Category Archives: Baltimore Orioles News

The Baltimore Orioles are better than their record indicates. Sure there are a million cliche’s out there which attest to the contrary, however I’m talking facts here. Facts backed up by numbers. This team flat-out is better than it’s record indicates.

Adam Jones is only hitting .250. Now in saying that he’s also been fairly consistent thus far this year. But he’s a career .277 hitter. It stands to reason that he’ll progress upwards towards the mean. The same is true of Chris Davis, and his current .144 average. He’s a career .244 hitter, who normally hits with a lot of power.

And those are just two examples. And here’s another – Alex Cobb. Granted Cobb’s only been an Oriole for a couple of weeks, however he’s been shelled in two starts. He’s pitching at a 15.43 ERA, compared to his career mark of 3.62. Again, one has to imagine that he’ll progress towards his career means.

Buck Showalter has used a line from time to time about not judging people based on their worst days or moments. Buck’s not only a gifted baseball manager, but he’d make a great life coach as well; that’s good advice all around. Think of the worst moment, day, or even time period you’ve ever had in your life. Would you really want to have judgement on your overall life passed based on that moment?

The obvious answer to that is no – unless you live in the bizarro world, that is. The facts indicate that the Orioles are a better team than what we’ve seen. So all you can really say is that these past few weeks is that the O’s are in the midst of their worst day. Because the numbers indicate that they’re a better team than what we’ve seen.

They just need to ratchet things up – and as Buck would say, keep grinding. It that means guys take batting practice for three hours, so be it. Same with fielding practice. This team has dug itself a hole for sure. But that doesn’t mean that the season isn’t salvagable. Because it is, if the Orioles want it to be.

 

Many fans love to point back to the 2016 AL Wild Card game in which Baltimore Orioles’ manager Buck Showalter opted to leave closer Zach Britton in the bullpen. Instead he turned to Ubaldo Jimenez in an extra-inning elimination game. Jimenez of course gave up a walk-off season-ending home run.

Scientifically it’s impossible for that to be influencing what’s happening with the team now. Or even last year. Yet people still talk about it as if it’s a white elephant in the room. I’m going to say this once – I agreed with Showalter’s decision. It was tempting to use Britton for sure. But what happens if the Orioles take the lead and he’s already spent? As the visiting team in that situation, they would have had to play the bottom of every inning. Who pitches if Britton’s already used? Jimenez?

Was it controversial not to use Britton? Yes. But I had no issue with it. In baseball you always have to be thinking ahead. That’s all Showalter was doing.

Yet people act like had that gone differently maybe the team wouldn’t be struggling as it is right now. I suppose that anything’s possible. There are reports that some of the players in the clubhouse lost respect for Buck Showalter in that moment. He still has respect in the clubhouse, just not as much. If that’s true, is it fair? And does it make a difference?

I’m sure there were players who disagreed with Showalter’s decision. Heck, if Showalter’s own comments are any indication, he second-guessed himself after the fact. However I think you also have to look at the fact that these players are professionals. Even if they disagreed with the decision, are they really about to let that affect their play on the field one or even two years later?

You also have to look at the entire body of work. Again while that’s the decision I would have made personally, that was one “mistake” that Buck Showalter made as manager of the Orioles. Is it really fair to question his entire stewardship of the team? Similar to Machado, he’s going to win you more games than he’ll lose you.

Ultimately I think the Orioles’ issues are smaller details. Such as seeing the correctly, paying close attention to details, and letting things snowball into bigger things. It’s easy to point to the Britton thing as a catalyst for things going south to this point. However again scientifically that’s an impossibility. If there’s a correlation, these players aren’t professionals. And I don’t think that’s the case.

The Baltimore Orioles are getting out of Boston and headed for Detroit – and that’s a good thing after this weekend. The best thing that probably could have happened to the Birds was a rainout today. Not because they got beaten in three consecutive games at Fenway, but because it’ll give them a chance to regroup and gather their thoughts. There’s a lot of season to go.

Over the weekend Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (formerly of The Baltimore Sun) published an article which detailed some recent upheaval in the Orioles’ front office. And the report seemed to detail the fact that the Orioles are and/or will be very much in flux following this season.

The biggest piece of news in the article (which is linked above to Rosenthal’s name – although you’ll need a subscription to read the whole thing) is that owner Peter Angelos has apparently decreased his role with the team of late, and his sons John and Lou Angelos have taken a much larger role. This is a move that was indubitably made due to Peter Angelos’ advancing age. He’ll be 89 on the Fourth of July.

According to Rosenthal, Angelos has never been less involved in his 25 years or so of stewardship of the franchise. Again according to Rosenthal, Brady Anderson and Buck Showalter have also been taking more of an interest in the Front Office aspect of the franchise, minimizing GM Dan Duquette and his influence. And this apparently has Duquette not feeling comfortable.

Honestly I can’t blame anyone for being upset others are encroaching on his responsibilities. Both Duquette and Showalter’s contracts are up at the end of the season. (Along with multiple player contracts, which is another story.) I would believe that Duquette can read the writing on the wall, and is aware of the fact that odds are against him being here next season. So where does that leave the front office?

The answer to that lies somewhere with John and Lou Angelos. Rosenthal’s article spins the sons taking over in general in what I feel is a somewhat negative light. Basically they’re unproven, and nobody knows what they’re getting. That said, were the same questions there surrounding the Steinbrenner boys? The fact is that the Angelos boys have had increasing roles over the past few years. So they’re hardly going into this cold.

I suspect that Duquette will be gone after the season. If Showalter wants to continue managing, I would hope that the Angelos’ would say that the job is his. Maybe they sign him to a two or three-year extension of some sort – again, if he wants it. And perhaps Anderson moves into a co-GM role with Showalter. Coaches are GM’s in other sports, the great Vince Lombardi being a great example. So why not here?

Or perhaps Anderson is out of the picture, and Buck takes that role on his own. Or perhaps Buck retires. One way or the other, there are scenarios out there which involve all kinds of ends. Perhaps all three of them (Duquette, Anderson, and Showalter) are back in their current roles, or perhaps they’re all three gone. It’s really tough to say right now, but again the decision lies with John and Lou Angelos. Interesting times in which we live for sure.

The Baltimore Orioles found themselves in a situation Friday night where manager Buck Showalter informed the umpires that the team was officially playing under protest. This is something that’s while totally legal in accordance with MLB rules and regulations, rarely happens so much anymore. And on the off chance that a team plays under protest, the protest is usually not upheld.

You know the situation of which I speak; the rundown play on the third base line Friday night. Without detailing the situation itself once again since I presume everyone knows what happened, the umpiring crew found their decision at odds with the rule book. According to the MLB rule book, the definition of a protested game is as follows:

Managers can protest a game when they allege that the umpires have misapplied the rules. The umpires must be notified of the protest at the time the play in question occurs and before the next pitch or attempted play begins. If the play in question ended the game, a protest can be filed with the league office until noon the following day. No protests are permitted on judgment calls by the umpires.

Major League Baseball’s executive vice president of baseball operations later determines whether the protested decision violated the rules, though the game will not be replayed unless it is also determined that the violation adversely affected the protesting team’s chances of winning.

On Friday, Rule 5.09 should have come into play, which details almost the exact scenario that unfolded on the field. In short, when the trail runner stepped on third, he had run past the lead runner per the rules. So he should have been out.

But that’s not how the umpires saw things, and to their credit this was admitted after the game through crew chief Jerry Meals. Following that incident, the next New York hitter recorded the third out of the inning, which ended the threat. In sum, if the Orioles had lost that game it would not have been due to the misinterpretation or oversight of the rule.

That in and of itself means that the protest probably wouldn’t have been upheld. While certainly a violation, it wouldn’t have been a violation that “adversely would have impacted the Orioles’ chances of winning the game.” Point being, you can’t play a game under protest and then think it’s ultimately going to be replayed. And there’s a lot of confusion about that, incidentally.

The fact is that there’s a lot of confusion about playing under protest overall, which probably stems from the fact that it doesn’t happen too often. As is stated above, the manager of the offended team has to formally tell the umpire that he’s playing under protest. The umpire then literally draws an imaginary letter P in the air, which indicates to the official scorer that the game is being played under protest. After the game the offended manager can either let the matter drop, or file the formal protest paperwork with the league, at which point it’s judged by the league office.

If the league decides that in fact there was a misinterpretation of the rules in some manner which led to a team’s chances of winning being lessened, the game is ordered replayed from that point onward. And if not, the result stands. As you can imagine, there are many times when managers play under protest but they end up winning the game – in which case they don’t file the paperwork with the league and the matter drops.

Let’s say that the subsequent New York hitter in Friday’s game had come into score and NY had won the game 4-3. Then I think you would have a very legitimate case in front of the league office whereby the umpires botching the rules would have made it more difficult for the Birds to win. You very well could have had a situation where the result was thrown out and the game would have been resumed in the top of the seventh with a 3-3 tie. The umpires’ apology backs this up.

More confusing perhaps is the question of what is and is not “protestable.” You can never play under protest after a judgement call. So fair/foul, out/safe, and obviously balls and strikes cannot result in the game being played under protest. Those are considered judgement calls by the umpires. And make not mistake that the umpire may be wrong in any given circumstance on the call. But it’s still a judgement call on his part.

The situation the other night saw a rule incorrectly applied – or more realistically not applied. If it’s a case where a rule is misinterpreted, incorrectly used (or not used), etc, that is a situation where a team can play under protest. So it’s a very fine line to walk in a sense. First the rule has to have been botched. Then it has to be proven that the team’s chances of winning were adversely affected. So you can see why this comes off as such a novel concept, because it’s not used often and when it does it isn’t usually successful.

However I’m glad that baseball has this method in the rule books. The umpires aren’t perfect, and the fact is that there are a lot of rules to know. So why not put a safety measure into the rules which allow for a team to have it’s case heard when they feel something’s been done incorrectly? The goal is to get the call correct. This further allows the league to do that.

Admittedly I raised an eyebrow when I saw Buck Showalter‘s Opening Day lineup. There had been rumors of Chris Davis hitting lead off, and in fact there was fact behind those rumors. I suspect that the idea was to get Davis some better pitches to see, but still certainly an unconventional move.

It was also interesting to see Craig Gentry get the start in right field as opposed to perhaps Colby Rasmus, who the Orioles had just signed. Obviously Gentry paid some immediate dividends when he saved a home run in the second inning of the game on Thursday. And as I said yesterday, the ball was over the wall. Gentry flat out robbed Minnesota, and brought the ball back into the ballpark.

For the record, Davis went 0-for-4 on the day. So if you’re looking at the immediate results of him batting lead off, I suppose they weren’t good. However also keep in mind that Thursday’s game was a pitcher’s duel. There were precious few guys who truly looked good in the game at the plate.

However here’s the point: don’t ever doubt Buck Showalter. We went through this a bit after the 2016 AL Wild Card game, in which he infamously left Zach Britton on the bench. I’m not saying that he’s perfect – NOBODY is. But the moves he makes or doesn’t make are done for a reason. Coming into the game Rasmus was a career 1-for-11 against Minnesota starter Odorizzi. And does Rasmus make the play that the fleet-of-foot Gentry made in the second inning? Does Gentry himself consistently make that play. We’ll never know, but we do know what happened with Gentry in there at that moment.

Buck Showalter knows more baseball than I do, along with all of the people reading this column combined. So while there were certainly some things about that lineup that were unconventional, I would give a guy like Buck Showalter the benefit of the doubt on something like that 100% of the time. Again, that doesn’t mean he’s infallible, nor should Orioles fans expect him to be. But the moves he makes are made for a reason, and that reason is usually something more than just trying to shake things up.

The disjointed opening series resumes this evening at Camden Yards. Andrew Cashner makes his Orioles’ debut on the mound, and he’ll be opposed by Minnesota’s Kyle Gibson. Game time is set for just after 7 PM.