Baltimore Orioles: Brian Dozier speaks again

Last night I said that it wasn’t time for the Baltimore Orioles to hit the panic button. And I meant it. 1-3 isn’t a desirable start in any sport. However it’s much less of a problem in baseball than it is say in football. If you start 1-3 in the NFL, numbers are being run in terms of probability of making the playoffs. Your season is already on the line. Not so in MLB.

With that said, Minnesota’s Brian Dozier seems intent on continually dragging the Orioles through the mud off the field. His comments regarding Chance Sisco‘s bunt on Sunday afternoon were well documented. To me, it would have stood to reason that Dozier would have wanted this situation to go away as quickly as possible after seeing the backlash.

Instead, yesterday he doubled down on his comments and explained why (in his mind) what Sisco did was such an issue (quote courtesy of Ryan Fagan, Sporting News):

When they didn’t hold our runner on, they conceded to the fact they didn’t want us to steal, so we didn’t steal. We could have very easily stolen and put up more runs, so therefore in return you don’t bunt. That’s what everybody is missing in this whole thing.

One might at least see just a slight bit of logic in that statement. A slight bit. However Dozier’s conveniently leaving out one thing; Minnesota employed a shift against Chance Sisco. If the Orioles were in essence conceding the game by not holding a runner on, Minnesota should have seen that and not employed the shift.

Because otherwise what Dozier’s saying is it’s not okay for you to try to get in base in that circumstance, but it’s okay for us to use different methods to get you out. Somehow, that doesn’t seem fair. Furthermore, Dozier’s point initially was to the effect of how dare he bunt during our guy’s one-hitter. The concept of conceding the game didn’t come up until later.

The explanation to this is that Dozier’s just wrong. He made a big mistake in even mentioning this at all, and it’s blowing up in his face. However as I said, it doesn’t make sense that he would double down on his comments. One thing sports figures need to realize is that in the 24-hour news cycle, things like this will go away eventually. At some point someone else will put his foot in his mouth, or do something dumb. People will eventually move on.

But by commenting further, it keeps the scenario in the news. Dozier should have let it go and eventually it would have been just an unfortunate memory. Maybe the “veteran leadership” in the organization needs to step in and remind him of that.