Andrew Stetka: O's indecision with rotation is a good thing

Depth at any position in any sport is always crucial, but it seems starting pitching in baseball always provides one of the toughest tests for a team in this department. It's clear that having a top-notch pitcher always gives an organization a chance to win every fifth day, but one injury (or sore elbow leading to Tommy John surgery, it seems this season), can derail the best of rotations and teams.

The Orioles are clearly going about things differently this season, and have been for some time. While internally the O's may have thought they were getting one of those top-notch pitchers in Ubaldo Jimenez this offseason, that clearly is not the case. Some others (including myself) pegged Chris Tillman as an ace after a hot April, but that also is definitely not panning out how it seemed it might at one point. The Orioles don't have that great pitcher in the rotation, but the one thing they do have is depth.

Buck Showalter has already made it clear that he has no desire to go to a six-man rotation, but whether he likes it or not, that's basically what he's doing this week. Kevin Gausman is the X-factor in all of this. Stellar starts against the A's and Blue Jays have shown he has what it takes to pitch at the big league level. Some of Showalter's comments following last week's performance against Toronto indicate that even the skipper himself is starting to believe.

With Miguel Gonzalez returning this week, Wei-Yin Chen and Bud Norris firmly implanted in the rotation, and the aforementioned Jimenez and Tillman, the O's all of a sudden have six starting pitchers on the roster. This isn't a bad thing. It's not like the old saying in the NFL: When you have two starting quarterbacks, you really have none. Depth in this case is a strong point. It gives Showalter the opportunity to rest a starter for a few more days when needed. He was able to juggle this type of schedule at the end of the 2012 season heading into the playoffs. In the future, near or distant, Gonzalez, Norris or perhaps even Chen could move to the bullpen and the team could go back to having a true five-man rotation. In the meantime, there are options, which give Showalter the ability to play matchups.

The one way this could all go very poorly is by taking that X-factor in Gausman and continuing to use him like a yo-yo. It's sink or swim time for Gausman, there's no reason to baby him any longer. Two solid starts don't prove he's ready to be a consistent contributor to a major league rotation just yet, but it should give him the opportunity to prove his worth. Shipping Gausman back to Triple-A Norfolk would only delay the process of his growth, and moving him to the bullpen might even be worse. He was drafted to be a starting pitcher and projected as a key piece to the rotation.

It's also fun to realize that more help could be on the way. Dylan Bundy made his first rehab start for the short-season Single-A Aberdeen IronBirds on Sunday, allowing one run over five innings. Bundy's recovery from Tommy John surgery has gone well to this point, and there's no reason to believe that he can't contribute later this season. Pair that with the current players that are contributing, and you could have a pitching staff that can contend in the American League East. There is no starter pitching as good as Masahiro Tanaka, Jon Lester or even Mark Buehrle on the Orioles roster, but when all of the pieces mesh together, the depth could be the best in the division.

Andrew Stetka blogs about the Orioles for Eutaw Street Report. Follow him on Twitter: @AStetka. His thoughts on the O's appear here as part of MASNsports.com's continuing commitment to welcome guest bloggers to our little corner of cyberspace. All opinions expressed are those of the guest bloggers, who are not employed by MASNsports.com but are just as passionate about their baseball as our roster of writers.