SARASOTA, Fla. — Kyle Bradish is still months away from a return to the mound, but the injured Orioles pitcher said the first week of his throwing program went well.
Bradish is recovering from a sprained ulnar collateral ligament he suffered in January and received platelet-rich plasma injections to help heal. The right-hander has played catch a few times since beginning his progression Feb. 16, and while the throwing has been light and has yet to exceed 90 feet, he’s optimistic about the early returns.
“Everything is positive,” he said.
Bradish’s first session last week included a light toss at no more than 60 feet. He’s since moved back to 75 feet and will progress to 90 feet Saturday.
A sprained UCL, technically a partial tear of the ligament that requires Tommy John elbow reconstruction if torn, is not an easy injury to return from, and the PRP injections are not guaranteed to work.
Bradish said last week that he was “confident that I’ll be able to pitch and help this team out this year.” In 2023, the 27-year-old blossomed into the Orioles’ No. 1 starter and finished fourth in American League Cy Young Award voting. He went 12-7 with a 2.83 ERA in a career-high 168 2/3 innings.
Bullpen sessions are far still away and he will still begin the season on the injured list, as general manager Mike Elias said last week, but no bad news is simply good news at this stage.
“Everything’s going well,” manager Brandon Hyde said. “Progressing nicely, and he’s feeling good after he’s playing catch.”
Tate nearing normal
Last spring, the pitcher who Elias said had an arm injury that would keep him out for the beginning of the season was Dillon Tate. The reliever then didn’t pitch in the majors for all of 2023 as he dealt with a forearm/elbow injury.
Tate, who was one of Baltimore’s best relievers in 2022, was one of several pitchers who threw during live batting practice at Ed Smith Stadium on Friday. After a rocky start, Tate induced two flyouts and then struck out Kyle Stowers with a drop-off-the-table changeup.
The right-hander said spring training this year is a “regular camp” and that he’s “just trying to win a job” in the Orioles’ bullpen. He said he’s healthy and his arm has felt good this spring.
“It’s the closest sense of normalcy I’ve had in a little while, so that feels good,” Tate said about spring training. He began his minor league rehabilitation assignment in late April and allowed 15 runs in 8 1/3 innings before going back on the shelf. When he returned in June, he struggled again, surrendering five runs in 2 1/3 innings.
Tate said his stuff feels good but that he’s working on his command this spring.
“The movement is there on all the pitches that I want,” he said. “At this point, I feel like I need to do a better job just landing my other pitches for strikes.”
Tate is one of several relievers competing for the last few spots in the Orioles’ bullpen, which is shaping up to be one of the most competitive roster battles this spring.
Not your average World Series starter
The Orioles added a pitcher this offseason with a World Series start under his belt, but it wasn’t Corbin Burnes.
The Orioles signed Tucker Davidson to a minor league contract with an invitation to spring training, bringing in a left-hander pitcher who will one day be a fun fact for his appearance in a World Series. When Charlie Morton was injured during the 2021 Fall Classic, the Atlanta Braves replaced him with Davidson, who had started just five career big league games. The southpaw struggled in his two innings, walking three and allowing two runs, but the Braves would go on to win the title with Davidson on the roster.
He’s bounced around the past few seasons from Atlanta to the Los Angeles Angels to the Kansas City Royals. After an up-and-down first half as a reliever in 2023, he was designated for assignment by the Angels and ended the season stronger with the Royals. Now, he’s in camp with the chance to break with the Orioles as a potential third lefty out of the bullpen.
“Anytime you join a team that won the division and won 101 games, it’s pretty fun,” he said. “I played against Norfolk the last four years when I was in Triple-A with Gwinnett. Got to know some of the guys, got to pitch against Adley [Rutschman]. Now that he’s my backstop, that’s nice.”
Hyde said Davidson is being stretched out for multi-inning appearances but that his role on the Orioles is more likely in the bullpen than as a starter. There are about 10 pitchers competing for the last few spots in Baltimore’s bullpen this spring.
“Competition is never bad,” Davidson said. “It’s a good thing for the total organization to say, ‘Hey, we brought in a bunch of quality arms that can all compete for a couple spots.’ That’s all exciting for all of us. It kind of reminds me when I was coming up through the Braves system and they started winning division titles. You looked around the room and noticed everyone was really good.”
Davidson’s best pitch is a hard slider at 85 mph, which he threw 44% of the time last season. But two pitches added to his repertoire in 2023 — a sweeper versus lefties and a splitter against righties — gave him success. His splitter, which he threw just 63 times last year, generated an elite 53.6% swing-and-miss rate.
“I do now,” he said when asked if his arsenal is capable of getting both sides of the plate out. “I think last year I struggled with righties a little bit before the split. You were either going to get a fastball or something into you. The ability to go away now is huge.”
The state of the bullpen
Before the Burnes trade, it appeared the Orioles’ bullpen was set.
Tyler Wells, Cole Irvin and DL Hall were near-locks to be relievers to begin the season, as Wells and Hall could be back-end bullpen arms and Irvin a long man. But the Burnes trade, which sent Hall to the Milwaukee Brewers, and the early season absences of Bradish and John Means results in all three being out of the bullpen mix. Wells and Irvin have inside tracks to replace Bradish and Means in the rotation to begin the year.
Five of the spots are seemingly taken by closer Craig Kimbrel, All-Star Yennier Cano, out-of-options right-hander Mike Baumann and left-handers Danny Coulombe and Cionel Pérez. That leaves an open competition for the remaining three spots, for which at least 11 pitchers are competing: right-handers Jacob Webb, Dillon Tate, Kaleb Ort, Jonathan Heasley and Bryan Baker; and left-handers Keegan Akin, Andrew Suárez, Bruce Zimmermann, Nick Vespi, Matt Krook and Davidson.
“We have some bullpen spots open and a lot of interesting candidates, whether it’s guys who’ve come through the system or guys that we’ve just brought in, maybe off waivers or minor league free agent guys,” Hyde said. “We’re hoping for some surprises in camp, but you never know where your bullpen is going to come from.”
Finding relievers out of nowhere has been the Orioles’ calling card in recent years — from Pérez and Félix Bautista in 2022 to Yennier Cano and Danny Coulombe in 2023. Bautista is out for the 2024 season as he recovers from Tommy John surgery.
“Hopefully there’s a Yennier Cano in that locker room or a Felix Bautista from a couple years ago,” Hyde said. “We got Danny Coulombe on the last day of spring training last year. You just never know what’s going to happen these next six weeks or even the beginning part of the year. But let’s hope we can find a few more guys like those guys.”
Baker, who has combined to pitch 114 2/3 innings for Baltimore over the past two seasons, split his 2023 season between the majors and Triple-A. He was on the Orioles’ AL Division Series roster and struggled in his lone appearance.
He said he was impressed early in camp when he saw the number of major league-caliber relievers in the clubhouse.
“It seems like we just keep getting more and more talent,” he said. “I think a lot of guys in here can get outs at the big league level. I’m sure it’s going to be a competitive spring, and everybody is trying to show their best.”
Grapefruit League opener
Red Sox at Orioles
Saturday, 1:05 p.m.
TV: MASN
Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM
