Orioles unexpected bullpen cornerstone showing signs of shakiness

The Baltimore Orioles bullpen has been the surprise bright spot of their season so far. Rookie sensation Anthony Nunez and breakout star Rico Garcia have gotten a lot of the attention for their success, which is deserved as they've been incredible, but Grant Wolfram has arguably been the biggest surprise and most irreplaceable arm in the Orioles pen, which is why his recent shakiness is alarming.

Wolfram is the only lefty in the Orioles bullpen with good splits against left-handed batters. Dietrich Enns, who was on the opening day roster, and Keegan Akin, who recently returned from his spring training injury, are both reverse splits pitchers and are actually worse against lefties than righties.

The Orioles were expected to be in the market for veteran lefty Jojo Romero, and familiar face Danny Coulombe was hanging out in free agency until the eve of the season, but they pressed ahead with Wolfram as their primary lefty specialist.

Orioles have put too much on the shoulders of Grant Wolfram

To Wolfram's credit, he's been solid in that role. Craig Albernaz has deployed him regularly in high-leverage spots against the opponent's toughest left-handed hitters, and he's most come through. Coming into Sunday's game against the Red Sox, he has a 2.70 ERA and a 1.13 FIP with an absurd strikeout-to-walk ratio.

His latest appearance was a faith-shaker, though, as he faced three batters, gave up hits to all of them, and surrendered two key runs that proved to be the difference in the game. It was only thanks to a heroic Yennier Cano outing that there wasn't even more damage done.

Releif pitching is a small-sample-size business, and an outing like that skews what had been a good season statistically for Wolfram and balloons his ERA. Smart teams know not to over-index on one bad outing for a reliever, but taking a closer look at Wolfram's last few appearances raises the question. Was this just one bad outing, or was this the inevitable end of an impressive high-wire act?

Over Wolfram's last four appearances leading up to his blowup against the Red Sox, he had allowed a base runner in every outing, allowed eight total base runners, while only striking out three over 2.2 innings. With those kinds of numbers, it was only a matter of time before he ran into real trouble, and that's what happened against the Red Sox.

Wolfram is young and inexperienced. It would have been unfair to expect him to go from a minor league waiver claim to a sub-three high-leverage reliever in one offseason. Unfortunately, by not adding any other lefties who can be trusted to face lefties to the roster this offseason, that is the position the Orioles put him in. Wolfram, going through a very normal rough stretch for a young pitcher, lays bare how irresponsible it was to expect him to play such an important role in the bullpen coming into the season.

If Wolfram's struggles continue, the Orioles have some other lefty relievers in triple-A they can try, but they'll be even less experienced than Wolfram and could easily be worse. This is just another example of an obvious roster hole that the front office ignored this offseason, which is going to continue to cost the Orioles important games as they try to scratch their way into the playoffs.

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