Brandon Young earns International League Pitcher of the Week honors for Norfolk

Brandon Young’s 5.2 no-hit innings at Durham turned into the International League’s Pitcher of the Week honor, and it also sharpened a bigger question for Norfolk and Baltimore: is this just a hot stretch, or the start of a real leap?

Minor League Baseball named Young the league’s top pitcher for April 13-19, making him the first Norfolk Tides player to win a weekly award this season and earning the second weekly league honor of his career. The 27-year-old right-hander backed it up on April 18 at the DBAP, when he was perfect through four innings, carried the no-hitter into the sixth and finished with 10 strikeouts, two walks and one earned run allowed in the Tides’ 7-3 win over the Durham Bulls. Jud Fabian supplied the offense with two home runs, but Young set the tone by retiring the first 12 hitters he faced.

The damage against Young was limited, even in the inning when Durham finally broke through. He walked the first two batters of the fifth, both runners advanced on a balk, and a sacrifice fly brought in the only run charged to him. Young finished the frame and came back to strike out the first two hitters in the sixth before Norfolk pulled him at 88 pitches. That blend of power, poise and efficiency matters more than the no-hit label alone. He did not just miss bats early; he kept his delivery and command intact when the inning started to tilt.

Across three April starts, Young has been outstanding: 1-0 with a 1.08 ERA, 19 strikeouts, three walks and a 0.54 WHIP over 16.2 innings. At the time of the honor, he led the International League in WHIP and opponent batting average, while sitting near the top in ERA and opponent slugging. That profile is what organizations want from a potential call-up option, especially from a pitcher who can attack the zone without giving away free baserunners.

The broader Orioles picture only adds to the intrigue. Young made a spot start for Baltimore on April 6 against the White Sox and threw five scoreless innings in a 2-1 win at Rate Field. Orioles manager Craig Albernaz called it, “Yeah, that was awesome,” and said, “He stepped up big for us.” For a club always searching for rotation depth, Young is showing the same traits at both levels: strike-throwing, bat-missing ability and the workload to get deeper into games. MLB.com lists him as a 6-foot-6, 230-pound right-hander from Lumberton, Texas, who attended Howard College and Louisiana-Lafayette and made his MLB debut on April 19, 2025.

This week’s award fits the numbers, but the more important development is the consistency underneath them. Young is pitching like someone whose next stop might not be far away.