Shane Baz is turning the tides on Orioles-Rays blockbuster trade after much criticism

The Baltimore Orioles gave up a lot to get Shane Baz this offseason. The Rays did not exactly have him on the trading block, but the Orioles front office pursued Baz so aggressively and put so much prospect capital on the table that the Rays felt they had to make the deal. So when Baz started off the season with a 5.48 ERA through his first eight starts, while at the same time Michael Forret was pitching like an ace and Caden Bodine was hitting everything in sight in the minors, the trade was starting to look a little lopsided in favor of the Rays.

In those first eight Baz starts, the Orioles were 2-6; his K/9 was under eight, and his BB/9 was over four. Beyond the poor numbers, Baz just looked out of sorts. Every at-bat felt like a battle for him; he struggled to put guys away with two strikes. When the count would get in the hitter's favor, he would either throw completely non-competitive pitches and walk them or groove a four-seam down the middle that would get crushed.

Shane Baz is making the package the Orioles gave up for him an afterthought

Looking at what Baz was doing and then looking at Bodine's 1.047 OPS in High-A and Forrett's 1.67 ERA it was easy to feel like the Rays had pulled one over on the Orioles even before taking into account that Slater De Brun was yet to make his debut, the fact that they had not yet used the compensation pick in this years upcoming draft or anything that Austin Overn was doing.

Fortunately for the Orioles, Baz was under contract for more than just the first six weeks of the season, and over the last month, he's looked like an entirely different pitcher, one who would be worthy of a multi-prospect haul.

Over Baz's last four starts, he has put up an ERA of 2.33 with 25 strikeouts in 27 innings. He has gone at least six innings in all of those starts, and seven innings in three of them. He has still walked a few more batters than you'd like, but watching the games, you can see a visible difference in the kinds of walks Baz is allowing. In his first eight starts, he was throwing a lot of non-competitive pitches, and batters were drawing "no sweat" walks off him. The walks in the last few starts have been hard fought with lots of foul balls and close calls. As far as his command goes, the most important thing is that he has significantly reduced the amount of hard contact he is allowing by commanding his knuckle curve and four-seam fastball better and keeping them out of the heart of the zone.

Baz's most recent start against the Red Sox was a perfect example of how he's improved this season. He threw his four-seam and knuckle curve on over 70% of his pitches to the Sox, and those two pitches were each thrown for strikes over 60% of the time. If Baz can throw his best two pitches and get chase and swing and miss in the zone, he's going to be effective. On top of those two pitches, he mixed in his changeup and sinker, which he had not been throwing much this season, and those two pitches got excellent results. Maybe most notably, he backed way off the cutter, which was a pitch that he was leaning on a lot to start the year, that was just getting hammered.

He kept the Red Sox off balance all night. He led with the curve; they couldn't make heads of tails of his two fastballs, and they weren't ready for the changeup. That's how you get seven innings of two-run ball.

The prospects that the Orioles gave up for Shane Baz could end up being good players, but as long as Baz can pitch as he has over the last month, the Orioles won't miss them at all.

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