Orioles pitching coach Drew French really likes his team’s rotation, even as last year’s leader in innings was squeezed out of it.

Dean Kremer was optioned to Triple-A Norfolk at the end of spring training because Zach Eflin avoided a stint on the injured list after his August back surgery. And because the Orioles didn’t want to go with a six-man arrangement this early in the season. And because Kremer could be sent down without going through the waiver process.

The decision was steeped in logic, but that didn’t make it any easier to relay.

“One of the most difficult things I’ve ever been a part of,” French said yesterday morning. “Certainly emotional for a lot of people. It’s just a reality. It’s the CBA and it’s the rules of the game and you’re trying to make the best decision for your overall organization, your overall team. And as much as it hurts, as much as we miss and we love Dean, we know that he’s gonna be putting one foot in front of the other, and when the time is right he’s gonna be impactful for this team to get where we want to go.”

Kremer hasn’t made an appearance for Norfolk, which began its season with Trey Gibson, Nestor German and Levi Wells as the top three starters. The Tides are traveling to Memphis for a six-game road trip beginning Tuesday and neither team has announced its probables.

The Orioles, meanwhile, will send Chris Bassitt, Eflin and Opening Day starter Trevor Rogers to the mound for their three-game set against the Rangers at Camden Yards.

“Depth-wise, I don’t know that we’ve ever been in a position to have six, seven, eight, nine, maybe even 10, double-digits, guys that we have a ton of belief in and confidence in that they’re gonna pitch innings for us this year. And this is a playoff-caliber team with talent and the skill level that we have,” French said.

“It’s a really, really good problem to have. It’s, how do you fit these pieces of the puzzle together to make this whole thing work for 162 games? It’s a good issue to have. Now, trying to keep everybody consistent, healthy … that’s another deal in of itself. But it’s a good problem.”

Four of the five members of the rotation have received Cy Young votes. The exception is Shane Baz, who agreed to a five-year, $68 million extension last week that’s the most lucrative deal in franchise history for a pitcher.

Baz made his Orioles debut yesterday and allowed four runs in 5 1/3 innings, all of the scoring done in the second. He finally can take a few deep breaths after the Opening Day festivities, the contract signing and press conference, and his first start.

“Yeah, it’s been busy, but all for great stuff,” he said. “I feel really good about it, feel really confident about it. It’s been fun. It’s been a really fun week. Obviously, would have liked that second inning to go a little different, but other than that, it’s been unbelievable.”

The Orioles have based their opinions of Baz largely on the projections. The height of his ceiling and how they can assist him in reaching it. How they can help him find those other gears.

They love the stuff and the makeup. And observing him in camp convinced them to make a longer-term commitment.

“He’s got like the aptitude of a veteran, like an older guy,” French said, tossing some credit to Eflin and Andrew Kittredge while they were Baz’s teammates with the Rays.

“I think he started to think about the right things much earlier in his career than a lot of other guys do. Where you can get a little bit more granular, a little bit more technical about your game. When you hear Andrew Kittredge talk about how important 0-0 is to him and winning strike one, same with Zach Eflin, that stuff trickles down to the clubhouse. And when guys are talking about things like that, that’s what we love about Bassitt and these older guys, and (Kyle) Bradish and Rogers, who have kind of grown up in this more nuanced era of baseball. But you still have to think the right things and believe in the right things that help you win games, and they have to scale.”

The Orioles must manage Bradish’s workload after his 2024 elbow surgery. They won’t baby him but can’t pretend that he’s stacked up full major league seasons.

Bradish finished fourth in Cy Young voting in 2023, made eight starts the following year before undergoing his ligament-reconstructive procedure and made six after returning last summer. He was removed from Saturday’s start after throwing 83 pitches in 4 2/3 innings.

“Obviously, the big leagues is the octagon, so you always have one eye on it,” French said. “And there’s tangible things, objective things, that you’re obviously monitoring, you’re looking at. But you’re also talking to the player and you’re also talking to the people around the player that are hearing from him in the training room and in the weight room, and the things that are showing up there.

“I think collectively we’re just going to try to do the best job that we can for him. And obviously, as we spoke about the depth earlier, if we need to spell him at times, if we need to go with a six-man at times … you know, Chris Bassitt has been well known for jumping in front of guys to help alleviate, for an extra day. So we have a lot of kind of insurance policies we feel like both in this clubhouse and in the organization.”

The Orioles had a tough call with their Opening Day starter. Bradish made sense based on his longer track record and history with the team. Rogers made sense because he was named Most Valuable Oriole last year after posting a 1.81 ERA and 0.903 WHIP in 18 starts, and he doesn’t require the same care.

Rogers wasn’t particularly sharp Thursday but he shut out the Twins on three hits over seven innings.

“Eighteen starts and what he did, I think that sample size is plenty big enough to know it works against all different kinds of offenses, against the guys who are disciplined, against flatter bat guys, against steeper bat angle guys. Like, it worked, you know?” French said.

“He’s got stuff inside his arsenal that when you look at it in kind of a vacuum, you don’t realize how unique the guys is and the angles that hitters have to respect with him and the ability to be more of a lower-slot guy but have some front-to-back in his game with breaking balls that offset the changeup and the fastball. Not to mention that the guy commands the fastball at a pretty elite clip. So I think when you start there, that’s the first box that you need to check, and as long as that continues to run the rock for him, we feel like the other stuff is gonna fall in line.

“But we’re really proud of the consistency of the breaking balls and the work that he put in this offseason, and you can see it show up in Day 1 with his ability to backdoor against a heavy right-handed lineup and then using some of them later in the at-bat just to balance the timing and stuff. So yeah, I think that we’ve not seen the best version of him yet.”

That’s got to be a scary thought for opposing hitters.

The Orioles lost the next day, but reliever Anthony Nunez made his major league debut and retired all six batters. He struck out three – at age 24, after they optioned him on March 8, only a few years after transitioning from infielder to full-time pitcher.

French is convinced that Nunez can be used in higher-leverage situations rather than have his appearances more carefully orchestrated to protect him. He warmed yesterday in a close game but sat down.

“I spoke about Shane’s aptitude. This guy’s got a similar aptitude,” French said.

“I believe when you look at a guy who’s drafted as a position player and somebody who’s had to throw the ball across the diamond from a really far distance to a first baseman and be accurate doing that, we feel like the strike throwing and the command is gonna be something that’s gonna be pretty much automatic for him.

“Getting comfortable, it didn’t seem like he had any issues doing that. He’s got real weapons and he’s got angles that are very, very unique. So yeah, this is a guy that we can foresee kind of walking his way up into more leverage, for sure.”

The way that Nunez worked Minnesota’s hitters revealed a lot about him. French singled out the Ryan Jeffers at-bat in the ninth that resulted in a strikeout – on a sweeper according to the pitch tracker or a slider according to French.

“You see the stuff but you also see what he did to Jeffers yesterday with the quick-pitch slider to wipe him out,” French said. “He’s playing a little bit different game than other guys are, where it seems like he’s out there legitimately almost playing a video game and having a lot of fun doing it. And how he was walking up and down the dugout in between inning one and inning two, and his conversations with me and his conversation with me after the game and then this morning.

“You’re just like, yeah, that’s kind of what it looks like and feels like, and you know he’s not looking over his shoulder as to who’s coming for his job or what’s the next reason why I may not succeed. This guy is just, he’s confident, he’s believing in himself and he’s gonna be a fun one to watch for sure.”