While both players were topped on the Blues' goals tally by Kade Simpson (three majors), Ratten said Waite was "nearly a lone solider" in attack with minimal contribution from Lachie Henderson, Eddie Betts and Shaun Hampson.
He also praised Garlett's contribution but issued a warning to the rest of the forwards that their positions in the side were not guaranteed this week.
"I thought Waite worked extremely hard … Jeff was brilliant as well but outside that … I thought Andrew [Walker] came on and did what he could as a sub [and] as a forward and tried to give us some run and pressure in the front 50 but outside that I thought there were a few players that were really down," he said.
"I suppose their spots can come under scrutiny."
The Blues looked to have gained an obvious advantage by quarter time after the Bombers lost Jason Winderlich and Courtenay Dempsey to serious knee injuries in the first term.
Ratten defended his decision to hold out on deploying his substitute in Walker until the late stages of the third quarter.
"We could [have gone earlier] but you roll the dice there and the next minute you've got a ruckman off and you've got one ruckman for the rest of the day and that puts you with another problem," he said.
"We just thought we'd hang on and see where we'd go. We waited as long as we could."
Ratten wasn't concerned about the tied result despite the Bombers' injuries and said he was pleased with his side's determination to reel in the margin that got as wide at 22 points early in the second term.
"They were four [goals] up [when the injuries happened], which is only one man down when you look at it because the sub doesn't play the game," he said.
"It's one man down and they're four goals up. I don't know which one you'd want to take.
"Credit to our blokes, from a character point of view we just stuck to our tasks and got ourselves back in the game.
"We had to tinker with a couple of things structurally but I thought they did a good job to get themselves back into the game but then we just didn't finish the job when we had the opportunity."
He did criticise his players' lack of composure in the fourth quarter but was full of praise for parts of his defence, which stood up well against Michael Hurley, Patrick Ryder and Angus Monfries across the afternoon.
"I thought our backline, not all our backline, but I thought [Nick] Duigan really set us up early; there was him, [Simon] White and [Michael] Jamison in the air that really came and assisted each other and I thought they were brilliant," he said.
"[Chris] Yarran, his excitement and run and carry was brilliant back there."
