Brandon Young gave the Orioles something they badly needed in 2026: a rotation answer that no one saw coming.
That was not the expectation a year earlier. On August 25, 2025, Young took the mound at Daikin Park and spent 7 2/3 innings looking untouchable, retiring the first 23 Astros he faced while 33,654 fans watched, along with a busload of family and friends who had come in from Lumberton, Texas.
Then Ramón Urías - yes, Ramón Urías - chopped a dribbler to the right of the mound. Young’s throw went wild, the perfect-game chase ended, and what remained was still plenty impressive: eight innings, one hit, no walks and a 7-0 Orioles win.
At the time, that game looked like a one-night eruption from an undrafted rookie with a rough track record. Young had entered the start at 0-6 with a 6.70 ERA and a 1.74 WHIP, and a week later a hamstring strain ended his season. He finished 2025 at 1-7 with a 6.24 ERA, 12 homers allowed in 57 2/3 innings and a 64 ERA+.
Then 2026 happened.
Young opened the year in Norfolk, and his path to the rotation was tied to the kind of attrition that can swallow a pitching staff. Zach Eflin, back on a one-year deal, lasted just 3 2/3 innings on March 31 before an elbow injury sent him to Tommy John surgery in April.
Dean Kremer got the next chance, but a quad strain in late April opened the door for Young. Once he came up, he stayed.
That became one of the Orioles’ best stories of the season. Young made 28 starts, threw 156 2/3 innings and posted a 3.56 ERA, good for a 114 ERA+ and 2.3 bWAR. For a team that kept reaching for stopgaps as injuries piled up, those were exactly the sort of innings that keep a season from unraveling.
The turnaround starts with the pitch mix. Young cut out his cutter, added a sinker that he used about 14% of the time, and leaned much harder on his slider.
That slider became the pitch that changed everything, producing a 41.6% whiff rate. He also pulled nearly three miles per hour off his splitter, dropping it from 87.3 mph to 84.4, while his four-seamer ticked up to 94.4.
The result was a splitter that went from getting hammered to becoming a real weapon; opponents slugged .609 against it in 2025 and just .388 this season.
There are still reasons to keep a little caution in the back pocket. Young’s FIP was 4.47 and his xERA 4.32, both about three-quarters of a run higher than his actual ERA.
His expected wOBA against was .319, almost the same as it was in 2025 at .320, which suggests hitters made roughly the same quality of contact against him even as the results changed. His strikeout rate sat around league average, his walk rate was below it, and he gave up 22 home runs.
Some of this almost certainly came from sequencing and batted-ball luck.
Still, the season wasn’t built on smoke and mirrors alone. The pitch changes look real, and the shape of his month-to-month performance supports that idea. April and September were his roughest stretches, the only months in which he posted an ERA above 4, and those dips lined up with rust and fatigue rather than a collapse.
That leaves the obvious question: what comes next? Young is pre-arbitration and won’t be arbitration-eligible until 2029, which makes him both cheap and under control for years.
With Eflin a free agent coming off surgery, Kremer gone and Chris Bassitt’s one-year deal expiring, the Orioles have openings. Young could be one of the answers.
For a front office that has taken plenty of heat over its pitching record, that matters. Brandon Young may look like a back-end starter rather than a star, but he arrived without being drafted and turned himself into a real part of the rotation. That alone makes him one of the best stories of the year.
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In the end, the Yankees passed, leaning on Wells game-calling and the value of their bullpen depth as they position for the postseason. For Baltimore, the episode underscores how closely the market can circle around one of the franchises most important players, and it leaves open the possibility that New York could circle back to its catching plans once the season is over. [Read more 🡒]