‘Just didn’t quite feel like I bounced back’

In acquiring veteran right-hander Jack Flaherty from the St. Louis Cardinals and moving to a six-man rotation, the Orioles hoped to protect a collection of young starters from fatigue. Instead, Flaherty became the first member of that group to deal with that issue.

The Orioles scratched Flaherty from Wednesday night’s start against the Toronto Blue Jays, with right-hander Dean Kremer moving up a day and Baltimore yet to announce a starter for Thursday’s series finale or its upcoming series with the Colorado Rockies.

Flaherty repeatedly cited an inability to “bounce back” from his previous start — a three-inning, seven-run dud Aug. 15 against the San Diego Padres — while Hyde said Flaherty is dealing with “general soreness,” the type that’s typical for starters between outings but seemingly hasn’t faded over the past week in Flaherty’s case.

“Sometimes, you don’t bounce back the way you want to,” Flaherty said Wednesday without elaborating much further. “Throwing [Tuesday], just didn’t quite feel like I bounced back, and sometimes, those are the hard decisions to make especially when you want to take the ball every time out. Just one of those things.”

Hyde said the Orioles decided before Tuesday night’s game, a 6-3 loss to Toronto, that Flaherty would not start Wednesday but wanted to make sure Kremer’s schedule wasn’t disrupted before announcing the change. Flaherty’s 123 2/3 innings between Baltimore and St. Louis are his most since 2019 and more than he threw in the majors across 2021 and 2022 combined.

“This is what’s going to happen,” Hyde said. “It’s late August. We have a lot of guys in there that are beat up and played a lot of baseball so far. These are things we’re just going to have to roll with and make adjustments, and next guy steps up.”

Baltimore acquired Flaherty from St. Louis on the cusp of the MLB trade deadline for three top 20 prospects. In three starts with the Orioles, the 27-year-old pending free agent has a 7.07 ERA, though that’s bloated by a his rough outing against the Padres in which he threw 73 pitches over the first two innings. Left-hander Drew Rom, one of the three prospects Baltimore parted with for Flaherty, allowed eight runs (six earned) in 3 2/3 innings in his MLB debut as the Cardinals’ starter Monday.

The Orioles have of late used a six-man rotation, giving young starters such as Kremer, Kyle Bradish and Grayson Rodriguez extra rest between outings. Thanks to recent days off, they could briefly return to a five-man operation and have veteran Kyle Gibson start Thursday, still with five days of rest. Flaherty is seemingly not an option, with Hyde saying he will receive “a little bit of a break.”

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