MINNEAPOLIS — The Orioles, owners of MLB’s third-worst starting pitching ERA entering Wednesday, are soon to receive a boost to their pitching staff when right-hander Zach Eflin returns this weekend.

Eflin, who has missed a month due to a strained right lat muscle, is scheduled to pitch against the Los Angeles Angels, manager Brandon Hyde said. The specific day is to be determined.

Hyde also said he expects outfielder Tyler O’Neill (neck inflammation) to join the Orioles in Anaheim.

Before Eflin’s injury, he provided stability for a unit that has been rocked by poor results. Eflin navigated six innings in each of his first three appearances of the season. He has allowed six runs while striking out eight and walking one. Eflin has been a bright spot since arriving in a trade from the Tampa Bay Rays midway through the 2024 season. He finished last year with a 2.60 ERA in 55 1/3 innings.

Without Eflin, right-hander Tomoyuki Sugano has carried the torch. The 35-year-old holds a 3.00 ERA in seven appearances. Right-hander Dean Kremer, who is scheduled to pitch Thursday, has a 5.73 ERA but posted seven scoreless innings in his last start.

With Eflin’s return, Baltimore could move right-hander Charlie Morton out of the rotation again. The Orioles briefly moved Morton to a bullpen role amid the disastrous beginning to his time in Baltimore (9.76 ERA), but Morton will start against the Minnesota Twins on Wednesday night.

The overall performance from the pitching staff has been a major catalyst of the 13-21 beginning to the year. The staff as a whole carries a 5.49 ERA, which is the second worst in the majors. The starters have a 5.75 ERA.

General manager Mike Elias hasn’t shied away from the performance issues or the fact some of his offseason additions, such as Morton, haven’t played at a high enough level. But Elias has pointed to injuries for Eflin and right-hander Grayson Rodriguez as exacerbating factors in the poor start.

“We’re getting back to five strong here pretty soon, but sometimes that doesn’t last real long, here. We’ll see,” Elias told “The Show” podcast from the New York Post on Tuesday. “This was something that was perceived as a possible shortcoming heading into the season. We thought we were going to have a very talented offensive group. We thought we were going to have a good enough rotation with a very strong bullpen and a very strong offense to take on the division. It just hasn’t worked out that way for the first month.”

Elias said he expects Eflin to return this weekend, and “once we have that, we should have five strong.”

Elias said Kremer has been “pitching better” and has fallen victim to bad luck. Morton, Elias said, is off to a “dreadful start, and even though his stuff looks good, he’s just not been able to get outs.”

“So we really have not had a lot of consistency from the rotation,” Elias said. “I view that as a front-office thing and something we’ve got to improve over the course of the year for this team to live up to its potential. But that’s certainly been where the struggles have started this year, and I do have hope it’s getting better.”

Rodriguez has been absent since suffering elbow inflammation in spring training. He received a cortisone shot to reduce swelling and began throwing bullpen sessions as part of his path toward a return. Instead, he suffered a lat strain that forced him onto the 60-day injured list.

Elias said last week he expects Rodriguez to receive imaging on his shoulder in a few weeks to determine whether the right-hander can begin throwing again.

But, at least in the near term, Eflin is on the way back.

“It’s hard to push back on criticism that we didn’t do enough when we’re in this spot right now,” Elias said during the podcast appearance. “I think we’ve had a lot of bad breaks, but again, I didn’t expect anywhere near this degree of injuries and then just some of the underperformance that we’ve gotten that I hope is temporary for a lot of guys. This is toward the extreme of outcomes.”

When asked about the offseason approach, Elias said Baltimore is not of the same market size as Toronto, Boston or New York. That means needing to “pick and choose our spots a little bit, and this winter we made an approach to populating our rotation that just hasn’t panned out so far. I take responsibility for that. But I do think the pitching is getting healthier. It’s stabilizing.”