Do you miss Félix Bautista? I miss Félix Bautista.

The Orioles have played 22 games in 23 days in September and are currently in a stretch of playing 17 days in a row. The entire team is surely feeling the effects of this grueling marathon of games to end the season but the group that needs a day off more than any other is certainly the bullpen. Many of the starters are struggling to get deep into games as they are either recovering from injuries, pitching more innings than they ever had or just pitching so bad they lose their rotation spot and that has put a ton of pressure on the Orioles bullpen. I put together a visual of what the Orioles bullpen has been through in the month of September. 

As you can see this month and especially the last week have been brutal on the O’s pen. In the past 6 days Cano, Coulombe, Perez, Fujinami, Hall and Lopez have each made 4 appearances out of the pen which is a ton of work here at the end of the season when arms are tired anyway.

There have been some rough outings from some different relievers but it is hard to hold it against anyone when they are being asked to pitch so often. 

You might be tempted to blame the starters for not getting deep enough into games but if you exclude Dean blowing up in the 4th inning last night the starters have gone 5,6,4.2,5,5, and 8 innings which might not be 1998 Braves numbers but is hardly a catastrophe. 

What we are really seeing is the trickle down effect of losing Félix Bautista. 

When people talk about the Orioles they inevitably mention the Oriole’s excellent bullpen which by the numbers looks like one of the best bullpens in the league but Félix Bautista was doing a lot of heavy lifting on those bullpen stats. Losing Bautista not only impacts the Orioles’ ability to get the last three outs of the game but also sends a ripple effect through the rest of the bullpen. 

The Orioles extra inning win against the Angels on September 5th  was a perfect example of the impact of losing Felix Bautista. Yennier Cano had to pitch in the previous two games even though one of them wasn’t even a save situation. If Felix was healthy Cano pitches one of those nights then Félixgets the other and they are both available to pitch in the next nights game. But Felix is not there so Cano goes both nights. 

Instead of Cano entering in the 8th inning to set up a save for Bautista the eighth inning pitcher was Jacob Webb who has pitched well for the Orioles ever since they claimed him off waivers but there is a drop a quality between an all star set up man and a pitcher that was casually discarded by one of the worst teams in the league. 

Webb gives up a run to give the Angels the lead but the Orioles battle back in the top of the ninth and take the lead. Now with a 1 run lead in the ninth instead of the best closer in the league the Orioles call on young DL Hall (who is a very exciting young player but a far cry from Felix Bautista) Hall gives up a double a walk and then a single which scores a run before being pulled for Joey Khrebiel. Khrebiel gets the final out and we head to extra innings. 

The O’s score the ghost runner in the top of the 10th so with a chance to win the game the Orioles call on the volatile Shintaro Fujinami who pitched a great inning and the Orioles won the game. At a glance all is well and the Orioles won the game but this win may cost the Orioles another game down the stretch. Instead of a rested Cano pitching the eighth and the Felix shutting it down in the ninth the Orioles had to use Webb, Hall, Krehbiel and Fujinami after using Coulombe, Lopez and Perez earlier in the game so now going into the season finale against the Angels the entire bullpen besides Cano will be pitching on back to back nights. 

This is what the Orioles have been dealing with since losing Bautista. Every reliever in the pen has had to ratchet up a level in responsibility and the results have been having to use 4 or 5 relievers every night as the pen has gotten more and more worn out.

Hyde has been forced to play match ups and patch together the last few innings of each game to make up for the absence of their star closer. It is not an exaggeration to say that there is nothing the Orioles can do to replace Félix. I think that besides Adley and maybe Gunnar, Felix is the most irreplaceable person on the team.