Former KC Royals flash-in-the-pan reliever getting chance with Orioles

Much, if not everything, has changed for former Kansas City Royals pitcher Dylan Coleman since he became an integral piece of the team's relief corps in 2022. His tale is one of fleeting success followed by utter struggle and disappointment — the Royals shipped him away after his disastrous 2023 season, he pitched only one big league game last season, and then found himself looking for work this winter.

Now, it seems an American League East club is giving Coleman another chance. On February 8,MLB Trade Rumors reported that the right-handed reliever has caught on with the Baltimore Orioles.

He'll likely need a stellar spring to make Baltimore's Opening Day roster, but if Coleman can recapture the excellent form he displayed in Kansas City in 2022, he could revive a big league career that seemed so promising not so long ago.

Dylan Coleman flourished for the KC Royals in 2022

The pandemic-shortened 2020 season gave Kansas City fans some hope the club might be turning an important corner. After losing 104 games in 2018 and 103 in 2019, the Royals finished a more respectable 26-34 in 2020. But with no playoff berth in sight at that season's delayed trade deadline, the club shipped Trevor Rosenthal, their best reliever, to the San Diego Padres for outfielder Edwin Olivares and the frustratingly anonymous player to be named later.

It was only after the World Series that San Diego and Kansas City revealed that player's identity — little-known reliever Dylan Coleman was headed to the Midwest to join the Royals. After spending almost the entire 2021 campaign in the minors, he firmly established himself as a big league bullpen workhorse in 2022 with 68 appearances — only Scott Barlow with 69 games pitched more — and with a slick 5-2, 2.78 ERA record, it seemed only good, if not great, times were ahead for Coleman.

The promise was short-lived. Suffering from the control problems he's never been able to solve (his career BB% is 14.09, his BB/9 is 5.57), Coleman unacceptably walked 19 and was battered for 19 runs, 18 of them earned, in the 18.1 innings new manager Matt Quatraro allowed him to work in 2023. He spent much of the season banished to the minors and his short KC tenure ended with a postseason trade to the Houston Astros.

Coleman pitched only once for the Astros last season, and his unimpressive 6.50 ERA and ghastly 10.50 BB/9 across 36 innings at Triple-A Sugar Land certainly had much to do with the organization's decision to release him in August.

With the Orioles sure to contend in the AL East, Coleman now has a chance to prove his 2022 performance in Kansas City was more than just a flash in the pan.