color.
Is there reason to think something has genuinely changed for Brandon Young? Cautiously, because it’s been very little time, but yes. It seems last season he had some bad luck on contact, to judge by his xwOBA against (.320) was meaningfully better than his actual wOBA (.372), and for ERA (6.24 actual, 4.27 expected). This spring he’s simplified his pitch mix and cut down on walks, and for now, his fastball is generating more swings and misses than it did last season, with a positive run value. A pitcher with four good pitches who throws strikes is better than one who sort-of commands six. The sample is still small, but the underlying indicators point in the right direction.
The ceiling remains much what we expected (although in fairness, who saw that near-perfect game coming last year?). The Young four-seamer sits in the 92-95 mph range: it’s a solid pitch when he locates it at the top of the zone, and it plays up because everything comes out of the same delivery window. He’s upped the use of his splitter, his best swing-and-miss weapon, and replaced a hard-to-locate curveball with a slider. Fewer moving pieces to mess up here.
We’ll see what happens on Friday night, but I’m being obvious when I say that the Orioles could use good news on the pitching front. The rotation they built has already been significantly depleted, and this team has real offensive talent that deserves consistent support from the mound. Young is not a top-of-rotation arm, and his hold on a roster spot may be temporary once others get healthy. But given a chance to pitch, he may prove an unexpected asset. There were glimpses of this last season. This year, he may be ready to make the most of the opportunity.
