BALTIMORE — Kyle Bradish took the ball for the Orioles on Wednesday afternoon with the kind of assignment that can change the mood around a rotation. The Orioles played the White Sox at 2:10 ET, and a win would have pulled Baltimore back to.500.
Bradish entered the game 0-2 with a 6.23 ERA in his first two starts of the 2026 season, and he had not completed five innings in either outing. His velocity had returned, but his control had not, leaving him walking 6.23 hitters per nine innings and forcing Baltimore to keep asking whether the rough opening was bad luck or something more. The White Sox countered with Sean Burke, who came in 0-1 with a 3.60 ERA, 12 strikeouts in 10 innings and no home runs allowed across his first 10 innings.
The matchup mattered because the Orioles had just beaten Chicago the previous day and led the series 2-0 before Wednesday’s game. Another win would have given them a tidy reset after the early stumble and sent them toward upcoming series against the Giants and Diamondbacks with a chance to keep climbing. For Bradish, it was also a test of whether a favorable opponent could help him turn promise into results.
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That question carried extra weight because Bradish is not pitching as a mystery arm. He was a top-five Cy Young Award finisher before missing time for Tommy John surgery, and he said in the spring that he felt healthier than he had in a long time. Those words now sit beside the numbers, and the numbers have been less flattering than the optimism.
Burke also arrived with a profile that made the game more than a simple bounce-back spot for Baltimore. He went 4-11 with a 4.22 ERA and 133 strikeouts in 133.1 innings for the White Sox last year, and his early work in 2026 suggested a pitcher who could miss bats and stay out of home-run trouble. That put the burden on Bradish to be sharper than he had been in his first two starts.
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If Bradish was going to turn the conversation, Wednesday was the kind of day to do it. If he could not, the Orioles would leave another start wondering whether the fastball was back for good but the command still was not.
