No homegrown Orioles pitcher solely developed by the Mike Elias regime has made it to Baltimore yet.

Until today.

The Orioles are scheduled to promote pitching prospect Brandon Young to start today against the Cincinnati Reds at Camden Yards, Baltimore announced Friday. The right-hander is filling in for the injured Zach Eflin, who suffered a lat muscle strain last week. Young was added to the Orioles’ taxi squad Friday. He will need to be added to the 26-man roster today before the game. The team did not make Young available to speak Friday.

Young will be the first pitching prospect to progress through the entire minor league pipeline to make his major league debut with the Orioles since Elias took over as Baltimore’s general manager before the 2019 season. Young signed as an undrafted free agent out of college in 2020 after the draft was shortened to five rounds because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“You never know what you’re going to get from someone’s major league debut,” manager Brandon Hyde said Friday. “He’s had a couple good appearances down in Norfolk. Hopefully he’s able to calm the nerves down and give us a good start tomorrow afternoon.”

The 26-year-old earned his big league debut after enduring a winding path to get there.

In 2020, Young was one of the many college players worthy of being taken in a 20-round draft who found themselves without a team after it was cut to five rounds. That summer, the Orioles combined their scouting and player development departments to convince players like Young, a Louisiana Lafayette standout, to sign with Baltimore.The early returns from the 6-foot-6 Young were promising in 2021 after he struck out 114 batters in 84 1/3 innings in A-ball. But Young suffered a potential career-altering elbow injury in 2022 that forced him to get Tommy John reconstruction surgery for the second time.

“My first surgery, when I was young, I was really naive to it. I didn’t really think about that stuff,” Young said last year. “But this time being older and just the competition around me, the talent we have in this system, definitely those thoughts crept in.”

Young missed most of the 2022 and 2023 campaigns and entered 2024 — his age-26 season — as mostly a nonfactor among the Orioles’ prospect ranks. That quickly changed once he got back on the mound, dominating Double-A hitters with a whopping 40.9% strikeout rate.

He was promoted to Triple-A Norfolk, ended his season on a high note and was named the Orioles’ Jim Palmer Minor League Pitcher of the Year. After not being a top-30 prospect to begin last season, Young entered 2025 as Baltimore’s No. 20 prospect, according to Baseball America.

“Any time you have to handle the adversity that he’s had to handle in his career,” Norfolk Tides pitching coach Justin Ramsey said last year, “it forces you to grow up a little bit. Not that he was immature when he joined us, but it makes you appreciate what you’re doing.”

Young wasn’t seen as a rotation candidate this spring, but injuries have once again befell the Orioles. Injuries to Eflin, Grayson Rodriguez, Albert Suárez, Trevor Rogers and Chayce McDermott put Young in position to make his MLB debut. He’s pitched well enough for the chance, too, with a 2.76 ERA in his first three starts for Norfolk this season. Young sports a low-to-mid 90s mph fastball that plays up in the zone, a looping mid-70s curveball, a mid-80s changeup and a cutter.

“BY is an awesome, awesome guy,” Orioles assistant pitching coach Mitch Plassmeyer said. “He’s a great story of a guy who was able to come back from that injury and kind learn himself, learn what he did well, have time to evaluate. … He’s a very cerebral guy. He’s really intelligent. The way he thinks about stuff is unique. I think he was able to take that time and evaluate what he was doing really well and stuff that he wanted to work on. He spent that entire time preparing himself to do what he’s here doing now.”

While Young is the first pitcher solely developed by the Elias regime to make his debut, he is far from the first pitching prospect to make his way to Baltimore.

Dean Kremer, Grayson Rodriguez and Keegan Akin are among the pitchers who were developed by the Elias regime, but they were acquired during the Dan Duquette era. Kyle Bradish, Cade Povich and Chayce McDermott were acquired via trade by Elias, but they were all drafted and signed by other organizations.

Young also might not be the last. Kade Strowd (2019 draft), Justin Armbruester (2021 draft) and Cameron Weston (2022 draft) all began this season in Norfolk and could be options to join Baltimore’s pitching staff in the future.

Young will join a rotation that’s been one of the majors’ worst this season, ranking 29th in MLB with a 5.09 ERA. Tomoyuki Sugano and Cade Povich have been solid, but Charlie Morton and Dean Kremer have struggled mightily with ERAs above 6.40.

Around the horn

Injured starting pitcher Grayson Rodriguez will seek out a second opinion on his shoulder after his MRI on Thursday. Hyde didn’t specify what the MRI revealed. Rodriguez suffered the setback earlier this week while rehabbing his elbow/triceps inflammation injury.

Tyler O’Neill, who missed two games with neck discomfort, was back in Friday’s lineup against Reds left-hander Andrew Abbott. Hyde kept Henderson in the No. 2 hole and chose to lead off Adley Rutschman versus the southpaw.

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