Because of the UCL injury recently suffered by All-Star closer Félix Bautista, the Orioles are in the midst of fortifying their late-inning options. One of those options is going to be lefty DL Hall. This column is meant as a sort of primer to catch up with the long journey that has dropped Hall into the role that may just save his career and the Orioles’ season.
Other than that, not much on the line for the player or team.
In running baseball operations for a big league club, one learns very quickly that the most important thing is very good or great pitching.
Despite the fact that he has not drafted many pitchers high, Orioles GM Mike Elias knows the value of arms. He knows that in Houston, all of his hard work in drafting and development built a formidable championship lineup, but it wasn’t until the Astros added the strong right arm of Justin Verlander that they were truly capable of having the first of their two parades.
It’s with that context I introduce you to Grayson Rodriguez and Hall. Both were chosen by Elias’ predecessor, Dan Duquette. Upon taking over as the head of baseball operations, Elias knew the value he had in both. Starting in 2019, both had their innings parceled out with the idea of having them atop the Orioles’ rotation when the team was ready to win.
In fairness, the pandemic season of 2020 complicated lots of pitchers’ paths to the big leagues. Additionally, both have had injuries that have factored into their development time. But Rodriguez and Hall diverge at the point of what their true skill sets are and how they present themselves.
Rodriguez looks he is right out of Central Casting to play the part of a team’s No. 1 starter — 6-foot-5, 230 pounds and the ability to work the strike zone with multiple pitches in any count. Nothing in his development ever cropped up as to whether he should be a starter or reliever. He oozes starting pitcher out of every ounce of his being.
You get the exact opposite with the 6-foot-2, 210-pound Hall. There is also much more of a herky-jerky delivery, made to look even wilder due to the flowing manes under his baseball cap. With Hall, in addition to the scant number of innings he has pitched, there were always command issues that led to an inevitable discussion and debate about his role.
Let’s fast forward to 2022, the season during which Hall would ultimately make his major league debut. Remember that awkward call-up for an Aug. 13 start in St. Petersburg? It wasn’t horrible, but throwing 76 pitches to get 11 outs wasn’t very encouraging, either. To some, myself included, it was apparent that Hall, already 23, was ill-suited to be a starter. Everything added up to turning this valuable left arm into a late-inning weapon.
In the days after that start, the Orioles talked about seeing things the way I had. He went back to Triple-A Norfolk for a couple weeks to shift to a relief role. After he returned to Baltimore on Sept. 3, he appeared in 10 games and threw 10 innings, striking out 13, walking three and giving up no homers. In fact, his ERA was 1.04 outside of a three-run, one-out performance.
Shockingly, in spite of the positives that came out of this short stint as a reliever, the club made it clear when spring training rolled around that Hall would be stretched out as a starting pitcher. That started the most bizarre season in recent memory by any Orioles pitching prospect. In fact, I cannot actually understand what really transpired through the months of June, July and August.
Hall only threw 49 innings at Norfolk this year, with 11 starts and six relief outings. His final start came on June 14, after which he was sent back down to Sarasota to regain arm strength through a process called de-loading. He made two appearances in the Florida Complex League in late July after finding his velocity.
Then Hall returned to the Tides as a reliever, preparing for perhaps a September recall if needed. All that changed on Aug. 25 when Bautista was ready to nail down another O’s victory and notch his 34th save. Ahead 0-2 on Colorado’s Michael Toglia, Bautista seemed to overthrow a 102 mph fastball. He stumbled a bit as the ball sailed arm-side high.
That one pitch greatly changed a lot of things for the Orioles. Bautista is on the injured list for at least 15 days with what is being called a UCL injury.
The Orioles had already treated The Mountain with great care, never throwing him three consecutive days. The notion that he will somehow make it back in time to pitch in September or October seems more than a bit pie in the sky.
In the meantime, 24-year-old DL Hall is up and ready to be unleashed. We’ll see him plenty in September and hopefully plenty more in October.
There is an old, tried-and-true way of describing what a team in the Orioles’ situation needs to do when one of their most important players goes down. The cliché goes something like this: “We all need to pull together. Each of us can do a little bit more to make up for the big guy.”
I am sure on some teams it may work out that way. For me, when I look at this Orioles team, I look at DL Hall needing to be a beast whenever Brandon Hyde waves his arm for him. If he can do that, the rest will take care of itself.
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