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You might not have noticed, but Rico Garcia has been one of the best relievers in baseball this season. Over 30 appearances, the 32-year-old Baltimore Orioles right-hander has a 1.29 ERA, a 3.25 FIP, and a 31% strikeout rate. Moreover, he has allowed just nine hits in 28 innings of work and boasts a record of 3-1 with four saves.

If you don’t follow the Orioles, you can be excused for not being familiar with Garcia. Claimed off waivers from the New York Mets last August, Garcia came into the current campaign having thrown just 70 big league innings since debuting in 2019, and he’d done so while pitching for seven different teams. Truly a journeyman, the 30th-round pick in the 2016 draft out of Hawaii Pacific University possessed a ledger that included one win, four losses, zero saves, and a 5.27 ERA.

What is behind his breakthrough? Based on conversations with both Garcia and Orioles pitching coach Drew French, that is a question without a simple answer. While the righty has never been better, it isn’t as though he has seen his velocity suddenly skyrocket, introduced a nasty new pitch, or discovered a secret formula.

I was intrigued by Garcia’s response when I asked about his evolution as a pitcher and, in turn, what has led to his surprising level of success.

“If you look at my mechanics, every year they’re usually different,” said Garcia. “I think I’m just slowly learning how my body reacts to different pitches and angles. That’s something I’ve had to try to perfect, finding those cue points in my delivery. As of right now, I think everything is in the right spot.”

As reasonable as that response was, it inspired a followup: Is a better understanding of his mechanics truly making a meaningful difference?

“I would say so, at least in terms of what I can control,” he responded. “But I can be doing the same thing and guys could be hitting me. At the end of the day, what I can control is all that I try to focus on, because this game is such a weird game. You can be feeling your best and the results aren’t going your way.”

Garcia feels that the quality of his stuff is also going in the right direction, but when push comes to shove, how he’s moving on the mound matters most.

“I think it comes down to my mechanics,” he told me. “I think that’s how it is for a lot of people. How things feel in certain parts of your delivery, and how you’re releasing the ball, plays a huge part. Where I’m at now, everything is kind of clicking in the right moments.

“A big thing is how deep I’m getting into my back leg,” Garcia went on to say. “Before, I wouldn’t really sit into it. I would sometimes, but it wasn’t always consistent in terms of how I’m riding the mound. Another thing I learned is that all of my pitches are different based on how long I ride the mound. For my fastball, I kind of sit longer and kind of rotate down into the mound, focusing on getting extension. For my changeup and curveball, it’s more just getting in that position, staying back, and then rotating into pronation. That’s part of learning where your body is for certain pitches. My pitches aren’t the exact same delivery. At least that’s what I tell myself.”

Told that the 5-foot-9, 215-pound Garcia had accentuated his mechanics, French provided more specifics.

“What we’ve leveraged from the data, and the Hawkeye, is that the best version of him is not getting too low too fast,” the pitching coach told me. “He’s got this deep sit on his back leg, and in order to provide the best stability on his front side, we’ve got to make sure he’s a little bit taller into leg lift. Even once he gets down the mound, he’s at a pretty low release height. There is some of this up-shoot kind of feeling that you get from his fastball, which helps maximize the velocity. It also helps maximize his release point and timing. There is a deception piece to him as well. He does a really good job of keeping the trunk sideways. That kind of conceals the ball behind his head for a long time and as he goes to move. The hitters can’t visualize it for very long.”

And then there is Garcia’s well-balanced four-pitch mix, which comprises a four-seam fastball (34.2% usage), a changeup (27%), a slider (21.1%), and a curveball (17.6%). In addressing it, French offered an interesting comp.

“When you look at the package as a whole, it’s definitely intriguing,” said French. “The velocity — he’s a mid-90s guy who sustains that pretty well — and it’s kind of a two-plane fastball. He’s got this ride-and-run four-seam, and he’s got a changeup that kind of follows suit. You don’t see many guys in the game with that changeup right now, because everybody has been so good at capitalizing on spin efficiency and seam-shift.

“Honestly, when we got him last year, he was kind of in a dark place with this changeup,” continued French. “So we messed around with the idea of seeing if he could handle a split, or if he could handle maybe more of a two-seam orientation, but we ended up sticking with his four-seam changeup. It’s not this great vertical separator from his fastball. It kind of reminds me of Marco Estrada’s a little bit. Marco Estrada had a very vert-y changeup. But [the way he sells it] is so good. He gets guys to move the bat because he threatens them with his fastball, and he has such great intent with the changeup. He also usually locates it in a good place.”

Garcia is on the same page when it comes to his changeup, which has long been part of his repertoire. Knowing that it “isn’t the type that’s going to drop off the table,” he focuses on throwing in the zone rather than looking for chase. That was something he learned over time, with the realization resulting in it becoming a better pitch. His breakers are relatively new. Garcia learned his slider in 2024, while his current curveball is delivered with a spiked grip he got from then-Triple-A teammate Austin Pruitt in 2023.

“Neither would really jump off the page at you,” French said of the breaking balls. “He’s got this harder gyro slider, and this very short vertical curveball. Guys will call it a ‘death ball’ now. Jordan Montgomery, from the 2023 playoffs; that’s when it became really popular. So, he’s got this pretty unique package where nothing jumps off the page from a stuff standpoint, but he’s able to capitalize on what he has, putting it all together for certain types of hitters, certain types of bat paths. He’s got a defense against a lot of problems that major league hitters provide for us. He’s got solutions to those problems.”

And then there’s Garcia’s four-seam fastball, which unlike his curveball and slider, hasn’t changed. Then again, it kind of has — albeit not in way that can be recognized metrically.

“I’m convinced that, at least for me personally, hitters see the spin,” Garcia explained. “So, I’ll switch the label. The label is on the right side for lefties, and for righties, I will have it on the left. I can’t remember who told me that — this was a few years ago — but I tried it and kind of liked it. If I turn the label so they can’t see a blue dot, it might give me an advantage. Hitters have told me they can see a difference, and while others have told me they can’t, I might as well keep doing it.”

The degree to which that is actually making a difference is up for debate, but one thing that isn’t up for debate is that Garcia is having a career-best season. Is this the most fun he’s ever had as a pitcher?

“In terms of success, yeah,” the Honolulu native replied. “Obviously, every day that you can come out and play this sport is blessing. It’s also one of those things where you want to enjoy the success, but at the same time, you need to keeping working at it every single day. Things could change at any moment.”

As fate would have it, Garcia was taken deep by Randy Arozarena last night, with the 10th-inning, opposite-field shot proving decisive in the Seattle Mariners’ 6-5 win over the Orioles. The pitch, an 0-1 slider, was well off the plate. As Garcia said, you can be feeling your best and the results don’t go your way.