With their first three picks in Thursday's Major League Baseball draft, the Orioles followed through on their pledge to add to their young pitching inventory.

The team selected right-hander Cody Sedlock with the 27th overall pick in the first round, then added Western Michigan left-hander Keegan Akin and junior college right-hander Matthias Dietz in the second round.

Sedlock earned Big Ten Conference Pitcher of the Year honors at Illinois this season, striking out 116 batters in 1011/3 innings while going 5-3 with a 2.49 ERA in 14 starts.

"Cody is a durable college starting pitcher with a good arm," Orioles scouting director Gary Rajsich said in a statement. "He has a good fastball, good breaking pitches, good feel for a change and good control."

Entering the draft, Orioles executive vice president Dan Duquette said they would likely end up with a pitching-heavy draft. College pitchers, he said, have shorter paths through the minor leagues.

Sedlock fits both bills. The 6-foot-4 right-hander worked his first two years at Illinois as a reliever but moved to the rotation this season without missing a beat, working a low-90s fastball in with a slider, curveball and a changeup.

He has a 2.96 ERA in 1641/3 innings in three seasons at Illinois, though his workload increased dramatically this season. Sedlock's 1011/3 innings this season come a year after he pitched 311/3 innings for Illinois, then 29 innings for Bourne of the Cape Cod League. He twice pitched into the 10th inning this season.

“The Orioles are getting an outstanding young man in Cody Sedlock,” Illinois coach Dan Hartleb said in a statement. “Cody's work, on and off the field, have made him deserving a first-round pick. It has been impressive to watch his development on the mound and in the weight room over the past three years; he's a great competitor. I really respect him as a person and for what he did for our program.”

Sedlock was ranked 26th in the MLB.com predraft rankings, and 37th by Baseball America. ESPN's Keith Law had him ranked 17th on his final big board. Baseball America named him a first-team All-American in 2016.

Akin, who was selected 54th overall, was a three-year weekend starter who shot up draft boards this year after struggling with injury as a sophomore in 2015. This year, as a junior, he went 7-4 with a 1.82 ERA, 133 strikeouts and 30 walks in 109 innings over 17 starts.

He pitched his best at the end of the season, winning two games in the MAC tournament and carrying a streak of 302/3 innings without allowing an earned run between the end of the regular season and the conference tournament.

Dietz, a 6-foot-5, hard-throwing right-hander, was considered the top junior college pitcher in the country after two seasons at John A. Logan College in Illinois. As a sophomore, he struck out 117 batters with a 12-1 record and a 1.22 ERA in 13 starts.

Sedlock was the first of three selections the Orioles had on the draft's first day. There was a time early in the offseason when the Orioles' first-day haul could have been twice as large.

The Orioles had the potential to make seven selections on the first night of the draft — their own two picks, a compensation pick for not signing 2015 second-round pick Jonathan Hughes, their competitive-balance pick and as many as three compensatory picks if first baseman Chris Davis, catcher Matt Wieters and pitcher Wei-Yin Chen declined their qualifying offers and signed elsewhere in free agency.

Wieters accepted the qualifying offer, Davis re-signed with the team and the Orioles forfeited the 14th pick to sign right-hander Yovani Gallardo. Then they traded their compensatory pick, the 76th overall pick, to the Atlanta Braves last month.

Florida outfielder Buddy Reed, who grew up in Finksburg, was drafted in the second round by the San Diego Padres.

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