The Oregon baseball team is one of the top- ranked teams in the Big Ten. Now, that’s not a bad place to be heading into the postseason, but it’s alarming how the Ducks lost a majority of their games: the bullpen.

The depth in the Oregon bullpen is shockingly poor compared to other ranked teams the Ducks have dropped series to, like UCLA and Oregon State, who have multiple relievers with ERAs under 2.00 in over 20-plus appearances as of May 12, which is something that can only be said about Tanner Bradley (1.79), who has been the closer almost all season. That being said, Bradley has only pulled off one save and blew a save opportunity in the series finale against No. 1 UCLA after allowing a walkoff grand slam in just four pitches.

Taking one good look at the bullpen shows that most of the bullpen cannot effectively close out games after the fourth or fifth inning, with multiple middle relievers like Leo Uelmen, Gabe Howard and Shane Johnson all above a 6.20 ERA in a combined 26 appearances.

Notably, most of the freshman arms in the bullpen, aside from Johnson, barely play, and when they do, they give up a lot of runs. Hudson Carvalho, who didn’t pitch in the entire month of April, still has a 37.80 ERA after four appearances, and Josh Hollis, who has had a somewhat prominent role with five appearances, including one start, has the second-highest ERA (9.53) on the team behind Carvalho.

It isn’t just the freshmen who are struggling, either. Sophomores Luke Morgan and Michael Meckna have been two of the go-to middle relievers with 19 appearances apiece, with Meckna having one start. The issue hasn’t necessarily been their ERAs (5.91 and 4.91, respectively) but more so their inability to perform consistently.

Morgan has had some stellar outings through- out the year with zero hits in eight of 19 appearances, but recently allowed late-game runs that sparked comebacks in both the UCLA and Washington series. Meckna was a part of the pitching unit that dropped the game in Seattle on May 3 alongside Morgan, but their worst performance together came on April 8 against the University
of Portland, where they allowed a combined six runs on three hits, which sealed the upset win for the Pilots in one of the worst pitching games for Oregon this season.

The reason why all of this is so concerning is that this is a team that is expected to not only win in the regionals but also to make a deep run into the postseason. A team with one solid reliever cannot be a contender for a national championship, especially when that team is playing against teams with three or more relievers better than their closer. The Ducks have a solid unit on the hitting side of things and decent starters in Sanford, Clarke and Gosztola, but they won’t be able to be the ones to secure wins late in the game in high-pressure situations.

The Ducks have very little time to make changes, if any, before they likely head off to the Big Ten tournament to start the postseason, and it will take a miracle to turn this bullpen around in time with the way they’ve played in recent games.