A handful of injured Orioles relievers are going for second opinions. As reflected on the MLB.com injury tracker, left-hander Keegan Akin will meet Dr. Keith Meister for evaluation on his elbow next week. Closer Ryan Helsley is going for further testing on his own elbow injury this week. Right-hander Colin Selby will visit Dr. Neal ElAttrache at the end of the month for a look at his injured shoulder (relayed by Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com).
Akin and Helsley each recently landed on the injured list. It was the second IL stint of the season for both pitchers. Akin’s first stay was for a groin strain that cost him the first month. The 31-year-old southpaw has struggled to a 5.68 ERA with a diminished 15% strikeout rate across 25 1/3 innings, a significant step back from a combined 3.36 ERA and 27% strikeout percentage of the preceding two seasons. Akin is in his final year of arbitration and playing on a $2.975MM salary. The underperformance and injury seem likely to take him off the trade market even if the 42-50 O’s wind up selling at next month’s deadline.
Helsley is sidelined by an elbow issue for the second time this year. His two-year, $28MM free agent contract hasn’t gotten out to a great start. The injuries have limited the hard-throwing righty to 15 1/3 innings of nine-run ball on the season. Helsley has fanned 21 of his 68 opponents (31%) but has also walked nine batters and thrown three wild pitches. He has a $14MM player option for next season. It’s trending towards him locking in that salary, though that could perhaps change if he’s able to make a quick return and has an excellent finish to the season.
Tyler Wells has gotten the first crack at closing in Helsley’s absence. Yennier Cano and Rico Garcia are having nice seasons and could also get a look if Wells is unavailable. Any of the three could be plausible trade candidates if the Orioles don’t right the ship. They’re all under team control beyond this year but in their 30s. The O’s were in a similar spot with Bryan Baker at this time last year and were willing to trade him to the division rival Rays for a competitive balance draft choice.
Selby has been on the 60-day injured list all season. General manager Mike Elias said a couple weeks ago that the shoulder issues were still ongoing and made it unlikely he’d be back anytime soon. The O’s won’t have an official timetable until his reexamination with ElAttrache, yet it doesn’t seem to bode well for his chance of making an impact this year. Selby is in his second full season with the O’s after being acquired from Kansas City in a July 2024 DFA trade.
In one bit of non-playing news, Andy Kostka of The Baltimore Banner reports that the O’s hired former big leaguer Ross Detwiler as a roving pitching instructor in the upper minors. Detwiler replaces Thomas Eshelman, who accepted the pitching coach job at TCU over the weekend. The 40-year-old Detwiler pitched parts of 14 seasons in the big leagues between 2007-22. The Orioles were not among the 10 teams for which he suited up at the MLB level.
