The bullpen market turned again this week as Ryan Helsley, Cole Sands, Will Vest and Emilio Pagán all landed on the 15-day injured list. That opened the door for new closer looks in several places, with Rico Garcia taking over as the preferred ninth-inning option for the Orioles and Tony Santillan getting the first chance at saves while Pagán is out.
Garcia has earned the job on performance, not reputation. He has faced 57 hitters this season, allowed just one hit, struck out 19 and walked six across 17 innings, numbers that have produced a 0.41 WHIP and a 22.8 K-BB%. He also has a win and a save this scoring period, giving Baltimore a reliever who has been hard to square up and steady when the game gets tight. Santillan, meanwhile, is getting another crack at leverage after securing five saves last season.
The churn does not stop there. Daniel Palencia, Jhoan Duran and Raisel Iglesias have all returned from injured-list stints, Kirby Yates has been activated by the Angels but has yet to appear, and Josh Hader worked a scoreless inning in his Triple-A debut while waiting out an activation window that runs until the last week of May. Carlos Estévez, in his first rehab appearance, got through two outs and issued a walk before leaving with an injury, a reminder that even the path back can be unstable.
That instability has changed the way managers are using the back end of games. In Baltimore, Garcia’s rise gives the Orioles a short-term answer at a time when every clean inning matters. In Los Angeles, Ryan Zeferjahn has emerged as the most trusted save option. The reliever picture around the league is less about fixed roles than about who can hold the lane long enough to survive the next roster move.
Daniel Lynch has been one of the few bright spots in that kind of environment. He has allowed an earned run in just one of his past 12 appearances, posted a 0.40 WHIP in that span, and added 15 strikeouts against one walk while collecting a win, a save and three holds. The consistency stands out because so many other bullpens have been defined by turnover instead of trust.
Seattle’s Andrés Muñoz is a different kind of case: the results have been uneven, but the underlying skills remain strong. He has allowed four barrels through his first 34 batted ball events, has a 50% hard-hit rate, and carries a 4.48 xERA and 1.40 WHIP, yet his 2.35 SIERA, 25 strikeouts and seven walks show the raw stuff is still intact. Hitters have a.596 wOBA against his four-seam fastball, with a.588 xSLG, and when he falls behind in counts that damage rises to a.667 wOBA and.612 xSLG.
That is the shape of the late innings right now: injuries creating openings, temporary answers becoming real ones, and no team able to assume yesterday’s bullpen plan will still work tomorrow. For anyone tracking the Braves standings and the wider race, the lesson is the same — the teams that keep the ninth inning intact will keep buying themselves room, while everyone else is left reacting.
