Patrick Reilly Shares New Outlook After Fall League Honor

Pitcher Patrick Reilly picked up the Arizona Fall League's Pitcher of the Week award on Monday, and the Baltimore Orioles will take good pitching news wherever they can find it, especially from a right-hander who missed more than a year of games after elbow surgery.

Reilly has made two starts for the Peoria Javelinas this fall, and the second one was the better of the two.

Against the Salt River Rafters on Oct. 16 he threw four scoreless innings with seven strikeouts, one hit and one walk, while MLB.com reported that his four-seam fastball sat in the mid-90s and that he had a 43.5 percent swinging-strike rate in the outing.

That came after an Oct. 8 start against the Glendale Desert Dogs in which he struck out six over three innings and gave up one run, so he is now 2-0 with a 1.29 ERA and 13 strikeouts in seven innings.

Baltimore got Reilly from the Pittsburgh Pirates for outfielder Billy Cook in July 2024, but he had Tommy John surgery in May 2025 and did not get into another game until June 23 of this year.

After his first Fall League start, the 25-year-old told MLB.com that the long layoff changed how he sees the game.

"It's not as big of a deal as we make it. Pitching is fun, competition's fun."

He said more than a year away gave him a new way to look at all of it, and now he is just trying to have as much fun as he can.

His first seven starts back, spread across three minor league levels, did not go well, and he had a 9.13 ERA in them.

He turned it around in his final six starts for Double-A Chesapeake, posting a 2.08 ERA with 41 strikeouts and 11 walks in 30 1/3 innings, and he gave the credit to catcher Dom Keegan, his old college teammate at Vanderbilt, who caught every one of those games.

I like that he talked about having fun instead of pressure when he was asked about the layoff, and I think that attitude has a lot to do with how sharp he has looked this fall.

He was also ranked as high as No. 10 in the Orioles' system before his surgery, according to MLB.com, so he was a real prospect long before he got to Peoria.

Reilly is not on Baltimore's 40-man roster right now, and MLB.com put him among the prospects trying to earn a 40-man roster spot this offseason.

The Orioles still have plenty of questions about how their rotation stands going into 2027, and pitcher Cade Povich just had elbow surgery of his own this month.

The front office could go after a proven starter on the open market this winter, but a long season always calls for cheap arms from inside the system too.

If I were making the call, Reilly would get one of those 40-man spots, because I would hate to see the Orioles lose a pitcher who closed his year like this.