The Orioles entered the year with plenty of public pessimism around their bullpen. Their newly-signed closer was coming off of the worst stretch in his career, they were already dealing with injuries to key members of the group, and much of the unit was unproven at the major league level. While the 2026 season is only two weeks old, and questions remain, there is also a lot to like about the relief corps that Mike Elias has assembled.
Across the board, the O’s bullpen ranks in the top half of the league
in most statistics. They are 11th in fWAR (0.5), 11th in ERA (3.45), seventh in xERA (3.55), sixth in K/9 (10.05), and 14th in BB/9 (4.08). These aren’t elite numbers, but they represent perfectly fine performance. That wasn’t a guarantee given the construction of the unit.
Ryan Helsley has done well in the closer’s role, though there is room for improvement. He is 4-for-4 on save opportunities and has an ERA of 3.38. That famous fastball of his has looked good, averaging 98.5 mph, while the splitter he was working on throughout the spring hasn’t shown up too much yet. He does need to cut down on walks (6.75 BB/9), and his hard-hit rate is real bad (68.8%), but he has managed to survive those numbers so far. We should expect them to normalize at some point. He (hopefully) won’t have a .438 BABIP all season.
If the O’s do need to take the pressure off of Helsley at any point, it seems like they have three or four alternative ninth-inning candidates ready to go.
Rico Garcia snagged his first major league save during the White Sox series last week. The diminutive righty is yet to allow an earned run across 6.2 innings while striking out 10.80 per nine. His numbers aren’t fluky either. Take a gander at his Baseball Savant page. He is getting a ridiculous number of whiffs while also avoiding hard contact at an elite rate. At this moment, you could make an argument that he is the best reliever on the team.
Someone else in that conversation is Grant Wolfram. The lefty leads the bullpen in fWAR (0.3), K/9 (15.00), BB/9 (0.00), and FIP (0.81). All of this while having a bit of bad luck on balls in play (.462 BABIP). You can more easily poke holes in Wolfram’s performance. He isn’t getting as much weak contact or inducing whiffs as often as Garcia, but it has still been quite impressive.
Yennier Cano seems to be back at his all-star level from a couple of seasons ago. His slider has been largely sidelined in favor of a split-finger fastball, particularly against left-handed hitters, and it is working. He is yet to issue a walk and is striking out 10.38 per nine. Opposing hitters are almost exclusively pounding the ball into the ground against Cano. His 72.7% ground ball rate is among the league leaders early on. That is a recipe for success for the 32-year-old.
And let us not forget about Anthony Nunez. It looks like the Orioles have struck gold here, folks. The 24-year-old may have been the 26th man on the roster coming into Opening Day, only making the team due to a late spring injury to Keegan Akin. Well, he’s not going anywhere for a while. He is in the top 10 percent (or better) of pitchers in xERA (1.23), xBA (.137), average exit velocity (80.1 mph), and whiff rate (37.3%). His four-pitch mix is a real weapon out of the Orioles bullpen this year, but he feels like a rotation candidate at some point in his career.
Now, bullpens are volatile. These immaculate ERAs will not remain. Tough stretches are going to come. Each of these guys will have ups and downs throughout the season. But if they can get through the trials and tribulations, that would mean the Orioles have five stellar relievers that they can count on in close games. Not many teams can say that, and it would bode well for the team’s postseason ambitions.
This is before we even consider the sort of improvement that could come from other parts of the bullpen.
The Orioles IL is full of relievers. Akin, Andrew Kittredge, Dietrich Enns, and Yaramil Hiraldo will all be healthy again at some point. The expected impact of each varies, but they are all at least big league quality. Kittredge, in particular, is someone the team will be excited to get back. He has nearly a decade of experience, including a solid 31-game stint with the O’s a year ago and three trips to the postseason. That sort of guidance could be a crucial for this group.
On top of that, the club clearly believes in Tyler Wells’ ability to be a high-leverage reliever. They entered the year with him in a set-up role, but after giving up three runs across his first 2.1 innings of work, they backed off. More recently, manager Craig Albernaz has turned to him as a multi-inning option in the middle frames. So far, so good. Wells has given up just one run over his last seven innings. That has lowered his season ERA from 10.13 at the end of March to just 3.72 now.
Between Wells and Albert Suárez, the Orioles are also in the enviable position of having multiple pitchers in their bullpen that can reliably go beyond one inning of work. Both of them have starter backgrounds and were stretched out as such during the spring. That potentially allows them to step in as spot starters on occasion, or simply absorb innings if one of the normal starters has a shorter outing. Those sorts of efforts help to keep a bullpen fresh throughout a 162-game season.
There are nits to pick with the Orioles bullpen. And they are an area of team that will likely get an upgrade if the team is in the postseason conversation come July. But through two weeks, they are exceeding expectations and have the potential to be an unforeseen weapon for this squad.
