The Orioles have lost nine of twelve games for the first time in three years.
Hello, friends.
Whatever is going on with the Orioles, changing their walkup music on Tuesday didn’t fix it. Cutting loose a struggling veteran Craig Kimbrel on Wednesday didn’t fix it, and neither did allowing dogs into the stadium for Wednesday’s game. Of course none of these things would fix anything. The only thing that can fix it is that the Orioles hitters need to get their collective heads out of their butts and perform again. This has plagued them for months now and increasingly awfully in the month of September.
Last night, the Orioles actually managed to score three runs, which is practically a week’s worth of offense for them. This was not enough, because Dean Kremer gave up a bunch of runs, and there was the nightly standard inexplicable defensive lapse too. On Wednesday, this was James McCann setting up with his foot not on home plate as he caught a toss home for what would have been a forceout. How did he manage to mess that up? It’s one more 2024 Orioles September mystery. Check out John Beers’s recap of the game for more of the not-so-lovely totals.
You cannot recite enough negatives about the Orioles right now. There are always more. They are now playing .500 baseball stretching all the way back to May 27, when they were 34-18. They are substantially below .500 for a full half-season of baseball, having gone 37-44 over their last 81 games. This awful month rolls on unabated. The team is, as a group, proving incapable of breaking out of whatever is wrong. It is unclear that they have even identified what is wrong. It sucks that this is the case.
All of the above happened and is true, and so is this: The Orioles lost no ground to their closest rivals chasing the top wild card spot last night. The Royals were swept by the Tigers and the Twins lost to the Guardians. That preserves the standings with the Orioles holding a 2.5 game lead over the Royals (WC2) and a 4 game lead over the Twins (WC3). However, since the Tigers are also the closest non-wild card team – just a half-game behind Minnesota – that means that the Orioles “clinch anything” magic number has stayed the same, at six.
These other teams are running out of opportunities to get past the Orioles. There are only ten games left for the O’s to play and it may turn out that they only need to win three of them to end up as the home wild card team. I say “only” three games but lately it feels like the Orioles winning even one is a near-impossibility. Still, the magic number to clinch WC1 is actually just seven – Orioles wins plus Royals losses. “Don’t get swept in any remaining series” probably does it for them.
Of these chasers, only the Twins are playing today, wrapping up their series against the Guardians starting at 1:10.
The Orioles will try, some way, some how, to avoid a sweep with a 1:05 game closing out their series against the Giants this afternoon. Their lately-pathetic lineup will not have an easy task as they go up against solid innings-eater Logan Webb. If there’s some good news, it’s that Zach Eflin is pitching for the Orioles. He might have to be perfect if the Orioles are going to have any chance to win.
Around the blogO’sphere
Feedback from Hyde on decision to DFA Kimbrel (School of Roch)
Hyde sounds like he has a lot of respect for what Kimbrel’s done in his career but was aware it just wasn’t happening here – which is basically exactly what we’ve all seen.
O’s Corbin Burnes on Kimbrel getting DFA (Steve Melewski)
Players like Burnes all had a ton of respect for Kimbrel, unsurprisingly.
Jordan Westburg, Ramón Urías to begin rehab assignments Thursday (The Baltimore Sun)
Is this going to be a too little, too late situation? Seems like we’re going to find out.
What will Grayson Rodriguez’s return look like? (Orioles.com)
The possibility of Rodriguez ending up in the bullpen is being bandied about. This is also in the possible “too little, too late” category.
From the Bird Bath to Pickles to a second grade classroom, Baltimore sports vibes are off (The Baltimore Banner)
An alternate headline in this browser tab starts with “The O’s are ‘crapping the bed’” which is painful to read but also entirely true.
Birthdays and Orioles anniversaries
There are a few former Orioles who were born on this day. They are: 2022-23 pitcher DL Hall, 2013/18 infielder Danny Valencia, 2012 first baseman Nick Johnson, 1996-97 reliever Randy Myers, and 1954 pitcher Bob Hurley.
Is today your birthday? Happy birthday to you! Your birthday buddies for today include: baseball Hall of Famer Duke Snider (1926), baseball Hall of Famer Joe Morgan (1943), actor Jeremy Irons (1948), author N.K. Jemisin (1972), and musicians Tegan and Sara Quin (1980).
On this day in history…
In 634, the city of Damascus fell to Khalid ibn al-Walid’s Arab forces after a siege of about a month. This is the first major city of the Byzantine Empire that fell to the Arabs but certainly not the last.
In 1356, the English defeated the French in the Battle of Poitiers, an engagement in the Hundred Years’ War that saw French King John II captured by the English. A treaty ending this portion of the war, with English control of a lot of French territory, did not come for another four years.
In 1870, the Prussian army began a siege of Paris, which led to its surrender four months later.
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And that’s the way it is in Birdland on September 19. Have a safe Thursday. Go O’s!