Orioles top pitching prospect deserves more credit as offense dominates in Norfolk

Understandably, the offense for the Triple-A affiliate for the Baltimore Orioles, the Norfolk Tides, has gotten a lot of attention to start the 2024 season. Not only have they been putting up crazy offensive numbers to start the campaign, but those numbers have been put up by big prospect names in Heston Kjerstad, Coby Mayo, Connor Norby, and the soon-to-be-promoted Jackson Holliday.

However, offense is not the only thing that the Orioles have cooking down at Triple-A. While Baltimore's farm system isn't known for being particularly deep when it comes to pitching, the team's ninth ranked prospect, Cade Povich, has been putting on quite the show to start the season.

Cade Povich is an Orioles pitching prospect to watch closely for a promotion

Originally a third-round pick from the 2021 MLB Draft by the Twins, the Orioles managed to get their hands on him when he was part of the return for the trade that sent Jorge Lopez to Minnesota. The 6'3" lefty has a fastball that generally sits in the mid-90s that he gets really nice riding action from at the top of the zone. That heater pairs nicely with two breaking balls and a changeup. However, through 1.5ish seasons with Baltimore, he struggled to keep his walks in check and throw his secondaries consistently well despite racking up the strikeouts.

Something has clearly clicked for Povich at the start of the 2024 season, however. Not only is he still striking out a bunch of guys, but hitters haven't been able to spit on his breaking and offspeed stuff, as he is landing them for strikes. That's helping both with walks and preventing hard contact, despite the fact that he is at the highest level of the minor leagues this year.

Two starts is still too soon to start making wild predictions (for us, anyways), but Povich coming into his own would be a fantastic development for the Orioles. While they seem to be set at every position in the field for the foreseeable future, fielding a deep and strong pitching staff has been a challenge. Corbin Burnes has been great so far and Grayson Rodriguez certainly has the talent to be a stud, but having another starter that can get swings and misses would go a long way towards building the dynasty that Baltimore is hoping to.

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