At first, Cade Povich laughed at the notion. Was Wednesday night’s Camden Yards debut one of the best games he has ever pitched in his life?
“It’s hard to compare to minor league games,” he said. Then the 24-year-old rookie thought, and walked it back a bit. “I think when you can go six shutout against a team like the [Atlanta] Braves in a major league game, it’s definitely up there.”
Through those six scoreless frames, Povich struck out six, allowed five hits and walked none. Outside of a second-inning hit-by-pitch, manager Brandon Hyde said the performance was “everything we needed and more.” “Unbelievable,” was another word Hyde used after the 4-2 win, the Orioles’ sixth straight.
To the big league stage, this is all new. The left-handed starter was called up last week and made his major league debut in Toronto — a better-than-it-looks six-run, five-hit introduction.
Povich’s latest start was his first time at Camden Yards not watching from the stands or, more recently, without there being snow on the ground. And the opposite starting pitcher, Spencer Schwellenbach, was a former teammate at Nebraska. That meant — whether it was his best game ever or not — family members, trainers, friends and former coaches were all in attendance to see it.
Through all the ancillary notes to the infant stage of a career in which he’s still finding his footing, to those who have known him longer than these two starts, this performance is no surprise.
“I mean, he throws like [Max] Fried,” Schwellenbach said, comparing the rookie with his Braves teammate, the best left-handed starter in baseball. “When he gets on the mound, you know what you’re gonna get. [At Nebraska] every Friday, when he’d come out and throw, you knew you were gonna get zero, maybe one run.”
.@HuskerBaseball proud night for Husker Nation!! #Huskers #GBR pic.twitter.com/5sIuXfatU6
— Tim Povich (@timpovich) June 13, 2024
Nebraska coach Will Bolt watched Wednesday’s quality start with Povich’s family from their seats back up behind home plate. Bolt was washed over by such pride being in attendance.
He harkened back to his favorite Povich memory.
It was late May 2021, mere months before he was drafted at No. 98 overall by the Minnesota Twins. The Cornhuskers returned home for their final series of the regular season against Michigan. They already clinched the top seed in the Big Ten Conference, and after a spring marred by COVID-related attendance restrictions, they were greeted by a season-high 5,434 fans.
Povich pitched that night in Lincoln, Nebraska. The game itself didn’t bare much extrinsic weight, similar to Povich’s home debut at Camden Yards. But like Wednesday night, he took to the mound before a crowd wearing the same colors as him, yearning to see him pitch.
“He had an immaculate inning in the first inning,” Bolt deadpanned, before flashing a grin. “Ready for the moment. … Just another ah-ha moment for Cade Povich of just like, this guy is destined for some big things.”
Povich didn’t impress quite so immediately in this one. Although there were signs of the composed nature — this time in front of 24,122 fans — lauded by those who know him well.
Like in the sixth inning, when the Braves had two runners on base with two outs. Pitching coach Drew French paid Povich a mound visit, but the Orioles left him in. Povich delivered two 91 mph fastballs and escaped the jam on the latter with popout from Adam Duvall.
“He’s very unbothered by the moment,” Orioles relief pitcher Bryan Baker said. “He’s just kind of our there doing his thing.”
Baker, who is on the Orioles’ active roster for the first time this season, spent the early portion of this spring with Povich in Triple-A Norfolk. The 29-year-old couldn’t pinpoint specific moments emblematic of Povich’s ice-cold nature on the mound but rather waxed eloquently about the sum of the parts from those two shared months.
“Especially this year, pitch count would get high a little bit every once in a while, but they struggle to string together multiple hits in the same inning off of him, it’s very evident,” Baker said. “It’s like he knows he needs to get out of the inning or whatever it may be. It just seems like he’s not really amped up by the moment. It seems like he’s steady. It may not be that way but appears that way.”
Nerves can be a cruel offender.
Povich acknowledged he’s finally starting to feel his body again two starts in. He ate breakfast fine and did a better job of getting lunch down before Wednesday’s start.
“It’s still baseball,” Povich said. “So just kind of calming everything down. Making pitches. … I know I have an unbelievable defense behind me and all I gotta do is fill up the zone.”
Povich joined the Orioles organization at the 2022 deadline as the biggest piece in the at-the-time controversial trade of All-Star closer Jorge López. He methodically rose up Baltimore’s farm system, reaching an apex this spring as he lowered his walks and was recognized as a top 100 prospect by Baseball America.
Any advice for this early stint now with his two debuts in the rearview mirror?
“The only thing I would tell him is keep doing what he’s doing,” Baker said. “He’s got the stuff. Being around it a lot more this season, it’s very impressive. He’s the kind of guy that you just gotta make sure he goes right at guys because his stuff is that good.”
Baker called his teammate’s fastball “invisible.” “There are a lot of terms for it,” he said, plainly meaning Povich hides the pitch well, making it tough for batter’s to recognize. “But it’s sneaky. It’s a good heater.”
Live pitching aside, Povich is impressing those around the Orioles’ clubhouse with his approach.
“He came into that start in Toronto prepared,” Hyde said. “It wasn’t just a one-sided conversation, but he actually did some homework before he faced him. That shows you a lot about who he is and how important this is to him and the professionalism part. So, yeah, I’ve been really impressed with how he’s gone about his business so far.”
Relief pitcher Danny Coulombe is noticing how much the new guy wants to learn. Catcher James McCann, who was behind the plate last Wednesday, said “his poise, his demeanor coming in, first big league start, I was impressed.”
Bolt saw the same head-in-the-books study patterns at Nebraska.
Povich often picked the brain of their pitching coaches. He was intentional about getting the most out of every bullpen session. He was taking note of his teammates too, Bolt said, talking grips and other approaches.
“You could just kind of tell right away,” Bolt said, “that he was gonna be that type of kid that really soaked it all in.”
The biggest difference between his first start in Toronto and second back in Baltimore?
“I was more prepared learning from some of our other starters throughout this week,” Povich said. “Picked up on some cues just to be prepared going into the start with [knowing] who I’m facing.”
To Orioles fans, Povich’s outing was a sign of another potentially fruitful option in an ever-in-flux rotation. To his longtime teammates and Nebraska kin, he’s the former 6-foot-3 high schooler who was 165 pounds soaking wet and believed he could make it.
They see the kid who threw 80 mph as a junior in high school then played at South Mountain Community College in Phoenix, Arizona. Yet still, always harbored the self belief to get here.
“He was at the bottom of the litter,” Bolt said. “And so he had to scrap his way through with that belief that he was good enough to do it. Now that he’s all grown up, so to speak, it just really shines through when you have that big presence on the mound now, that used to be the little guy that had to earn everything he got.”
Baltimore Sun reporter Jacob Calvin Meyer contributed to this article.