The Orioles bullpen is in trouble if this reliever can't get back to his previous form

Coming into the 2026 season, Rico Garcia was not supposed to be the Orioles best reliever. Garcia pitched well for the Orioles down the stretch in 2025 after being DFA'd three times that season. So there was some reason for optimism that he could snag a role on the 2026 team, but if you had told people that a 32-year-old journeyman with just 70 major league innings under his belt was going to be one of the best relievers in baseball this year, nobody would have believed you.

Believable or not, that's what Garcia did in the first two months of the season. It took him until his 21st appearance out of the bullpen to give up his second hit of the season. He carried a sub-1 ERA into June. Obviously, his .000 BABIP was never going to last, but it's not like guys were hitting rockets off him that the Orioles defense was catching. Garcia was genuinely dominant. He put up elite whiff and strikeout numbers and limited hard contact as well as any pitcher in baseball. All the expected stats indicated that this was legit.

Rico Garcia went from after though to building block in just two months

The Orioles needed it too, as their closer Ryan Helsley went down, and several of the veterans the Orioles came into the season relying on have been terrible. There have been times when Garcia was basically a one-man bullpen.

Unfortunately for Garcia and the Orioles, he's hit a rough patch since the calendar flipped over to June. In five appearances this month, Garcia has an 8.32 ERA with a 10.95 FIP. He's given up three home runs in just 4.1 innings, and his K rate is way down.

The Orioles appear to have caught on to his struggles early. Yesterday, it was odd to see him deployed in the seventh inning against the bottom of the order in a game the Orioles were losing, when over the last month, he's been reserved for much higher leverage spots. Garcia's struggles continued as he gave up a two-run bomb to a player whose own teammates had barely heard of before the game.

The cause for this could be a few things. As mentioned, Garcia just didn't have that many career innings before this season, so some of the struggles could be related to a more developed scouting report as teams see more of him.

It could also simply be fatigue. In the last week of May, Garcia either pitched in or warmed up to pitch in five straight games. Every time the camera cut to the bullpen after seven innings, Garcia was getting hot. Warm-up pitches don't show up on the pitch count, but for a reliever, warming up can be as strenuous as actually pitching in the game.

Whether it is fatigue, a better scouting report, or just regular old regression, the impact on the Orioles' bullpen is the same: this hurts. Getting Ryan Helsley back was supposed to be a turning point for this worn-down Orioles bullpen. If Garcia can't be relied upon the way the Orioles have been relying upon him this season, that means instead of Helsley's return turning the bullpen into a solid unit, it will just serve to keep their head above water.

Hopefully, Garcia can adjust to the adjustments that teams are making and find a way to continue to be effective. The Orioles don't need him to be a sub one ERA guy all season; they just need dependable arms they can trust. If Garcia can settle in as a three ERA type reliever the rest of the way, that should be more than enough to help the Orioles get through the season. If he can't, the need to acquire bullpen help at the deadline grows much more serious.

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