Yennier Cano’s hip soreness threw off his 2025. Now healthy, the Orioles reliever is back to his best.

NEW YORK — Yennier Cano doesn’t call it an injury, but it sure held him back last year. The soreness he describes now lingered throughout 2025. There were times the discomfort was minimal. There were other times when he felt as though he couldn’t rotate his hips while pitching.

“It wasn’t anything they told me I couldn’t play through or get on the field for,” Cano said through team interpreter Brandon Quinones. Still, it may have been the largest impediment against Cano, preventing the Orioles right-handed reliever from matching his performances from 2023 and 2024, when he was one of Baltimore’s most dominant arms.

“The biggest thing is, last year, I was dealing with some physical issues that I don’t think anyone really knew about,” Cano said. “That was the main thing, honestly.”

With his hips barking, Cano couldn’t rotate his body the way he normally would. He stood more upright. The combination threw his pitches out of whack. The addition of the splitter as a real weapon in his arsenal, too, has helped bring the best out of Cano.

After another scoreless appearance Sunday in a loss at Yankee Stadium, Cano’s ERA is 1.59. His WHIP is a minuscule 0.529. During a stretch of miserable baseball from Baltimore, Cano is a bright spot as he pitches like the 2023 All-Star version of himself again.

“A lot of it with relievers is confidence, and when you have conviction when you’re out on the mound on all your pitches, that’s when relievers are at their best,” manager Craig Albernaz said. “Yeni’s doing a great job of attacking the strike zone.”

Cano’s health, as well as a return to earlier offseason training methods that he feels will help maintain his strength, is making him an imposing figure out of the bullpen once more. He’s even hearing it from opponents.

Last month, when the Orioles faced the Diamondbacks, an Arizona hitter to whom Cano had never spoken approached him as he walked through the outfield to the bullpen before a game. The introduction of a splitter, the hitter said, is a nightmare.

“In the past you were difficult to hit off of,” said the hitter, whom Cano didn’t name. “Now you’re even more difficult to hit off of when you have that different look and those different angles coming at you.”

“He came up to me and just wanted to tell me that,” Cano said. “I was like, ‘I don’t know if that’s a good thing they’re paying so much attention to me and what I’m doing.’”

It’s probably because Cano is outlined as a difficult challenge on each team’s scouting report.

Cano abandoned his circle changeup because it had a similar movement profile to his sinker. They have different velocities, but the changeup and sinker both dropped with arm-side run. Now, the splitter predominantly dives while Cano’s sinker can back up a right-handed hitter or nick the outside of the strike zone against a left-hander.

“I’m able to throw my four-seam up, my slider away. It just gives me a ton of different looks to be able to work with,” Cano said.

“His split has been outstanding this year,” Albernaz said. “The velo and the shape has been, I think, the biggest thing that stands out.”

Cano was a force in 2023, his first full season in Baltimore. He produced a 2.11 ERA and followed with a 3.15 ERA in 2024. But he took a step back last year. His ERA spiked to 5.12. He racked his brain over the winter, he said, to find a solution.

Prior to 2025, Cano changed his offseason training program. He attempted to modernize it and instead felt he regressed, especially as his fastball velocity wavered due to difficulty maintaining strength. The nagging hip soreness didn’t help, either.

Neither issue has returned so far in 2026. What has returned? A dominant Cano.

“This year, I’ve been able to use my legs a little bit more, really get that back leg loaded up,” Cano said. “Being able to use that to then throw my pitches has been able to change a couple things for me.”