The Orioles lost their spring game yesterday, but Tomoyuki Sugano’s first outing went well, so that’s something.
Hello, friends.
We are now exactly four weeks away from Orioles Opening Day. They’ll be in Toronto to play the Blue Jays on March 27. Between now and then are near-daily spring training games. They played one against the Pirates yesterday, not that you could see it since neither team televised it. Probably for the best, since the Orioles ended up losing the game, 7-3.
One positive to take away from it, not that spring training results – especially not February 26 ones – matter all that much, is that in the first action for Tomoyuki Sugano, he pitched a couple of scoreless innings against what was probably most of the Pirates A-team. As I frequently say, it’s better to have good meaningless sample sizes that you have to pump the brakes on rather than having bad ones where you have to make excuses.
The fortunes of the 2025 Orioles will not be substantially impacted by the fact that Matt Bowman gave up a couple of runs in this spring game, or that Corbin Martin surrendered a run in his one inning. Early camp sensation Rodolfo Martinez allowing two more runs in his second appearance, that’s probably not much of a big deal either. The Martinez story was fun until games started.
I said in this week’s episode of my podcast that I’m not going to panic about anybody until we get past the halfway point of spring training. That’s March 10. If regular hitters aren’t starting to show life by then, I might be a little worried. If expected starting pitchers are still getting shelled, that will be concerning. Until then, just get through the games without adding any new injuries.
Will today’s game be televised? No, sorry. MASN can’t be bothered to televise this one even though it’s at home. It won’t be on the radio either, and the Blue Jays aren’t broadcasting it in any way. Full dark, unless you’re there in Sarasota to watch or maybe if a beat writer will post a couple of video clips that they took from the press box. Grayson Rodriguez is set to start the 1:05 game for the Orioles.
Around the blogO’sphere
‘Lot of fun to watch’: Sugano fills up zone in spring debut for O’s (Orioles.com)
Sugano is going to be filling up the zone a lot if he carries over his performance from Japan. Hopefully this first taste of a good result will be similar to what happens in the regular season.
With Tomoyuki Sugano, the Orioles now have an audience in Japan (The Baltimore Banner)
An interesting look at some of the added Japanese media presence in Orioles camp that’s come with signing a long-time veteran of the Yomiuri Giants, one of NPB’s premier clubs.
Orioles clubhouse within the clubhouse: Influx of Latino players creates its own culture (The Baltimore Sun)
Times have changed around here, and this is one of the ways that they’ve changed for the better.
Holliday taking footnotes from Roberts on playing second base (School of Roch)
Jackson Holliday sounds like he’s absorbed some things from being around Brian Roberts and J.J. Hardy since camp opened up. Hopefully they help him launch towards the stratosphere this year.
Birthdays and Orioles anniversaries
There are a few former Orioles who were born on this day. They are: 2021-22 pitcher Alexander Wells, 2016 pitcher Yovani Gallardo, and 1965 outfielder Carl Warwick. Today is Warwick’s 88th birthday, so an extra happy birthday to him.
Is today your birthday? Happy birthday to you as well! Your birthday buddies for today include: Roman emperor Constantine (272), poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807), author John Steinbeck (1902), actress Elizabeth Taylor (1932), and musician Josh Groban (1981).
On this day in history…
In 1933, the German parliament building in Berlin, the Reichstag, was set on fire. The aftermath of this incident led to Hitler seizing total power in the country.
In 1951, the state of Minnesota ratified the Twenty-Second Amendment, which limits people to serving two terms in the presidency. Minnesota was the 36th state to ratify, the threshold for nationwide adoption. Maryland did not ratify until the next month, after it didn’t matter any more.
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And that’s the way it is in Birdland on February 27. Have a safe Thursday.