Felix Bautista threw 22 pitches today with Double-A Chesapeake, allowing a hit and three walks while retiring just one of five batters faced in the first game of his minor league rehab assignment. Michael Howes of the Baltimore Sun was among those to report that the right-hander averaged 95.1mph on his fastball, hitting 97mph with one pitch.
While Bautista would’ve surely preferred to be sharper, Chesapeake manager Robert Mercado told Howes that “we’re not concerned about the results. The goal was he threw and is healthy coming off the mound, and that’s the biggest thing.”
Bautista’s previous game at any level was an inning of work for the Orioles on July 20, 2025, and he was placed on the 15-day injured list a few days later with what was initially termed as right shoulder discomfort. Unfortunately for Bautista, further testing revealed a far more serious problem, and it was almost exactly a year ago that he underwent surgery to fix a torn rotator cuff and torn labrum.
The initial 12-month recovery timeline has largely been met, but it isn’t yet known how many rehab outings Bautista will need before he is fully ready. Bautista believed that his rehab assignment will continue at the Triple-A level, and the organization will monitor his recovery from Sunday’s outing before lining up his next appearance.
This is the second major injury absence of Bautista’s career, as he missed the entire 2024 season due to an October 2023 Tommy John surgery (plus a right elbow debridement and ulnar nerve transposition procedure in February 2024). He posted a 1.85 ERA, 10% walk rate, and a stunning 40.4% strikeout rate over 126 2/3 innings in 2022-23, emerging as Baltimore’s closer late in the 2022 campaign. Upon returning from TJ rehab in 2025, Bautista still had a 2.60 ERA and 35.2% strikeout rate, but his walk rate shot up to 16.2%.
It is too early to tell if Bautista can harness his control during his rehab assignment, but even returning to something close to his 2025 form would be an enormous help to the Orioles’ bullpen that is also missing Ryan Helsley to injury. Assuming Bautista’s rehab work goes smoothly, the O’s could bring him back as part of the closing committee (that includes Rico Garcia, Andrew Kittredge, and Yennier Cano) if the club doesn’t want to throw him right into the deep end of full-time ninth inning duty.
In other Orioles injury news, Blaze Alexander is expected to start a Triple-A rehab assignment of his own on Tuesday. The utilityman broke out to hit .312/.368/.439 with four homers over 246 plate appearances this season before his left hand was fractured by a Lucas Erceg pitch on July 12.
