Sunday Bird Droppings: Another day of pitcher fielding practice and bullpens

Position players report to camp tomorrow, hopefully without surprise injury news

Hello, friends.

There are now 39 days remaining until Orioles Opening Day. That uniform number was in use in 2022 by Chris Ellis. It’s been claimed for the 2023 season by Kyle Bradish. There are only another six days until the Orioles play an exhibition game, but you’ll be waiting another 15 days before you can see an O’s spring game on MASN. Saturday’s Grapefruit League opener will, at least, be carried on the radio in Baltimore.

The full squad report date is tomorrow, with the first workout with the whole team coming on Tuesday. The main thing to hope for out of the full squad reports is that there’s not another round of “actually, this guy got injured over the offseason and may or will miss part of the regular season” like we got with the pitchers reporting.

Enough of the position players have already been trickling in even before the report date. There haven’t been any surprises with that group yet. If we’re lucky, that will continue. Mike Elias showed a lot of faith in this year’s team by not doing anything in the way of a major addition this offseason, so it would be nice for the players he showed faith in to be able to get to play.

There’s not much excitement in the early days of spring training, so here’s a series of videos of relatively mundane activities.

Adley taking some batting practice:

New Orioles acquisition Cole Irvin throwing a bullpen:

A dual bullpen with pitching prospects Cade Povich and Drew Rom:

Most likely all that there will be today is more of this kind of stuff, just with different guys pitching, because spring training is a gradual ramp-up for the pitchers and they certainly won’t be doing any back-to-back pitching in the month of February.

Around the blogO’sphere

Finally buzzworthy: Orioles sensing different energy in first post-rebuild spring training (The Baltimore Sun)
As with most spring storylines, none of this means anything until the games start. It’s sure a lot more fun to get stories like this than reactions to Mike Elias saying stuff like “winning this year is not strategically relevant.”

Seth Johnson working out and waiting to complete comeback from elbow surgery (School of Roch)
Johnson said he had a feeling he was going to be traded, knowing how the Rays have operated with 40-man roster crunches lately. He hopes to be pitching in games in August.

After bullpen session, Félix Bautista feels ‘rejuvenated’ and aims for Opening Day (The Baltimore Banner)
The first spring news about Bautista was cautious about his Opening Day status. Bautista himself seems to think he’ll be able to be ready for the season even if he only gets to the point of pitching in a spring game in mid-March.

O’s spring plans? Solving the pitching puzzle (Orioles.com)
Who’s going to end up in the rotation, and who will end up in the bullpen rather than in the Norfolk rotation, are two big questions surrounding the team this year.

Birthdays and Orioles anniversaries

Of all the players to ever play for the Orioles, not a single one has ever been born on this day. No Baseball Hall of Fame player has ever been born today either.

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday to you! Your birthday buddies for today include: astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473), novelist Carson McCullers (1917), actor Jeff Daniels (1955), singer-songwriter Seal (1963), movie man Benicio del Toro (1967), and actress Millie Bobby Brown (2004).

On this day in history…

In 1674, the Third Anglo-Dutch War concluded with the Treaty of Westminster. The war ended with a Dutch victory as the English failed to make any gains on the European continent; however, part of the peace settlement included the Dutch transferring New Amsterdam – today known as New York – to England.

In 1846, the Republic of Texas was formally annexed into the United States, becoming the 28th state. This shortly led to the Mexican-American War, as Mexico did not approve of the annexation.

In 1945, US Marines initiated landings on the island of Iwo Jima. In a five-week battle for control of the island, nearly 7,000 American servicemen, mostly marines, died. More than 90% of the 21,000 Japanese soldiers defending the island were killed in the fighting.

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And that’s the way it is in Birdland on February 19. Have a safe Sunday.