GOODYEAR, Ariz. -- Right-hander Chase Silseth wasn’t in camp with the Angels last spring, but circumstances led to him getting a look in the big leagues earlier than expected.

Silseth debuted on May 13 with six shutout innings of one-hit ball against the A’s, becoming the first player from the 2021 MLB Draft to reach the big leagues. He finished May with a 3.07 ERA after three starts, but the 22-year-old struggled a little across four more starts before returning to Double-A Rocket City, where he went 7-0 with a 2.28 ERA over 15 starts.

All that success has Silseth listed by MLB Pipeline as the Angels’ No. 4 prospect, but he wasn’t satisfied and spent the offseason adding a cutter to his arsenal. So far the results have exceeded Silseth’s expectations. He featured it heavily on Tuesday during the Angels’ 8-6 win over the Guardians. Silseth got the start and allowed one run on five hits in four innings. He struck out three, but he felt he should have had more.

“The strikeout is usually my thing, but I didn’t have the putaway stuff today,” said Silseth, who struck out 110 in 83 innings for Rocket City last season. “But [I] was able to get some ground balls when I needed to, some double plays when I needed to get out of innings.”

He used his cutter to get one of those double-play balls against José Ramírez, who was batting left-handed, in the first inning.

“[The cutter gives me] a different dimension to lefties,” he said. “I can already feel it working, like to Ramírez. I just feel comfortable with lefties coming up because I know I have that to get in on him and then the split that dives away, and then I can go sweeper down in the zone or four-seam up and away at 97 [mph].”

Whether it is with the Angels or in the Minors to begin the season, Silseth is eager to keep developing his new arsenal.

“I’m loving it right now, and I’m going to continue to grow with it because I just started throwing it,” Silseth said. “It's surprised me how I’m able to get that comfortable with it so fast. And if I’m that comfortable with throwing a new pitch, I just can’t wait to keep working with it. It’ll be a really, really good pitch in the next couple months.”

Silseth is competing with Tucker Davidson and Griffin Canning for the sixth rotation spot this spring. Davidson is the only one of the trio who is out of options, so that may give him a slight leg up, but Angels manager Phil Nevin is confident Silseth and his cutter will deliver when he is called on.

“When you see big league hitters take bad swings on it like that, you know it’s a good pitch,” said Nevin.

Walsh starts in outfield, homers
Jared Walsh got a rare look in the outfield on Tuesday, starting in right and batting fourth, while Jake Lamb got the nod at first base.

“The more reps we can get him out there, the better,” Nevin said of Walsh, who connected for a two-run homer in the first inning. “There’s scenarios where you give one of the guys in the outfield a day, he moves out there and there’s another bat you can put in at first base. And he’s probably a better defender than some of the guys that we talk about in that first-base mix."

Walsh has appeared at first base in 299 big league games while getting just 22 looks in the outfield -- 23 if you count the 2021 All-Star Game, when he manned left field and made an impressive sliding catch to rob Kris Bryant of a hit.

Shifting Walsh to the outfield and starting Lamb at first would allow Nevin to get an extra left-handed bat in the lineup when the matchup calls for it. Lamb and fellow non-roster invitee Kevin Padlo have impressed Nevin this spring.

“Jake has a history of doing a lot of good things at the big league level. Padlo has had a lot of great seasons at Triple-A,” said Nevin. “People don’t realize he’s just 26 years old, so he’s still young, still has a lot of baseball in front of him. I’d be surprised if both of them didn’t help us at some point this year."