Coming into the season, the Orioles expected their rotation to be solid yet unremarkable. After a brutal April, it seems like they are finally starting to meet those expectations.
It is impossible to understate what a disaster the Orioles rotation was for the first month of the 2025 season. Injuries decimated the depth that the front office thought they had built up over the winter, and those that were healthy largely put together career-worst performances. It was brutal. Now in May, things have turned around in a significant way.
Over nine games this month, the unit’s ERA is a passable 4.11, while their 3.97 FIP is even rosier. In April, those numbers were 6.04 and 5.75, respectively. Make no mistake, they are still leaps and bounds away from the league’s elite. But these outcomes represent a dramatic improvement, something closer to what the unit was expected to do coming into the season.
Tomoyuki Sugano has been the lone healthy and productive Orioles pitcher all season long. He is yet to allow more than three runs in any one start, and he has been at his best in May. Over two starts, he has tossed 13.1 innings and has a 2.03 ERA.
Dean Kremer has bounced back in a big way from a tough opening month. He has thrown seven innings in back-to-back starts and coughed up a total of two runs in that time. His season ERA is down from 7.04 at the end of April to 5.29 now.
Zach Eflin is back from a month-long stay on the IL with a right lat strain. The staff ace gave the Orioles a trademark solid outing on Sunday, going five innings and allowing two runs on five hits, two walks, and five strikeouts. His dependability every fifth day is invaluable for this bunch.
Cade Povich is the wild card of the crew, oscillating between impressive and depressing. His 5.55 ERA ad 5.05 FIP on the season aren’t great, but the context can make it more palatable. Povich wasn’t supposed to be a rotation fixture, at least not this soon. Injuries have thrust him into an MLB role yet again. In general, he is holding his own.
The fifth spot in the rotation still needs some work. Kyle Gibson is yet to pitch more than four innings in any start, and his 13.11 season ERA is tough to look at. Charlie Morton is back in the bullpen after making a spot start in Minnesota. The Orioles will probably give him another chance to start at some point this season, but he will need to show some improvement as a reliever first.
On top of improved performances at the major league level, the Orioles are slowly building back up their organizational depth. Trevor Rogers is officially done rehabbing his right knee subluxation. He was activated from the IL and optioned to Triple-A Norfolk over the weekend to keep working. Chayce McDermott is three starts into his own rehab from a right lat strain, and he has looked good in the process (9.2 IP, 1.86 ERA, 10 strikeouts). He might get an MLB start sometime in the near future. For now, they are both fighting with Brandon Young for a shot to fill in with the O’s.
All of the more notable names on the IL are still a ways off. Kyle Bradish and Tyler Wells are throwing bullpens and remain on track for a return sometime in the second half of season. Grayson Rodriguez is a big question mark, although the Orioles think he could get back to throwing by the end of the month. If that happens, he would likely be looking at a late July return. Getting all three of the arms back around the same time would be a huge boost.
This is all positive news, and it does promise that we have already lived through the worst that the 2025 season has to offer. This team—or at least the pitching staff—should be on an upward trajectory from here. That’s the theory anyway.
At the same time, they have dug themselves such an immense hole that it may not matter how much better they will be by July. Sure, there are a lot of games to play, which presents opportunities to win games and climb up the standings. But there are just as many opportunities to lose and keep falling.
As the rotation exists today, they aren’t capable of regularly winning games for the Orioles. They aren’t built to toss shutouts or protect their own offense. They need help.
That supposedly vaunted offense has been just as much of a problem as the rotation has been to this point. Given the level of talent, you would expect them to figure things out at some point. Perhaps that started to happen this past weekend in Anaheim.
The rotation can’t control what the offense does. They have their own separate set of expectations to meet. Through April, they failed, which didn’t give the rest of the team any room for error. So far in May, they have been much better. The team’s record is yet to rebound in the same way, but a good start day to day will go a long way towards improving this team’s fortunes.