Orioles GM Mike Elias made a number of announcements as the club begins to finalize its Opening Day roster plans, as relayed by multiple reporters including Rich Dubroff of Baltimore Baseball. Most notable among those announcements is the fact that star shortstop Gunnar Henderson will open the season on the 10-day injured list. Additionally, Elias announced that southpaw Cade Povich will serve as the club’s fifth starter to open the season, with veteran journeyman Albert Suarez serving in a bullpen role.
The news regarding Henderson is a tough blow, given the star youngster is coming off an otherworldly 2024 campaign where he finished fourth in a stacked AL MVP class. A .281/.364/.529 (155 wRC+) hitter in 159 games last year, Henderson paired that excellent offense with 21 stolen bases and solid defense at shortstop en route to a 8.0 fWAR/9.1 bWAR campaign. With his 24th birthday still three months away, fans in Baltimore and around MLB have been looking forward to seeing how Henderson will build on his breakout campaign last year, though that will now be put on the backburner for at least the time being.
Fortunately, Elias indicated to reporters that the club remains hopeful that his absence, which is due to an intercostal strain that has sidelined him for much of Spring Training, should be a relatively short one. Henderson will miss at least seven days, as he’ll need to be placed on the 10-day injured list on Opening Day which can be backdated only a maximum of three days, but Elias’s comments seem to suggest that the club expects he won’t miss much more than that minimum time. For the time Henderson is out of action, the Orioles could look to Jackson Holliday at shortstop, thereby opening up second base for Ramon Urias.
Another option could be utility man Jorge Mateo, who has spent the spring recovery from elbow surgery. Orioles brass have previously cast doubt on his ability to be ready for Opening Day, but Elias noted this morning that the club is not ruling the possibility of Mateo breaking camp with the club out entirely. Mateo has experience all over the diamond but has played the overwhelming majority of his time in the majors at shortstop, which would make him a relatively seamless replacement for Henderson in the early days of the season if healthy. Of course, Mateo can’t offer anywhere near the offensive explosiveness that Henderson provides, having hit just .229/.267/.401 in 68 games last year.
Meanwhile, Elias also announced that the club’s fifth starter situation has been settled. The lefty Povich will join right-handers Charlie Morton, Tomoyuki Sugano, Dean Kremer, and Zach Eflin in the rotation to begin the year, with Suarez ticketed for the long relief role he opened the 2024 campaign in before eventually being pushed into a rotation job by injuries. It’s an exciting opportunity for the soon to be 25-year-old Povich, who debuted with the Orioles last year and made 16 starts, though he struggled to a 5.20 ERA with a 4.79 FIP in 79 2/3 innings of work. He’s looked quite good in Spring Training, however, with a 3.07 ERA in four starts throughout camp, and will look to carry that momentum forward into the regular season.
Povich’s time in the rotation figures to last only as long as Grayson Rodriguez’s absence due to elbow inflammation. The 25-year-old righty appears to be making progress in his return from the issue, though Andy Kostka of the Baltimore Banner cautions that Rodriguez is starting “near square zero” in his buildup towards game action. That would suggest the righty will need more or less a full spring workload before he can return to the rotation even after making two starts earlier in camp, which seems likely to give Povich at least four or five turns through the rotation before Rodriguez will be nearing a return, if not longer.