Orioles bullpen struggles boil down to one reliever's unfortunate regression

For a 32-year-old reliever with about 70 career innings pitched coming into the 2026 season, Rico Garcia wasn’t burdened with big expectations. In fact, any positive value he added to the team would have been accepted with open arms. But after the first two months of the season, Garcia had become one of the Baltimore Orioles best players and a big reason that they are currently still contenders in the AL Wild Card race. 

Unfortunately, his dream season is quickly turning into a nightmare after a disastrous stretch of poor outings. And many of those poor outings have taken place in the 8th inning. While his struggles haven’t wiped away his contributions earlier in the season, it has opened a new set of problems for the Orioles.     

The Orioles need the April version of Rico Garcia to come back

In 12.1 innings pitched in the 8th, Garcia has allowed six earned runs, accounting for more than half of his total on the season. He has also given up 10 hits in his most bothersome inning, more than any other inning combined. While he has faced the most batters in the 8th inning, his inability to keep them off the bases has become a cause for concern for manager Craig Albernaz and the Orioles’ coaching staff. 

Through the month of April, Garcia allowed just one hit and a single run in 13.2 innings pitched. Thanks to his stellar work, he became a go-to arm for Albernaz. And while batters started to see the ball a little better against him in May, he once again surrendered just one run in the entire month. He appeared to have a serious chokehold on the league and was well on his way to having the best season by an Orioles’ reliever since Zack Britton in 2016. 

Since the start of June, Garcia has plummeted back down to Earth and he has suddenly become something of a batting practice pitcher. As of June 25, Garcia has given up eight earned runs in the month and become very susceptible to the long ball. Batters are slugging nearly 600 points higher off of Garcia in June than they were in April. 

Even with the best planning, a manager’s approach to the bullpen can quickly go up in smoke with an injury or short outing from a starting pitcher. For Albernaz, his list of trusted late-inning arms seems to grow shorter as the year goes on. And Helsley hasn’t exactly looked brilliant since returning from his injury, though that could just be him knocking off the rust.  

This means that Baltimore needs Garcia to figure things out. He might not have been in the team’s long term plans to start the year, but he does deserve a chance to pitch his way out of his funk. Just as long as it’s not in the 8th inning. With four saves on the year and a strong showing in his limited time in the 9th, maybe it’s time to give the closer role to Garcia and see what he can do while they wait for Felix Bautista to come back from shoulder surgery. At this point, it just might be worth it in order to stabilize the bullpen for the rest of the year.

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