If they can keep showing life this weekend, things might start to feel a little better.
Hello, friends.
These days, things are often proclaimed to be one or the other of the following: “It’s so over” or “We are SO back.” The Orioles, after winning two out of three against the Yankees, are not SO back just yet, but maybe they’re on the road to being back. It’s going to be a long road on account of their still being six games under .500 as April has turned to May.
Still, what a nice win last night, with Ryan Mountcastle breaking a homer drought and Félix Bautista closing out a dominant ninth for a 4-3 win to take the series. Check out Alex Church’s recap for more of the lovely totals.
If the Orioles are able to sustain a vibe shift, it won’t be hard to look and see why this series is where they turned things around. In winning Monday’s game, Ryan O’Hearn’s accidental hot mic vulgarity (look, we’re all adults here, he said “Suck my fuckin’ balls!”) delivered a possible rallying cry for the entire Orioles season. Tomoyuki Sugano striking out a bunch of batters for the first time in his US pro career was also fun.
Last night, benches cleared after whatever jabroni Yankee infielder landed on Heston Kjerstad’s head while Kjerstad stole second base. Kjerstad appeared to say something about how the guy didn’t need to jump over him and this exchange of words led to a bit of an imbroglio. No punches or even shoves were delivered, it was just the usual baseball player mob and they weren’t even yelling at one another all that much. But, based on the charge out of the dugout that was led by Jorge Mateo, one might get the sense that if the Yankees had wanted that smoke, the Orioles were ready to give it to them.
There are a variety of different explanations for why this is the case, but it cannot be contested that there has been something missing in the whole deal surrounding the Orioles this year. It has not all clicked. Could this series turn out to be the thing that gets it all to click? O’Hearn’s big hit and memorable phrase, and then even after they got their butts kicked all over the field on Tuesday night they came out on Wednesday and got a clutch homer and showed some feistiness on the way to winning?
Not to be lost is that the “waterworks” celebrations appear to be fully back as well: The turn the faucet for a single and the sprinkler (with players in the dugout spraying like a fountain) for extra-base hits. It’s only silly if it doesn’t work.
Probably none of this will amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world if the Orioles starting rotation continues on the pattern it has done so far this season. Earl Weaver said it: Momentum is the next day’s starting pitcher. Too often this year it’s been Charlie Morton. It’s also been a bad version of Dean Kremer. Lately, Kyle Gibson arrived and he stunk right out of the gate. Well, the Orioles are off today, so we wait one more day to see about that momentum.
It’s Kremer starting tomorrow. Like I said, we’re not back yet. More things need to go right and they are going to have to go right for a while for the Orioles to be back. For the next week and some change, with off days in the mix, they’re going to have a four-man rotation, with Gibson as one of the four men and Morton in garbage time bullpen exile. If they can sustain a winning stretch, let’s say really go crazy and win two more series in a row, we might be able to start to feel like this turnaround could happen. In the meantime, the uncertainty remains.
Even so, one thing cannot be taken away from us today: The Orioles won two out of three against the Yankees. SMFB.
Orioles news you might have missed
Much as I’d like to have a clean sweep of positivity today, most of the articles written yesterday are shining a light on negative things around the Orioles. Which, you know, that’s fair because they’re still 12-18 and that stinks.
Early deficits are sinking the Orioles. This month might sink the season. (The Baltimore Banner)
The starting pitching must in some way improve substantially. That’s not the only problem to solve but it feels like there’s no chance of fixing anything else until it is handled.
Orioles move Charlie Morton to bullpen but ‘haven’t closed the door on him’ (The Baltimore Sun)
Morton’s first outing of relief looked like maybe they should close the door on him, but you know, whatever gets him out of the rotation is a plus.
What has gone wrong for the Orioles’ pitching? And how do they get back on track? (Yahoo Sports)
Mike Elias’s bold strategy of not actually getting any good pitchers over the offseason is not paying off so far. (I want to like Sugano and hope he will continue to defy his FIP so that I can continue to like him.)
The first Black Orioles player (Baltimore Baseball)
A nice story from John Eisenberg’s history series about a player, Jehosie Heard, who I did not know anything about before seeing this.
Birthdays and Orioles anniversaries
Today in 2012, the Orioles were 7-1 winners over the Yankees. This win marked the milestone of 1,000 major league wins for manager Buck Showalter, who now sits at 1,727. 669 of his wins were with the Orioles, more than double what he has with any other team. In that May 1 win, Brian Matusz pitched 6.1 innings and allowed just one run, picking up a win for the first time in 11 months. Chris Davis had three hits, including a homer.
There are a pair of former Orioles who were born on this day. They are: 2019-24 pitcher Dillon Tate, and 1983 pitcher Allan Ramirez. Today is Ramirez’s 68th birthday, so an extra happy birthday to him.
Is today your birthday? Happy birthday to you! Your birthday buddies for today include: Capitol architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe (1764), Napoleon nemesis Arthur Wellesley, the 1st Duke of Wellington (1769), sharpshooter Calamity Jane (1852), author Joseph Heller (1923), and writer/director John Woo (1946).
On this day in history…
In 1328, England and Scotland signed the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton, in which the English recognized the independence of Scotland after close to 30 years of fighting. The peace lasted for four years before England tried to take over Scotland again.
In 1707, England and Scotland were formally joined into the Kingdom of Great Britain after the previous year’s Treaty of Union took effect.
In 1898, the US Navy scrapped with the Spanish in the Battle of Manila Bay, part of the Spanish-American War. Over seven hours, all seven Spanish ships were sunk with no losses by the American forces.
In 1956, the polio vaccine was first made available to the public. One government estimate is that the vaccine has prevented 30 million cases of polio since 1960.
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And that’s the way it is in Birdland on May 1. Have a safe Thursday. Go O’s!