After 14 long months, Kyle Bradish is finally ready to return to a major league mound.

On Tuesday, Bradish will start Game 2 of the Orioles’ four-game series against the Red Sox, his first start since having Tommy John elbow reconstruction surgery in June 2024.

“He’s been miserable not being able to help us this year, been very miserable kind of watching this thing and how it’s gone and he finally gets a chance to help,” interim manager Tony Mansolino said.

Bradish has the potential to be one of the best starters in the game, as he showed in 2023, when he pitched to a 2.83 ERA and finished fourth in American League Cy Young Award voting. And even in 2024, as he played through extreme pain, he was still able to pitch at a high level, allowing just 12 earned runs in his eight starts.

While his results on the mound were still serviceable, his elbow no longer was. He tried a platelet rich plasma injection prior to spring training to try to stave off Tommy John surgery at least for a little bit, but that, as he admitted earlier this year, was only a Band-Aid.

He had the operation and started the grueling recovery, first working to get his full extension back, then trying to regain strength, and finally, after six months, throwing a baseball again. He made his first rehab start July 24 — 13 months after the surgery — throwing two innings with High-A Aberdeen. He slowly built up his pitch count in his next five starts, making his final rehab outing with Triple-A Norfolk on Wednesday.

With the Orioles out of the playoff picture, the goal for Bradish is to just gain confidence heading into the offseason. He will have pitch count restrictions, as is normal for pitchers coming back from Tommy John, but the hope is that he can accumulate enough innings over the last month of the season to enter 2026 as a normal starter.

“I do think it’s valuable,” Mansolino said. “Just the confidence and being able to have a normal offseason coming up, and I think when guys go through injuries, there’s always a lot of self-doubt. Are you going to be good enough when you come back? He’s going to answer that question for himself here over the next month.”

Mansolino said that the Orioles aren’t expecting Bradish to be perfect tomorrow — they just want him to go out and get his feet under him.

“Guys coming back from Tommy John, I mean we just saw [Shane] Bieber, I think, in Toronto, have a nice one, a really good one, and that’s probably the type of profile that Kyle has in a lot of ways,” Mansolino said. “And we’ve seen guys of that high of a profile have clunkers, too, the first couple of games back, but eventually they get going. I think over time, we will see Kyle get back to being Kyle.”

If all goes well in his comeback, Bradish is expected to be near the top of the Orioles’ rotation next year. Trevor Rogers, Dean Kremer, Cade Povich and Brandon Young are also under team control next season. Tyler Wells, who also had elbow surgery last year, is set to return after Sept. 1 and will also be in the mix.

This article has been updated