Chesapeake Baysox left-hander Caden Hunter has been named the Eastern League’s Pitcher of the Week for July 28 through Aug. 2, Minor League Baseball announced, an honor that follows a dominant Double-A debut just days after his promotion from High-A Frederick.
Hunter earned the recognition after throwing seven shutout innings Wednesday in Altoona against the Curve, allowing only a two-out single to Lonnie White Jr. in the seventh while walking two and matching his professional career high with 10 strikeouts. He was perfect through his first four innings, striking out the side in the third, before back-to-back four-pitch walks opened the fifth. Hunter settled back in from there, retiring nine of the final 10 batters he faced, with the lone hit the only blemish over his final stretch. He threw 89 pitches, 61 for strikes. Hunter’s outing produced the joint-longest start and the most strikeouts of any Eastern League pitcher that week.
The performance came just two days after Hunter’s promotion to Double-A on July 29. He opened this season at Single-A Delmarva, making six appearances, including five starts, before a May 26 promotion to High-A Frederick, where he made nine starts across 10 outings. Across all three levels this year, Hunter has gone 4-1 with a 1.32 ERA, striking out 112 batters against just 33 walks in 75 innings, and opponents are hitting just .149 against him — production that ranks second among all Orioles minor leaguers in strikeouts this season.
Hunter, whom the Orioles selected in the sixth round of last year’s draft out of USC, began his college career with two seasons at Sierra Junior College in California before transferring to USC for his final season. He currently ranks as Baltimore’s No. 11 overall prospect, according to MLB.com, a ranking that has climbed rapidly since he entered the year outside the organization’s rankings entirely.
Hunter is the third different Baysox pitcher to win Eastern League Pitcher of the Week honors this season. Right-hander Trace Bright, a fifth-round pick out of Auburn, earned the award April 27 before being promoted to Triple-A Norfolk in May, where forearm troubles had limited him to 15 starts in 2025 before he returned healthy this year. Left-hander Luis De León won the award July 13 and was promoted to Triple-A shortly after. Both pitchers’ rapid ascents through the Orioles’ pitching pipeline mirror the pattern Hunter appears to be following after just one Double-A start.
Baysox fans will get their first look at Hunter on his home mound this week. He is scheduled to start the series opener as Chesapeake hosts the Harrisburg Senators, the Double-A affiliate of the Washington Nationals, in a seven-game series beginning Tuesday at 6:35 p.m. at Prince George’s Stadium in Bowie. The homestand also features a Dylan Beavers bobblehead giveaway Sunday and continues the Birdland Bundle ticket promotion, both available through the Baysox ticket office.
Hunter’s rapid rise adds to what has become a banner year for pitching development within the Orioles’ farm system. Between Bright, De León and now Hunter, Chesapeake has produced a league-recognized top performance roughly once every few weeks this season, a pace that has helped fuel the Baysox’s competitive second half and given the organization increasing depth of near-ready arms behind Baltimore’s current rotation. All three Pitcher of the Week honorees have moved up at least one level within weeks of receiving the award, underscoring how quickly performance at Double-A can translate into further promotion within the Orioles’ pipeline this season.
The Eastern League Pitcher of the Week award is voted on weekly by the league office based on statistics compiled across all 12 Double-A affiliates in the circuit, recognizing the top individual pitching performance from among dozens of starts and relief appearances league-wide during the qualifying period. Winning the award during a debut outing at a new level, as Hunter did, is a relatively rare distinction, since most Double-A pitchers need at least a start or two to adjust to the level’s more advanced hitters before producing an award-caliber performance.
