Orioles' latest half measure signing immediately blows up in their face

In the lead-up to the final game of their series against the Yankees, the Baltimore Orioles made a signing to reinforce their bullpen. The pitcher they signed was Lou Trivino, a journeyman reliever who spent most of his career with the Athletics. Orioles fans might be most familiar with him from his brief stint with the Yankees in 2022.

Trivino recently missed two seasons recovering from Tommy John and came back to pitch for three teams in 2025. The Phillies had him on a minor league contract, but like many veteran minor league contracts it had an opt out and after Trivino didn't sniff the majors in the first month of the season he exercised the opt out and hit the market when the Orioles snatched him up following a weekend series against New York that saw their rotation and several of their bullpen arms get torched by the Yankee lineup.

Lou Trivino's Orioles tenure got off to as bad a start as possible

Trivino got a major league contract from the Orioles, which is more than he could drum up from anyone in the offseason. That indicates some level of belief that Trivino might be part of the solution for this Orioles pitching staff that has been getting rag-dolled by their division rivals for the past week.

The early returns suggest that the outlook might have been a tad optimistic as Trivino got into his first game as an Oriole in the bottom of the eighth against his old team. That late in the game, with the Orioles down 6-1 this outing for Trivino could be accurately described as mop-up duty.

Mop-up duty or not, if it's your first big league action of the season on a brand new team, you want to make a good first impression. That's not what Trivino did.

Trivino pitched .2 innings and allowed six earned runs. He walked three and allowed four hits. It was non-competitive baseball. He looked like a relief pitcher on his fourth team in 12 months. There's not a single Orioles fan excited about the prospect of seeing Trivino emerge from the bullpen in an Orioles jersey ever again.

Whether Trivino had given up 10 runs or sat the Yankees down in order, the Orioles were going to lose that game. So in the grand scheme of this season, the fact that Trivino has an ERA of 81.00 doesn't really matter.

The reason for having Trivino come in off the street and get blasted into next week is frustrating because all offseason it was clear that the Orioles needed to do more to reinforce their bullpen. They added a pair of veterans in Kittredge and Helsley, but besides the two of them, the Orioles were counting on a bunch of guys either looking for a bounce-back after a rough season or rookies/journeymen with very little MLB track record.

The Orioles have been fortunate that so many members of their scrap heap bullpen have had career years, but even with Rico Garcia's emergence and Yennier Cano's resurgence, it's only taken a month for the Orioles lack of bullpen depth to catch up to them. Look around the league, the best teams are not signing minor league free agents off the street and then having them pitch the same day.

This is what happens when you decide that real bullpen depth doesn't matter and that you can patch it together with waiver claims and fans out of the crowd. You end up with the Lou Trivino inning as an exclamation mark on the most lopsided four-game sweep in franchise history.

The Orioles are reaping what they sowed this offseason, and nobody is enjoying the product. It's time to consider putting someone else in charge of this operation.

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