Baltimore Orioles player of the week: Kyle Bradish blows the competition away

It was a tale of two series for the Baltimore Orioles, as they completed the eighth full week of the 2024 season. It was a soggy, rain-soaked week that saw numerous delays. The week began with the bats going ice cold in St. Louis and ended with an offensive outburst on the south side of Chicago.

Not much of anything went right for the Orioles in St. Louis against the Cardinals. They were held to to just three hits in each of the first two games, and failed to hold a three-run lead in the third game. The blown lead ended the team's streak of 106 consecutive regular season series without being swept, which lasted two years.

Fortunately, the Orioles caught a break when they headed to Chicago for a four-game series against the White Sox. While there are no easy games at the major league level, the White Sox have been baseball's worst team this season and entered the series 20 games under .500. The Orioles bounced back and swept all four games against the White Sox.

While plenty of O's made a strong showing offensively against the lowly White Sox, there was really only one player who performed well in both series this week: Kyle Bradish. Bradish started Game 2 of the series against the Cardinals, and he looked strong. In his fourth start of the season, Bradish struck out six batters in 5.0 innings while allowing one run on four hits, and needed only 74 pitches to get that far. He clearly could have continued, but the weather was not an Orioles fan this week. The skies opened up and caused the game to be suspended. The game was continued the following day, but obviously Bradish was removed and the Orioles lost the game.

Baltimore Orioles' Kyle Bradish was not done dealing after dominating Cardinals

After the Orioles got back on track in Chicago, Bradish made his second start of the week in Game 4 of the series. The Birds had split the first six games of the road trip, and were looking to finish the trip with a winning record. Bradish did his part by putting together arguably the best start of his career.

Bradish posted season highs in innings and pitches, tied a career high in strikeouts, and that's not even the most impressive part. He held the White Sox hitless for 7.0 innings while striking out 11 batters. Bradish was pulled after completing the seventh because he had thrown 103 pitches and Hyde did not want to take a chance with pushing Bradish any further. Danny Coulombe entered in the eighth inning and gave up a solo home run, ending the no-hit bid, but the Orioles held on to win the game.

With the recent injuries to John Means and Dean Kremer, landing them both on the IL, it's nice to see Bradish pitching his best with seemingly no restrictions. For the week, Bradish went 1-0 with 17 strikeouts over 12.0 innings, while only allowing four hits and one run. That is why Kyle Bradish is this week's Orioles player of the week.