Should I replace, repair, or leave this OSB?

Question

Removed some drywall next to the garage door opening and found a couple of large holes in the OSB.

Water main enters the wall on the other side of the lower hole and it looks like some water pipes were replaced at some point.

I’m trying to avoid bringing the garage door brackets into play, so would it be safe to cut out this 2-foot section of OSB and replace it? Unsure of any potential structural ramifications…

Or should I instead repair/cover the holes to better cover the water pipes?

Or … should I just leave it as-is and put up new drywall?

EDIT: Adding info and pics to address questions below.

• I don’t see nails or screws attaching the OSB to the studs. There are staples in the OSB going into the left-most stud in my picture above. There are no fasteners going into the next stud, which is 16” oc from the first. Since I only opened 2’ of drywall, this is all I can see.
• The staples are roughly 4” apart starting from the top, but they get sparse on the bottom half of the OSB, until there are only two remaining that are about 15” apart. Perhaps a couple were missed (?)

• The top hole in the OSB had some of the cut piece sitting in the cavity attached to a 1x2. The 1x2 was just sort of floating. Perhaps I can use this piece to make a better patch, though the top would still have a small strip opening based on how it’s cut:

• The bottom hole is cut much less neatly, let’s say, and feels a bit trickier to patch well — there’s no remaining piece from that cut, unless it was dropped into the wall cavity with the rest of this stuff that I haven’t cleaned out yet:

My motivation for removing the drywall in the first place was: I’m insulating the garage and will eventually be cooling it to use as a shop in the hot summer months here in Southern Arizona. I’m also trying to seal up some rather large cracks and access points for the many large insects that come and go as they please. I know I can’t keep them out completely, but I hope to make it less easy for them in general. So sealing and insulating is where I began, and I’m also fixing issues as I find them.

Answer 1

That's a common location for wall bracing, where if it's bracing, then the OSB strengthens the garage front against left to right (and right to left) forces. The house layout is necessary information (among many other necessary pieces of information) to say for sure. See IRC R602.10 if you want more details about wall bracing.

Why wasn't the wall framing left bare like everywhere else? The use of OSB there in contrast to the neighboring wall is a red flag, suggesting that it's structural. Alternatively to the structural possibility, though, it could be there to protect the utilities from physical damage. OSB wall bracing calls for fasteners installed every 6" around the perimeter and every 12" in the interior (see IRC Table R602.3(3)), so if your OSB has far, far fewer fasteners than that, then this signals that the OSB was slapped up by somebody looking to protect the utilities. Or your house's contractor had poor quality control.

To play it safe, I would border the hole edges inside the wall cavity with flat-oriented 2x4s, where I would then patch the hole with the same thickness of OSB. I would hold these 2x4's in position with screws and then install pairs of 6d common nails (one on each side of the seam) spaced every 6" based on IRC Table R602.3(3).

Answer 2

I'd suggest screwing some nice neat pieces of plywood over the holes, and drywall around them (or trim around them and drywall around the trim) so you have access holes without bashing drywall the NEXT time the waterline needs to be accessed.