BRADENTON, Fla. — Orioles fans might not yet be super familiar with Shane Baz’s game. They’re about to find out.
Baz made his Orioles spring training debut Friday in their 6-1 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates and pitched 2 1/3 scoreless innings, topping out at 98.6 mph with his fastball and racking up four strikeouts with two walks and zero hits allowed. The right-hander worked in a heavy mix of four-seamers, curveballs and cutters with a handful of changeups and the Pirates had few answers, whiffing on over a third of their swings against him.
Orioles offseason acquisition Shane Baz shined in his spring training debut, pitching 2 1/3 innings and striking out four batters against the Pirates.
Baz came to Baltimore via a trade with the Rays in December.
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“I definitely woke up with a lot of excitement and just eager to get out there and just trying to take it slow all day,” Baz said after his outing. “But it was great. Body feels good. Stuff feels like it’s in a good spot. So, yeah, really good to see first one.”
Baz, 26, arrived in Baltimore (4-3-1) through an offseason trade with the Tampa Bay Rays. The Orioles parted with four prospects and a competitive balance draft pick to get him, netting a former top-20 prospect in baseball with three years left of team control. He’s coming off an up-and-down season in which he posted a 4.87 ERA in 31 starts, but Baz’s upside is tantalizing, especially now that he’ll be playing in a less extreme hitter-friendly park.
“He’s electric,” second baseman Blaze Alexander said. “I actually faced him in the live ABs. I got a hit off him, but it’s electric. I also [saw] him in 2019, I want to say, when I was in [Single-A] Kane County, and same thing. He was electric then, electric now. It’s just real fun to watch.”
Basallo in good spirits
After leaving the Orioles’ game Thursday against the Detroit Tigers with right side abdominal discomfort, catcher Samuel Basallo was positive about his injury outlook and said that he expected to be back in the lineup this weekend. He wasn’t sure exactly caused the pain he experienced on the play at the plate in which the injury occurred, but he started feeling better quickly after.
“I remember, diving and really just feeling like some discomfort, maybe some cramping, so to speak,” Basallo said through team interpreter Brandon Quinones. “But didn’t feel like anything grave, not an explosion of sorts, or anything like that.”
Basallo suited up in his catching gear and joined his teammates for drills on the field at Ed Smith Stadium on Friday morning. It was a rare positive injury development for an Orioles lineup that is already expected to be without both second baseman Jackson Holliday (hamate fracture) and third baseman Jordan Westburg (UCL strain) to begin the season.
“Anyone in spring training when something like that happens, yeah, you always hold your breath just because you don’t want any guys to go down,” manager Craig Albernaz said. “Injuries are, for players, you just feel for them. They suck. But that case yesterday? Yeah, definitely a sigh of relief and glad we did what we did and get him out of the game and obviously if it was regular season, I would push him a little harder. He would not becoming out of the game, but we just used our best judgment that time.”
The 21-year-old was off to a 2-for-8 start to spring training with a double and two walks in four games. He’s started three games at catcher and one in the designated hitter spot; Albernaz said earlier this week that Basallo will focus on catching early in camp but could see some time at first base before the team heads back north.
Around the horn
• Trainers went out to have a look at right-hander Brandon Young during the fifth inning Friday, but after a few minutes of conversation, he remained in the game. Manager Craig Albernaz said he was dealing with mid-back tightness, but Young wound pitching another full inning after that, finishing with three hits and two strikeouts across a pair of scoreless frames.
• The Orioles jumped ahead 1-0 in the sixth inning on an RBI single by third baseman Bryan Ramos, but right-hander Tyson Neighbors, a call-up from minor league camp, immediately surrendered the lead in the bottom half of the frame and pitching prospect Levi Wells was saddled with the loss after giving up four runs in the seventh.
• A pair of premier pitching matchups highlight the Orioles’ weekend slate. Kyle Bradish will take the ball opposite the Atlanta Braves’ Spencer Strider in Sarasota on Saturday before Chris Bassitt makes his first start of the spring on the road against Ranger Suárez and the Boston Red Sox.
Have a news tip? Contact Matt Weyrich at mweyrich@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200, x.com/ByMattWeyrich and instagram.com/bymattweyrich. Matt appears as a regular host on The Sun’s “Early Birds” podcast.
