Pitching has been an issue for the Baltimore Orioles in 2025, to say the least. Maybe it is karma for the front office letting Corbin Burnes walk in free agency, or maybe it is just poor roster construction in general, but the overall performance of the starting rotation has been abysmal.
Only one starting pitcher has been consistently successful this season, and he just happens to be in the midst of his rookie year at 35 years old. Tomoyuki Sugano has been a surprising bright spot for the starting rotation in a sea full of darkness.
In what was perhaps Sugano’s best start of the season so far, the righty went a season-high 7.1, allowing only one earned run on three hits and no walks while striking out five against the Los Angeles Angels. The O’s won 4-1.
After this outing on Friday, Sugano has pitched to a 2.72 ERA across 46.1 innings in eight starts, with 26 strikeouts and a 136 ERA+.
Sugano is not going to rack up strikeouts. Even while in Japan, he tallied only 1,596 Ks to his 1,873.1 innings pitched. The righty uses his elite ground ball inducing skills (46.3% ground ball rate) along with limiting hard hits (38.1% hard hit rate; 89.1 mph average exit velocity) to be successful.
To this point in the season, Sugano is the only pitcher who has made a start for the Orioles, qualifying or otherwise, with an ERA below 3.00 (Zach Eflin’s sits at 3.00 through just three starts). Without Sugano’s 2.72 ERA, the rotation’s combined mark of 5.48, 28th in MLB, would be far worse.
The 2025 campaign has been highly disappointing in Baltimore, but with Sugano starting every fifth day, at least the fans have something to look forward to.
