If you have to avoid the eyes of the 2025 Baltimore Orioles funeral pan, I will feel it. Sometimes, it’s not a beautiful sight. But as Kyle Bradish returns to Oriole rotation, hopefully springs again.
Bradish is a late prospect that he really fuses it together only at the age of 26 and has only ranked No. 1 in a season before tearing the UCL last June. Since Bradish went down, the Orioles’ pitching staff has weathered some even noisier critics: The department of Corbin Burnes, a season-ending back injury to Zach Eflin, a season-ending (possibly multiple seasons-ending) should injury to Félix Bautista, and ongoing elbow issues that have kept Grayson Rodriguez out of action all year. (I wouldn’t like to call Rodriguez’s injury season end because the question of whether you can end something is an ontological puzzle that I’m not able to solve.)
The point is that the Orioles just got a pitcher and he was healthy last time he finished fourth in the Cy Young vote all season. Spencer Strider, the fourth terminator in another league, had Tommy John within a few months in Bradish, and when he returned earlier this year, it was a huge deal. (Just don’t ask how he has been since he came back.)
It’s just a game, but early returns are promising. Bradish played 6 innings, pitched 81 balls, allowed only four hits, and did not take 10 walks. The final Oriole pitcher hits over 10 hitters in the game? Well, last May, it was Bradish.
Just like the universe tells Bresh that he was missed.
Unfortunately for Baltimore, Lucas Giolito made a good change Tuesday night. The Big Right maintained the Orioles’ scoreless rating in eight innings and hit the runners’ scoring position among five batsmen. Bradish, who allowed the two to win, suffered losses.
I’m just going to show you the first one because the context is so great. Masn’s Melanie Newman quotes Bradish’s wife Mollie, who opened the second inning, whose determination and perseverance for her husband said something very cute on the long road to Tommy John’s surgery.
Really, I’m a little emotional. If your partner doesn’t talk about you in the way Bradish’s wife talks about him, you should learn about your relationship status for a long time. Unfortunately, despite all this going on, Bradish is pitching for his first inning, which turned out to be a hanging slider.
The key to comedy is surprise, and the sudden transition from “my husband is so inspiring…” to “kaboom” made me laugh out of my chair.
The second home run in Trevor’s story wasn’t exactly a moon shot. One minute, it only looked out due to the strange left field building in Camden yard, but the ball walked 372 feet and would leave every stadium in the major leagues. With the first pitch of the next round, Bradish left two men in the middle of the plate, which David Hamilton lined up, right on the big wall to the right.
These are two bad mistakes. Bradish threw seven intermediate courts at the start of his comeback, all four holes or settlers. Hamilton’s home run is one of them. Story’s home run came from the only remaining breaking ball in the heart area of baseball Savant.
I think it is unfair to describe all of this as a mistake. Hamilton hit a level break of only 9 inches in the middle. The court proved to be a powerful barrel passer when Bradish let his sinking pieces break 12 inches or more (that’s his entire night).
Alex Bregman could have scored the court into the gap. Instead, it fooled him so much that he knocked it with his toes. Results: Easy doubles. That’s very typical. That’s what happened to Bradish’s seven middle midfield fastballs: a home run, two first games called “Strike,” three ground balls hit the ground within 7 feet of the plate, and a pop-up pop-up angle of 87 degrees.
Bradish’s most used court throughout his career has been heavy. Part of the reason his sinker works well is his four-pin has natural glove side cuts, rather than riding on the armrest side. That’s where the 90s fastballs in the middle of the plate end up tied with good contact hitters like Bregman and Massa Taka Yoshida.
What’s interesting about Bradish’s four people is how many people he threw: 24 out of 81 courts. This is not a leap from Bradish’s norm, but it’s also the highest percentage of his four Seamers since May 2023. Bradish threw 21.1% of four sales in his four triple A rehabilitation, so maybe it’s just an anomaly, not a start with a deliberately stressing the 4th-level fast ball.
Nothing is paid for by fastball. In his 2023 Downballot Cy Young season, Bradish led the league to break the value of the ball. He has the third valuable curve ball in all baseballs and the 11th valuable slider.
Making Bradish’s two circuit breakers so interesting (unless you’re in the batsman’s box) is that while both pitches have better bottom breaks than average, the slider’s glove side breaks higher than average than average, while the curve ball’s glove side breaks below average.
In game situations, Bradish usually throws more curve balls to the left and throws more sliders to the right, but he breaks almost anyone. So if the right-handed batsman feels the ball traveling less than 90 mph or 91 mph, then it either drops out of the sky or enlarges the opposite batsman box without telling.
Even after six minor league rehabilitation began, Brave Training recovered to less than 90 courts, you can still see a few rust spots in his first game in the Orioles uniform. The misplaced fastball occasionally appears, and Bradish’s speed drops from 96 and 97 mph in the first inning to 92 and 93 in the fifth.
But the curve ball/slider combination is almost perfect. Bradish threw 28 breaking balls, producing 11-11! – Only 15 swings.
If your partner doesn’t feel about your feeling about Bradish’s curveball, you should take a long look at your relationship status.
These two broken courts drilled into a batsman’s mind, so much so that it was effective to just threaten them. Bradish threw seven breaks with just 25 double hits, and these seven breaks directly resulted in three punches.
Most of Bradish strikeouts are actually on two countertops, either dotted on the bottom edge of the area or running backwards on the inner edge to get what is called strike three.
The most beautiful court in baseball is a large 12-to-6 curve ball, but a front door two shoes called the third strike are far from behind.
The Orioles certainly want to see this version of Bradish rewards, like they were preparing for their third straight playoff run, but that wasn’t the case. However, seeing where he left is an encouraging signal for 2026. Although Gilito achieved better results in this pitcher duel, he was happy to see him.
