Few players on this Orioles team have actually exceeded expectations so far this year, but Rico Garcia is a clear exception. The 32-year-old isn’t just a standout amongst his underwhelming teammates, he is pitching like one of the best relievers in baseball.
The top line stats speak for themselves. Garcia’s ERA is a minuscule 0.45, the second-lowest mark among relievers (Louis Varland), and no one has limited opponents to a worse batting average (0.33).
The peripheral stats aren’t quite as good, but that’s more a product of just how impressive Garcia has been rather than him getting overly lucky. For example, his .033 batting average against and .028 BABIP are, in fact, too good to be true. But his xBA is still only .149. That’s because he is among the league leaders in average exit velocity (83.1 mph, 99th percentile) and ground ball rate (54.3%, 90th percentile). Weakly hit grounders don’t turn into hits very often.
Speaking of which, Garcia has given up just two hits across his 20 innings of work this season. One was a home run against the Royals on April 21. The other was a double against the Nationals on Sunday. That’s it. A truly incredible run.
The same goes for Garcia’s 0.45 ERA. Technically, it is lower than it should be, but even if you swapped in his 1.84 xERA, the righty would still be considered an elite reliever. That xERA is in the 98th percentile of all pitchers.
Garcia’s path to this sort of a success is a unique one. On paper, he has big league experience in parts of six seasons, beginning as a 25-year-old back in 2019 with the Rockies. But he never appeared in more than 12 games in a single season until just last year, when the Orioles gave him his longest opportunity yet. Prior to that, he had bounced around to seven different organizations…including the Orioles!
Garcia spent six games with Baltimore back in 2022. They didn’t go great. He had a 4.50 ERA and allowed two home runs across eight total innings. He was granted free agency after the season.
Then last year, he became something of a hot commodity, at least in the context of fringy relief arms. The Mets signed Garcia in November, 2024. They DFA’d him in July of 2025. That’s when he was claimed by the Yankees, where he spent a week before he was DFA’d again. The Mets reclaimed him, but only for a few more weeks this time. Then the Orioles snagged him in early August, and that is where he has remained ever since.
So, what is behind Garcia’s seemingly out-of-nowhere success? It’s not any one thing.
Perhaps most notable has been Garcia’s development of a slider. He hasn’t always had the offering. Back in 2022, he featured a sweeper, but that got smacked around quite a bit. The first evidence of a slider in a big league game for him came last year, and it was very good. Opponents hit just .167 against it. He hasn’t given up any hits on the pitch yet this year.
He also mixes his pitches more than he used to. Prior to 2025, Garcia was a fastball-heavy pitcher. More than half of his pitches were four-seamers. Nowadays only about a third of his pitchers are the four-seamer. Naturally, that keeps hitters off balance and makes it harder to settle in and predict what’s coming next.
All the while, Garcia has maintained 95+ mph velocity on that four-seamer. That allows him to overpower hitters when necessary. It also provides a nice base for the rest of his pitches to work off of. In particular it helps his changeup work to the best of its ability, which it often does. The 56.4% whiff rate on the change is the best of his offerings.
His entire arsenal is effective. He has been worth 12 pitching runs overall, which is in the 96th percentile of pitchers. But his fastball (82nd percentile), breaking ball (98th percentile), and offspeed (83rd percentile) are all impressive in their own right. It’s a rare combination for anyone, let alone a former 30th round pick that stands at 5-foot-9.
Some negative regression is likely to come for Garcia at some point. More hits will fall in. His slightly elevated walk rate will bite him on occasion. But he doesn’t feel like a candidate for some catastrophic collapse, at least not this season. Relievers vary quite a bit year to year, so who knows what 2027 holds, but for right now he is the one of the game’s most dependable arms.
Could this impressive season include an all-star appearance for Garcia? Right now he feels like the Orioles best candidate. The big names in the lineup have largely struggled. Hot starts for Taylor Ward and Adley Rutschman have slightly subsided. None of the starting pitchers have looked like the Cy Young candidates we all hoped for. And Ryan Helsley is going to have missed a good chunk of the first half when it’s all said and done. Giving a middle reliever the all-star nod always feels like a long shot, but this version of Garcia deserves it. And who’s to say he doesn’t become the team’s full-time closer at some point anyway? He’s healthy and performing. The Orioles are in no position to maintain rigid roster roles. They need to win now, and Garcia is one of the few members of the team that is helping them do that on a regular basis.
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