Thursday Bird Droppings: The Orioles need a win to keep their series streak alive

The Orioles streak of six straight series wins is over if they don’t take the finale this afternoon

Hello, friends.

Well, that sucked. The Orioles were on the wrong end of a dumb one last night, getting blanked by the Royals even with Zack Greinke and his 6+ ERA starting the game and with four innings to do something against a rough Royals bullpen. Oh yeah, and the pitching staff managed to give up six runs while facing the AL’s worst offense! Check out John Beers’s recap of the game for the not-so-lovely totals.

With the Wednesday loss, the Orioles are now 20-10 on the season. Last night’s loss was the first shutout this year. They’re on a pace for 108 wins. It’s the fourth time this season they’ve had a record at that pace. The Rays were winners elsewhere, so the O’s have fallen to 4.5 games back. They’ll get their first chance to take a bite out of the Rays directly on Monday.

For now, the finale in Kansas City awaits. The Orioles offense needs to get their collective heads out of their collective butts and get something going today against former Oriole Jordan Lyles. There’d really be no excuse to lose this series to the Royals, who entered it with a 1-12 record in their stadium. Their offense is bad and yet they’ve scored 13 runs in the first two games – so, you know, the pitchers need to get it together too. That’s going to be Grayson Rodriguez’s task for hopefully at least five innings this afternoon, then the bullpen’s after that.

This is an afternoon game on getaway day for the series conclusion. Don’t say you weren’t warned! It’s a 2:10 Eastern Time scheduled first pitch. The Orioles need to get the last “easy” win that’s available to them before beginning a more than three week stretch of games against teams that are .500 or better. There is no excuse. Unless it rains and they don’t play a game today at all.

Around the blogO’sphere

Orioles acquire Torrens from Cubs (School of Roch)
Seems like we’re going to be doing the three catchers thing again for at least a little while, starting today. I never feel like having three catchers is a good use of roster space. Oh, and Joey Krehbiel was sent to the great DFA in the sky. Sorry, Joey.

Orioles hitters are walking at an uncharacteristically high rate. They believe the trend is ‘sustainable’. (The Baltimore Sun)
One of the big surprises of the season for me so far is that the Orioles are the AL leaders in walks, or at least they were heading into Wednesday’s games.

Gunnar Henderson’s swing decisions are working against him. There might be an easy fix. (The Baltimore Banner)
If you’ve been thinking that Gunnar has been letting some good pitches go by, you’re not wrong! Jon Meoli suggests he swing at them.

Orioles early season superlatives (Orioles.com)
Included here are most valuable hitter (Jorge Mateo) and most valuable pitcher (Tyler Wells), neither of whom is very hard to argue right now.

Oh yeah, and it looks like Bryan Baker has inspired a new generation of thin-skinned baby Royal stuff.

As Indiana Jones once said, “I hate these guys.” Admittedly, Indy was talking about some guys a whole lot nastier than the Royals. And also he later discovered that the person he said this line to was one of those guys. (peers suspiciously) You’re not a Royals fan, are you? I’ll toss you out of a parked zeppelin if I have to.

Birthdays and Orioles anniversaries

There are a pair of former Orioles who were born on this day. They are: Maryland-born 2018 reliever Ryan Meisinger, and 1995 six-game pitcher Joe Borowski. Today is Borowski’s 52nd birthday, so an extra happy birthday to him.

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday to you! Your birthday buddies for today include: piano inventor Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655), trumpeter Maynard Ferguson (1928), actress Audrey Hepburn (1929), and NSync’s Lance Bass (1979).

On this day in history…

In 1471, the Yorkists and Lancastrians fought one of the decisive battles of the Wars of the Roses, the Battle of Tewkesbury. Yorkist King Edward IV led his army to victory over a force led by Edward, the Prince of Wales and the Lancastrian heir to the throne. The prince was killed in the battle and his imprisoned father (Henry VI) died shortly afterwards.

In 1942, the American and Japanese navies began the four-day Battle of the Coral Sea, waged by the Americans to prevent an invasion of Port Moresby, New Guinea. It’s a noteworthy naval battle for being the first one in which ships did not actively sight or fire on one another, with the battle being settled entirely by the actions of aircraft. Coral Sea was indecisive on its own but did set up the Americans for success at Midway the next month by preventing two Japanese carriers from taking part in that battle.

In 1970, four unarmed student protestors were killed when National Guardsmen opened fire on a crowd at Kent State University in Ohio. Another nine people were wounded.

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And that’s the way it is in Birdland on May 4. Have a safe Thursday. Go O’s!