On April 29, Orioles pitching prospect Cade Povich had one of his best starts since joining the organization last summer, tossing five shutout innings with 10 strikeouts for Double-A Bowie as part of a solid start to his 2023 campaign.
Povich, 23, was acquired in the deal that sent reliever Jorge López to the Minnesota Twins ahead of the trade deadline last year. The 6-foot-3, 185-pound left-hander had mixed results following the trade last summer, throwing 12 shutout innings with High-A Aberdeen but posting a 6.94 ERA in 23.1 innings with Bowie.
As such, Povich was sent back to Bowie to begin the 2023 campaign. He has recorded a 3.38 ERA with 44 strikeouts and 10 walks in 26.2 innings so far with the Baysox, and the April 29 start against the Richmond Flying Squirrels is one of the highlights.
“I think overall it shows kind of what you can do, especially against a pretty good hitting Richmond team,” Povich said on Glenn Clark Radio May 4. “It just kind of shows the work that you put in that week. You know that you can have outings like that and you can be that kind of pitcher. It’s just being able to now take that and move it into the next start, to the start after that and the start after that and try to be that guy on a consistent basis.”
Povich calls himself a five-pitch pitcher — he has a four-seam fastball, changeup, curveball, cutter and slider in his repertoire — but he is trying to focus on four pitches right now, with the slider on the backburner at the moment. His fastball was working well against Richmond, meaning he and catcher Ramon Rodriguez leaned on that.
“Ramon and I went to that a good amount, tried to kind of work on that — set the tone with the fastball, then was able to work the curveball off of that and then the cutter along with it and mix in some changeups, give them something they haven’t seen,” Povich said.
There may have been reasons for the strong outing other than his fastball usage, however.
“Since high school, during my starts I’ve always eaten Skittles between innings,” Povich said. “I’ve usually just stuck to the original red bag one. This last start was the wild berry purple bag, so I think I’ve got to back to [wild berry].”
Povich’s next start came on May 5 against the Erie SeaWolves. He gave up four runs (three earned) in 4.2 innings, striking out seven and walking none, so it remains to be seen what Skittles Povich snacks on in the future.
There’s one habit that Povich is definitely breaking, though.
“I’ve tried golfing a couple times in-season — two times last season and then once this year, and I won’t do it again in-season,” the left-hander said. “It might be more of a superstitious thing. The two times last year that I went on a Monday and the one time this year I went on a Monday, the following start didn’t go so well.”
Povich, who was drafted by the Twins in the third round of the 2021 MLB Draft, admitted that being traded so soon into his pro career was initially a bummer but has gotten more and more comfortable with the Orioles organization since last summer.
Povich, rated as baseball’s No. 54 overall prospect by ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel this offseason, figures to be part of the future rotation picture in Baltimore provided he stays healthy.
“The more you get into it, the more you start to see, ‘Dang, there’s a ton of talent here,'” Povich said. “It brings you kind of to a moment where the trade kind of sucks, especially being your first year. You always think something like that’s never going to happen, and when it does it stinks a little bit. But then seeing where I was going, it was pretty special and it made me pretty happy.”
Povich’s season stats were updated following his May 11 start.
For more from Povich, listen to the full interview here:
Photo Credit: Joseph Noyes