The Orioles kept their season alive with a heroic home stand, but one roster weakness still threatens to sink them

When the Baltimore Orioles returned from their 1-5 road trip after being swept by the Rays in Tampa, their season was on the brink. They were 21-29 and in dead last in the AL East. They were scheduled for 10 games in 10 days at Camden Yards, seven of which would be against divisional opponents looking to bury the Orioles in the basement of the division standings. If they wanted to turn their season around, they needed to show up at home, and that's exactly what they did.

Over the course of their 10-game home stand, the Orioles played the best baseball they've played all year. They slashed .268/.349/.440, hit 14 home runs, and averaged six runs per game. Their rotation was basically unrecognizable as they averaged six innings per start and pitched a 2.55 ERA in the 10-game span. They went 7-3 and pulled within a game of a wild-card spot.

The Orioles bullpen looks scary, and not in a good way

It wasn't smooth sailing the entire time; many of the games were very close, and the Orioles won three of them by way of the walkoff, where they were down entering the ninth and managed to come away with the win. Any of those games could have gone the other way, and it's felt like for much of the season those kinds of games have gone the other way.

That's not to take anything away from this team, as they could have easily won most of the games they lost during the homestand. In both games, the Blue Jays won; the Orioles either led or were tied entering the eighth inning before a bullpen implosion handed the games to the opposition.

Those losses and even some of the Orioles' wins during this stretch highlighted one of the biggest issues with this team, which is the bullpen.

Orioles fans were concerned about this bullpen even before the season started. In the offseason, the Orioles signed Ryan Helsley and traded for Andrew Kittredge, but after that, they pretty much just ignored the bullpen, trusting that a group of waiver claims and rookies would be enough to piece the last couple of innings of each game together.

At the start of the season, with Helsley pitching well along with breakouts from Rico Garcia and Anthony Nunez, it seemed like that strategy was going to work out just fine, but since Helsley went down with an injury at the end of April, everyone in the Orioles bullpen, with the exception of Garcia, has really struggled.

In games where the bullpen blows it, it's easy to look at Craig Albernaz and blame him for picking the wrong guy, but looking at the options he currently has in the bullpen, it's hard to find a good option outside of Garcia.

Nunez, who was reliable in high-leverage spots through April, put up a 10.03 ERA in May. Kittredge, along with Keegan Akin, were supposed to be the veteran tent poles of this bullpen, but both have been really bad. Akin's ERA is 9.88, and Kittredge's is 7.79. Those stats aren't just the results of bad luck or a bad outing or two; they've been consistently disastrous. Cano's May ERA ballooned up to 4.00 after he blew the Orioles' lead in the eighth on Friday night, and Tyler Wells, who had been pitching better after a slow start, punctuated his month of May with a 4 ER outing that forced the Orioles to get their closer into a game where they'd had a 9-0 lead.

That's most of the bullpen! If you're Craig Albernaz and it's late in a close game, which of those guys do you feel best about plugging in? Rico Garcia cannot pitch the last three innings of every close game; the Orioles need the other arms in their bullpen to step up, or blown leads in the eighth inning are going to become a regular thing.

There are, of course, things the Orioles can do besides hope their reliever pitches better. In those games they lost, in both instances the top of the Jays' order was due up in the eighth. If the Orioles only have one good reliever, facing the top of the order in the eighth with the lead would be a better use of him than facing the bottom of the order trailing. So they could adjust how they're using Garcia. They could also get active in the trade market and try to pry a solid arm away from a team that has fallen out of contention.

With how the Orioles have built their team, the bullpen has often been an afterthought, but if they don't do something about this floundering position group, it's going to prevent them from having the turnaround they're so close to delivering.

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