Yankees let breakout Orioles reliever slip through their fingers (so did David Stearns)

Two things can be true. With a weakened bullpen and eternal quest for stability, David Stearns and the Mets should be ashamed by fumbling Rico Garcia twice last season without a plan in place for his ascent. The Yankees, who also got a hand on Garcia briefly in 2025, should also feel deeply silly for letting him go. Neither probably saw the extent of his breakout coming, though. You can't. It's impossible. Nobody does this.

Garcia breezed through the Yankees' 2-3-4 hitters immediately after Brent Headrick surrendered their 2-0 lead on Monday night — and "breezed" might be an understatement. He decimated them. Pulverized them. Made them disappear off the screen, leaving them a fine paste that had to be swept out of the concourse by ushers.

Of course, that's nothing new for Garcia, who has allowed one run on one hit in 19 innings to begin the season with the O's. What is that? What is that? How is a 32-year-old Hawaiian journeyman doing this?

Wouldn't the Yankees like to know? They added him last summer in order to help the beleaguered bullpen coming out of the All-Star break, then fell victim to the same roster crunch that had bedeviled the very injured Mets a few weeks earlier. The Mets never wanted to use a roster spot on him, but had to in order to paper over some injuries, then couldn't hold on when they needed fresh arms. Same with the Yankees, who used Garcia for a 2 2/3 inning outing in an Atlanta mess, then put him on waivers (where the Mets grabbed him again, then fumbled him again).

Yankees' beleaguered bullpen could've used Rico Garcia resurgence

Like Jerry Seinfeld once said to a trying-their-best car rental agent, the Yankees knew Rico Garcia could be valuable, but they had no idea how to hold Rico Garcia. And that's really the most important part of ... Rico Garcia!

Meanwhile, on the other side of the field, the Yankees entered Monday night's game without Tim Hill, Fernando Cruz, or David Bednar available. They were unlikely to win the game unless they were able to run up the score on their opponent. Instead, Ryan Weathers threw six no-hit innings about a week after losing nine pounds while battling a virus, then stumbled in the seventh as he reached 100 pitches and watched a gassed Brent Headrick surrender a three-run homer to Coby Mayo that flipped the game (and ushered in Garcia). The Yankees pushed Weathers to the limit, knowing they didn't even have enough non-gassed relievers for three simple innings.

The Garcia fumble wouldn't sting so much if the Yankees had proven they had any idea how to fill the middle innings (or the late innings, for that matter). Unfortunately, they're in the middle of a May spiral, and Garcia's gone almost hitless, looking like Yennier Cano 2.0.

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