The Orioles list Kyle Gibson as the probable starter for tomorrow evening’s game against the Yankees. He’ll match up against Carlos Rodón in what will be his season debut. Gibson is already on the 40-man roster but will need to be recalled from High-A Aberdeen after agreeing to be optioned to the minor leagues.
Baltimore signed the veteran righty to a one-year, $5.25MM free agent deal on March 21. Gibson had spent the entire offseason on the open market after the Cardinals declined their $12MM option on his services. He’d thrown side sessions independently but signed too late to get any kind of game action. As with most pitchers who in the latter half of March, Gibson consented to a minor league assignment that could serve as a kind of unofficial Spring Training.
The 37-year-old Gibson has made a trio of starts — two at Triple-A Norfolk and his most recent with Aberdeen. That start came on April 20. Gibson reached five innings and 78 pitches. He’ll also be on over a week of rest, so he should be able to take something close to a typical starting workload tomorrow.
It’ll kick off the second O’s stint for Gibson, who absorbed 192 innings with a 4.73 ERA for the club two seasons back. A reliable source of back-of-the-rotation innings, Gibson worked to a 4.24 mark across 169 2/3 frames for St. Louis last year. He’ll slot alongside Tomoyuki Sugano, Charlie Morton, Dean Kremer and Cade Povich in Brandon Hyde’s rotation. The O’s lost Zach Eflin to a mild lat strain a few weeks ago, while Grayson Rodriguez is at least a month away amidst elbow and lat injuries. Albert Suárez. who entered the regular season in long relief after battling for the fifth starter role in camp, suffered a subscapularis strain during his first appearance and promptly landed on the 60-day injured list himself.
Baltimore will need to option a pitcher tomorrow. Kade Strowd, who was called up this afternoon but did not get into their 4-3 win against New York, seems likely to head back to Norfolk.
They messed-up not giving Corbin the bag. The rotation was very sus BEFORE Grayson went down.
Jury is out on Corbin but they definitely should’ve done something
I think Burnes really just wanted to be in Arizona with his family in my opinion. However, my O’s not doing anything to replace that level of production is completely ridiculous. Sugano at this point is our only great move this off season. There was literally no back up or replacement plans in case people got injured and no reliable proven option to carry the pitching staff until you got some of your injured/rehabbing arms back.
I do wonder if the new owner told the front office not to make any long-term contract signings until after the next CBA is negotiated. It might be a bet by the O’s that the terms will be more favorable to the teams than the current CBA, a business move rather than a baseball one. Just a wild guess though
thanks for sharing your wisdom.
Good luck, Gibson! STL fan, he ate lots of innings, positive vet influence.