O's game blog: O's face Gerrit Cole in Game 2 of series

In Game 2 of this series between the Orioles and Yankees at Yankee Stadium tonight, a rookie making his third major league start faces the 2023 American League Cy Young Award winner.

It's lefty Cade Povich for the Orioles versus right-hander Gerrit Cole for the Yankees. Cole went 15-4 with a 2.63 ERA last season with a 0.981 WHIP in winning his first Cy Young Award. He has now finished in the top five in the voting six times and second or higher three times.

He has 1,859 career innings on his resume compared to 11 1/3 for Povich. He has made 300 starts in the bigs to two for the O's southpaw.

But Cole is making his 2024 season debut after going on the 60-day injured list March 28 with right elbow inflammation. He made two starts at Double-A and one at Triple-A in rehab outings leading into tonight. In those games, he threw 45, 57 and 70 pitches for a combined 12 1/3 innings, allowing six hits and one earned run with no walks and 19 strikeouts.

Cole faced the Orioles twice last year, going 0-0 with a 3.75 ERA over 12 innings. In 12 career games and starts versus the Orioles, he is 5-3 with a 2.55 ERA and 0.940 WHIP, allowing a .203 batting average and .572 OPS. 

Sometimes a team can get to Cole early. His career first inning ERA is 4.17 with a .742 OPS. His 44 home runs allowed in the opening inning of his games is his most of any inning.

The Orioles' leading hitters against Cole include Ramón Urías, who is batting .462 at 6-for-13 with two doubles and a homer. James McCann is 5-for-13 (.385) with three doubles and a homer. Cedric Mullins is 8-for-25 (.320) with a double and homer. And Austin Hays is batting .294 (5-for-17) with three doubles.  

Povich made his major league debut June 6 at Toronto, allowing six runs, two after he left the game, over 5 1/3 innings. Then last Wednesday at home versus Atlanta, he pitched six scoreless innings on five hits with no walks and six strikeouts, throwing 89 pitches.

In that game, Povich threw his four-seam fastball 45 percent of the time, averaging 92.1 mph and topping at 93.6. He used his curveball 26 percent and his third-most used pitch in that game was his cutter at 11 percent. Povich got 14 whiffs in that game and his curveball was on point, getting six swings and misses in 13 swings by Atlanta batters.

Even with the series-opening 4-2 loss to New York last night, the Orioles (47-25), now 2 1/2 games back of the Yankees for first place, have won eight of 11, 13 of 19 and 18 of 25 games. They are now 17-7 (.708) in AL East games.

The Yankees (51-24) are 10-10 in division games and 23-10 at home. Since they lost three of four in Baltimore in early May, they are 31-11 (.738).

Latest with Bradish, Coulombe and other updates: Orioles executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias passed on some tough injury news this afternoon at Yankee Stadium. He told reporters that right-hander Kyle Bradish had Tommy John surgery today in Texas with an internal brace added as part of the reconstructive procedure. He added that lefty reliever Danny Coulombe had bone chips removed from his left elbow yesterday. The team is hopeful he can return in September.

More on all of that is here.