Orioles’ under-the-radar waiver claim is off to fantastic start in Baltimore’s bullpen

For the Baltimore Orioles, the rest of this season is about finding players who can help the team in 2026. As such, they’ve turned over as many rocks as possible to try to fill the holes on their roster. One of those rocks was located in the heart of Texas as it turns out, as the Orioles claimed reliever Shawn Dubin off waivers from the Astros last month after he was a roster casualty in Houston. 

That move has turned into a huge win for the Orioles considering Dubin has tossed five scoreless innings since joining the club and is looking more and more like a piece who could be a valuable bullpen piece next season.

Shawn Dubin is off to a terrific start with the Orioles

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Orioles were interested in Dubin given that he was drafted by the Astros in 2018 when Mike Elias was Houston's amateur scouting director.

Dubin spent part of three seasons with the Astros where he mostly pitched in long relief or mop-up duties. While the Astros were one of major league baseball’s most dominant teams across that span, Dubin had a 4.66 ERA across 85 innings and never made the Astros’ postseason roster. 

Another reason why he was available this week was due to his inability to stay on the field. He’s spent time on the injured list this year with shoulder inflammation and a forearm strain, which contributed to him having a 5.61 ERA in 25 1/3 innings this year. 

However, those struggles kind of moved into the past considering how things have gone since he joined the Orioles. Dubin's first appearance came in the ninth inning of an eventual 3-2 loss to the Red Sox, while his second was a two-inning appearance in an 11-1 win over the Giants. Not exactly some high-leverage situations.  

That said, those appearances seem to have helped him move up Tony Mansolino’s trust tree, as he pitched scoreless innings in back-to-back wins over the Padres.

While Dubin doesn’t have enough innings to qualify for the Baseball Savant leaderboards, he has a barrel rate of 4.3% and a ground ball-rate of 49.5%, both of which would be in the top percentile if he qualified. Dubin entered the year with less than a full year of service time and won’t be a free agent until 2031. 

Although no one is expecting Dubin to be the Orioles’ next closer, everyone in the bullpen is going to move up a level due to Felix Bautista’s injury. Keegan Akin and Yennier Cano have handled things at the back of the bullpen since Bautista went on the injured list, and they could get plenty more chances to get save opportunities if Dubin keeps putting up goose eggs in front of them. 

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