Orioles latest rotation injury has ripple effect through entire pitching staff

Ever since their doubleheader against the Houston Astros, the Baltimore Orioles' pitching staff has been reeling. Since the second game of that double header through the end of the Orioles series against the Marlins, the Orioles have a team ERA of 7.45 with a 6.8 K/9 and a 5.2 BB/9. It's been a real vicious cycle. The starters have not been able to get deep into games, and the bullpen is taxed to its limit.

Over the last eight games, the starters are averaging about 4.1 innings per start, which means the bullpen is having to cover more than half the game every game. It's too much to ask, and with Cade Povich going down with an injury after the third inning of the Orioles series finale against the Marlins, the Orioles’ pitching staff is hanging by a thread going into a stretch of six games in six days against two of the best offenses in baseball.

The Baltimore Orioles bullpen has taken a beating this week and it's not getting any easier

In the week between the double header last Thursday and Povich's short start this Thursday, Keegan Akin has pitched on five of those days. Yennier Cano, Anthony Nunez, Rico Garcia, and Grant Wolfram have each pitched on four of those days.

Cano, Akin, Enns, Garcia, Wolfram, and Nunez have all pitched on back-to-back days at least once, if not twice, in the last week. Wolfram had a stretch where he pitched in four games in five days. Outside of Lou Trivino, whom the Orioles have wisely avoided in any sort of leverage innings, this pen is completely gassed.

They've pitched well considering the heavy workload, but the cracks are starting to show. Kittredge has allowed runs in each of his last three appearances, Nunez has given up more runs in the last week than he had the entire previous month, and Garcia allowed a runner to reach base, which is very uncharacteristic for him.

A gassed bullpen running up against two of the best offenses in the league is not a good combination for the Orioles, and the worst part is that they don't have a lot of cards they can play. In an effort to keep the bullpen fresh following the double header and first few games against the Yankees, the Orioles optioned Tyler Wells, Nick Raquet, Jose Espada, and Cameron Foster, and DFA'd Albert Suarez. The rules with options make it so these guys can't return to the big leagues for this week (with the exception of Jose Espada, who was the Orioles' 27th man during their double header, so the normal option rules don't apply to him).

It's an indictment on the Orioles rotation that the team optioned so many players to get fresh arms in the pen, and they still ended up with a completely gassed bullpen within a week.

The Orioles opted to use Povich going on the IL to get Trey Gibson back in the majors, which is an interesting move because he's not a reliever, and with Rogers coming back on Monday, they don't absolutely need another starter. It'll be interesting to see how Gibson gets used in the next couple of games.

Unless there is another injury, the only other move the Orioles can make is to swap in Espada for one of their more worn-out arms that has options like Wolfram or Nunez, but that would make Espada suddenly very important, and based on how the Orioles have used him, they don't think he's ready to be important.

If manager Criag Albernaz could pick one arm to swap out for one of their releievrs in the minors, based on how he's used him he'd probabaly pick Trivino but Trivino is the one rested arm in the pen and he can't be optioned so removing him from the roster would have be be via DFA but it would be embaressing for the front office to sign a guy to a major league deal have him give up six runs in his first outing and then DFA him, so that doesn't feel esepcailly likely.

What the Orioles really need more than some super complex strategy to get the perfect combination of rested arms in the bullpen is for their starting pitchers to get deep into their games in their series against the Athletics this weekend. Back-to-back outings of six-plus innings from Bradish and Baz would go a long way towards fixing the issues facing the Orioles pitching staff, at least in the short term.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow