In his first spring training appearance on Feb. 25, Orioles left-hander Cole Irvin retired all six batters he faced, striking out three. He reached 95 mph with his fastball, a pitch that averaged just 92.2 mph last season.
But it didn’t come out of nowhere. Irvin got to work early in the offseason and spent the time off making tweaks to his arsenal.
“I’m going to change the way I throw my sinker, I’m going to throw the slider more [like] a sweeper, I’m going to throw the cutter harder, and I’m going to throw more of like a gyro curveball that’s similar to Jordan Montgomery,” Irvin said on Glenn Clark Radio Feb. 26. “I’m trying to make some changes to my arsenal to really turn some heads.”
Irvin, who is entering his sixth major league season, posted a 4.42 ERA across 77.1 innings last season. He opened the season as a starter, but struggled in the rotation and was demoted to Triple-A Norfolk before returning to the big league club as a swingman.
The 30-year-old left-hander performed better down the stretch last year, pitching to a 2.43 ERA after Aug. 1, but he wasn’t satisfied with his season as a whole.
“I was pretty pissed off with my performance,” Irvin said. “You can look at the tale of two halves, right? You can look at my first three starts and then look at the rest of the year, or you can look at the first half and second half, and I looked at neither. I looked at the overall [performance]. I said, ‘That’s not good enough. That’s not to my standard.'”
With Kyle Bradish dealing with a UCL sprain and John Means unlikely to be ready for Opening Day, Irvin is a likely candidate to replace one of them in the rotation and should have a chance to prove himself as a starter right out of the gate.
But in Irvin’s mind, being a starter was always the plan.
“The intent was to — OK, whatever role [the Orioles] decide for me, that’s their decision,” he said. “I’m coming in with a starter mindset.”
Not only did Irvin make changes to his pitch arsenal, he made changes to his body, too. Irvin lost weight this offseason, making the tough choice to cut out his beloved croissant and bagel breakfast sandwiches.
“I wasn’t happy with where my weight was. I mean, I was at like 236 to 238 [last season], and now I’m down anywhere between 223 to 226,” Irvin said. “… And then how do I move my body a little bit quicker now that I have the weight off? That was a new change for my programming, but we figured that out.”
The Orioles could acquire another rotation piece after Bradish went down and Means’ return was pushed back — but they haven’t done that yet. The acquisition of Corbin Burnes was the big move of the offseason, and it looks like the Orioles may look to replace the lost production from within.
Irvin isn’t the only Oriole changing the way he throws his pitches. Other pitchers have picked the brains of Burnes, whose cutter ranked among the top 10 pitches in baseball in terms of run value in each of the last four seasons, according to Baseball Savant.
“A lot of guys throw cutters here and I think a lot of guys have been picking his brain on it,” Irvin said.
A new-look Irvin hopes he can be an important piece for an Orioles team that has World Series aspirations. He has gained the reputation of an innings-eater, having pitched 178.1 and 181 innings in Oakland in 2021 and 2022, respectively. He holds a walk rate of just 2.1 per nine innings across his career but strikes out just 6.6 batters per nine innings.
Irvin hopes the changes he made this offseason will help him put more hitters away with pure stuff.
“I’m a command pitcher, I pitch in and out, I know how to throw strikes,” Irvin said. “But how do I expand that? How do I make that stuff better? And it was all just making small tweaks and adjustments that weren’t overbearing.”
For more from Irvin, listen to the full interview here:
Photo Credit: Colin Murphy/PressBox