As the Orioles set out to reshape their bullpen this offseason, one veteran lefty seems to have a spot sewn up. The O’s just need to make sure they don’t move him out of his comfort zone.
Nearly 10 years after he was drafted, Keegan Akin is the longest tenured pitcher in the Orioles organization, one of just five holdovers from the Dan Duquette regime who played for the 2025 Birds. The O’s selected him from Western Michigan in the second round in 2016 and he made his MLB debut during the pandemic-shortened
2020 season, long after Duquette had been replaced by Mike Elias. When it became clear that Akin couldn’t hack it as a starting pitcher in the bigs, the O’s moved him to relief in 2021 and he’s served in that role ever since.
Akin has become the grizzled veteran of the crew. In an Orioles bullpen that went through a sea change during the 2025 season — trading four relievers and losing Félix Bautista to injury — Akin and Yennier Cano were the only two members of the Opening Day relief corps who were still around by September.
The first half of Akin’s season went swimmingly. With plenty of veteran arms surrounding him in the bullpen at the time, he could comfortably settle into a middle relief role. He most commonly pitched in the seventh inning, though sometimes as early as the sixth, and occasionally would work into the eighth as well. His job was to retire a lefty-heavy part of the lineup before turning things over to the Orioles’ setup man (usually Bryan Baker) and the closer, Bautista. It’s a task he usually handled well. Through his first 38 games, Akin had a 2.92 ERA, averaging better than a strikeout per inning. Only once in that span did he allow multiple runs in a game.
On the last day of June, Akin suffered a rough outing in Texas in which he blew a three-run lead in extra innings. Two days later, the O’s placed him on the IL with left shoulder inflammation. The injury cost Akin a month, and by the time he returned, everything had changed in the Orioles’ bullpen. Bautista was gone, having suffered a season-ending injury in mid-July. Baker had been dealt to the Rays weeks earlier. Gregory Soto and Seranthony Domínguez had just been traded as well, and Andrew Kittredge would follow them out the door two days later. Akin must have felt sort of like that Fresh Prince meme, wondering where everyone he knew had gone.
With no experienced closer options to turn to, interim manager Tony Mansolino defaulted to Akin, his most veteran reliever, to handle the ninth-inning duties. It wasn’t a terrible idea. Akin had pitched pretty well and would theoretically be more mentally prepared for the job of closer than a rookie or a journeyman would.
The role, unfortunately, just didn’t suit Akin well. He’s not a pitcher who dominates hitters with overwhelming stuff, which is a problem in the ninth inning when there’s no margin for error. Akin’s fastball was by far his least effective pitch this year, with batters hitting .323 and slugging .566 against it. He was more effective with his other two pitches, the changeup and slider, but as a closer, sometimes you need to be able to blow away a hitter with heat to escape a jam. Orioles fans who were spoiled by Félix Bautista’s high-octane fastball and devastating splitter — even a Félix who wasn’t 100% the pitcher he used to be — faced a harsh adjustment to watching Akin try to guile his way through save situations with a much less imposing arsenal.
Starting in August, Akin made six consecutive appearances in the ninth inning. They resulted in two saves, two blown saves, and two losses. He successfully converted his first chance at Wrigley Field on Aug. 2, then coughed up a walkoff homer to Justin Turner in the ninth the next day. Against the A’s, he saved one game and then blew his next. Later in the month, Akin suffered another walkoff loss to the Astros in the 12th inning, and he finished August with a blown save and loss to the Red Sox on Aug. 27, serving up a two-run, ninth-inning homer to Ceddanne Rafaela.
To his credit, Akin fared better in September. He was 5-for-5 in save opportunities, and — aside from a three-run dud against the Yankees on Sept. 21 — he gave up only two earned runs that month. It was a strong finish to an overall strong season, his August hiccups notwithstanding.
Akin deserves props for stepping in on short notice to a closer role that was unfamiliar to him, but he appears to be much more comfortable as the guy who gets big outs in the sixth or seventh than the guy who’s supposed to shut the door at the end of the game. If the Orioles intend to return to contention in 2026, they’ll need a more experienced, more reliable closer.
Akin is arbitration eligible for the final time this offseason and will be a free agent after 2026. With a slew of vacancies currently in the O’s bullpen, there’s certainly a place for him on next year’s squad. Where that place shouldn’t be, though, is the ninth inning.
