As the Orioles long for a stronger, healthier starting pitching rotation, a big help may be on the way soon.

Opening day starter Zach Eflin, who has been on the injured list because of a strained right lat muscle suffered in early April, was in the O’s clubhouse before Saturday’s game against Kansas City and said he plans for his rehab start Sunday afternoon with the High-A Aberdeen IronBirds to be his last before returning to the O’s rotation.

“That’s where my mind’s at,” Eflin said. “We’re going to have to reconvene after the game tomorrow, but … I’m trying to get back ASAP.”

The right-hander (2-1, 3.00 ERA in 18 innings) expects to throw four or five innings, or around 60 pitches, against the Bowling Green Hot Rods at Ripken Stadium in Aberdeen. “It’s all going to be depending on how I feel, how I progress in the game,” he said, but he added he’s felt healthy enough for at least a week and a half.

“I’m not expecting to be there long,” he said of Aberdeen. “[I] didn’t necessarily want to do something like this, but I think it gets both sides what we need, what we want, and that’s for me to get back out there as soon as possible.”

Reliever Andrew Kittredge will also throw in a rehab assignment Sunday for Aberdeen.

The offseason free-agent signing is coming back from surgery on his left knee, injured in spring training, and has a longer timeline for a return. For him, Sunday’s appearance “will be the beginning of kind of a long rehab assignment,” O’s general manager Mike Elias told reporters Friday before the opener of the three-game series with the Royals.

One more pitching reinforcement is inching closer back to the O’s, too. Highly regarded prospect Chayce McDermott (lat strain) started for Triple-A Norfolk on Saturday in a rehab assignment. The big right-hander threw 57 pitchers in four innings and allowed no earned runs with three strikeouts and no walks.

In his first rehab start Sunday with Double-A Chesapeake, McDermott, who was considered a potential back-end starter before his injury in spring training, struck out three while allowing one earned run on one hit and three walks on 43 pitches in 1 2/3 innings.

Corey McLaughlin is a veteran writer and editor who has covered sports in Baltimore for more than a decade. He has contributed to The Banner since 2022.