Tyler Wells said he “fizzled out.” Brandon Hyde said last year the Orioles pitcher “ran out of gas.” Mike Elias said Wells “hit a wall.”
No matter the phraseology, that’s as specific as it gets for what happened last summer with Wells, when one of the American League’s best starting pitchers in the first half suddenly and befuddlingly wasn’t good enough to start games for the Orioles anymore.
The season ended on a high note for Wells, who returned in September as a late-inning reliever and was dominant. But he’s back in the rotation again this season, starting Sunday against the Los Angeles Angels, and the Orioles have no idea how long he’ll last. Hyde, the club’s manager, expressed his hope during spring training for Wells to pitch a full season as a starter, but he acknowledged that isn’t a guarantee.
“If he’s going to make 30 starts, I don’t know,” he said.
However, his adversity — the uncertainty of whether he can last a full season — is far from the first hurdle Wells has needed to clear in his professional career. He underwent Tommy John elbow reconstruction as a minor leaguer. He was a reliever in 2021 with the Orioles as a Rule 5 draft pick. He suffered two injuries that hampered his 2022 season.
Through the work he put in this offseason, Wells is confident he won’t fizzle out or run out of gas this year. And if a wall is in his way, he expects to burst through it rather than let it stop him.
“I am extremely confident in my ability to go out there and put up good numbers,” he said. “I’m not a guy to shy away from the challenge. You tell me I can’t do something, watch me, I will go show you that I can. I wholeheartedly believe in myself. Anyone who doubts me, they can doubt. I’m going to go out there and do my best to prove them wrong.”
The uncertainty isn’t new for Wells. He appeared destined for a bullpen role last spring, but the team had Grayson Rodriguez begin the season in the minors instead. However, Wells’ first outing was out of the bullpen, pitching five scoreless innings after Kyle Bradish was hit on the leg by a line drive. The 6-foot-8 right-hander stuck in the rotation and was excellent through the All-Star break, posting a 3.18 ERA and leading the AL in WHIP.
But he wasn’t himself after the break, allowing 11 runs in nine innings over his first three second-half starts. He was demoted to Double-A Bowie for what Elias called a “reset,” transitioned to a short-relief role and came back to save the Orioles’ AL East-clinching win in a full-circle moment.
Wells said his main goal this offseason was to be even better prepared for the grueling six-month season — really nine months counting spring training and a potential postseason — so he could prevent midseason fatigue or fix the problem quicker if it comes.
The 29-year-old, whose biggest accomplishment this offseason was getting married in January, made changes to his diet to slim down a little and his workout regimen to focus on endurance. His training plan, especially early in the offseason, was focused on improving his “lactic acid threshold” — essentially the degree to which he could push his body without overexerting himself while also being able to fully recover in between starts. He said he could feel the difference throughout spring training, especially between starts as he was able to “bounce back” quicker.
“A lot of it was just really trying to make sure that I gave myself the best opportunity to stay in shape to prevent myself from fizzling out in the middle-to-later part of the season,” Wells said. “I want to last the whole season. … I really wanted to make a point this offseason to come into camp in shape and as strong as possible and kind of build a surplus of what I need. As the year goes on and we go deeper into the season, I want to be right where I need to be.
“I feel great, I feel strong, I feel healthy. Most importantly, I feel prepared for the long season.”
Right-hander Mike Baumann, who trains with Wells in the offseason at Tork Sports Performance outside Jacksonville, Florida, had his season also start well and end not the way he wanted. Baumann was one of Hyde’s most-trusted middle relievers, but he also experienced fatigue in August and was optioned to the minors. Baumann, who is back in the Orioles’ bullpen and has pitched in each of Baltimore’s first two wins, said he and Wells both used their up-and-down campaigns as motivation.
“It made us hungrier,” Baumann said. “It gave us more of a vision and more motivation.”
Baumann, a converted starter whose plus stuff fits in the bullpen, is confident that Wells’ offseason work will “translate into this year.”
“I feel like he’s more prepared,” Baumann said. “He believes in himself. He’s definitely made strides, and I think he’s going to take his game to the next level this year.”
It’s unclear whether Wells will be given the opportunity to start all season, though if he pitches as well as he did in 2023’s first half, the Orioles would be hard-pressed to move him to the bullpen. But the returns of John Means and Bradish, who Elias said are expected back “early in the first half of the season,” would push two starters to the bullpen. Cole Irvin and Wells, who both spent time in the bullpen last season, would be the likeliest candidates.
Orioles starter John Means to begin rehab assignment in Triple-A on Sunday https://t.co/VJK272srsc
— Baltimore Sun Sports (@BaltSunSports) March 30, 2024
Hyde believes Wells learned from his fatigue last season, expecting that to “carry into this year.”
“I think he’s got a little bit more knowledge on how to manage his body and health to be a starter for six months,” Hyde said. “We’ll see how long he can go.”
In 2022, the Orioles heavily monitored Wells’ innings and pitches in his first year as a starter since undergoing Tommy John surgery in 2019. Last year, Hyde mostly took the chains off Wells, who went at least five innings in each of his 18 first-half outings.
The sixth-year skipper is planning on doing the same this season, not letting the hopes of Wells’ availability in the fall take away from potential success in the spring.
“I’m just going to ride him, honestly. I’m not trying to save him as I’m talking right now,” Hyde said. “I’m trying to have him pitch for us as long as possible in the rotation. We know what Tyler can do in our bullpen, how good he is and what he can do down there. We’ve seen it before. We know how good he can be in the rotation, also, because we watched it for the first three months of the year. I would love to see that for longer. Now, how long that is, I don’t know.
“But I’m not going to try to manage it to have him pitch in the middle of September in the rotation if we don’t think he’s going to get there.”
A potentially complicating factor for Wells is that he’s good out of the bullpen. In 2021, he spent September as the Orioles’ closer after a solid year out of the bullpen, and he had success in that role again last year. So, if there is a crunch in the rotation and the bullpen is struggling, Wells could help fortify the Orioles’ relief corps.
But he isn’t worrying about what his role will look like this summer or fall. He’s just focused on delivering a quality start Sunday and letting the rest fall into place.
“I’ve made it clear that my preference is to start, but that ultimately isn’t my decision. I just want to be the best in whatever role I’m in,” he said. “At the end of the day, I think the results will take care of themselves.”