It’s been a good month for slow-throwing Orioles prospects making their MLB starter debuts. On Wednesday, Alexander Wells pitched a credible 5 2/3 innings against Tampa Bay to build on Spenser Watkins’ impressive July 6th debut in which the righty kept the Blue Jays, one of the AL’s best offenses, in check with five innings of one-run baseball.
Like Wells, Watkins’ turn in the rotation is almost entirely the result of a talent-starved starting rotation’s being plagued by injury and ineffectiveness. Watkins was called up from Triple-A the day Travis Lakins Sr. was put on the 10-day IL with a lat strain, then shoved into the rotation the day it was announced that Lakins’ injury would knock him out for the season.