The Orioles are on TV and it’s 8/9 of a fun starting lineup
After most of a spring training schedule where Orioles fans could hardly ever watch their favorite baseball team on the Orioles-owned television network, we are heading into a stretch, starting today, of three games in a row that will be broadcast. How fun! The first of these is here this afternoon as the team travels to play in the Blue Jays spring home of Dunedin.
It still won’t feel like a regular season game, of course, since the broadcasters will be back in Baltimore with the game in Florida. It’s likely the video feeds will just be the Blue Jays broadcast and MASN will be at their mercy. If they want to spend whole half-innings showing interviews with players and barely mentioning the game, there’s nothing MASN can do about that, other than decide in the future to spend more than a shoestring budget on spring training games.
Hopefully we don’t get too much of that “let’s not even care about the game” stuff because this is a pretty awesome lineup to see on paper:
- Jackson Holliday – 2B
- Adley Rutschman – C
- Jordan Westburg – SS
- Colton Cowser – CF
- Tyler Nevin – 1B
- Kyle Stowers – LF
- Coby Mayo – 3B
- Heston Kjerstad – RF
- Connor Norby – DH
Cole Irvin is the Orioles starting pitcher. He’s scheduled to be Nick Vespi and Alex Pham.
Isn’t that a fun lineup? Just about the only way you could improve on it, in terms of having exciting young players and prospects, is if Gunnar Henderson was there playing third base, Mayo was at first, and Nevin was not there.
I don’t think that we’re going to see many regular season lineups this year with all of these young players. Things will have ended up strangely if there is ever a game with none of Austin Hays, Cedric Mullins, and Anthony Santander in the lineup. It’s still quite possible that some of the remaining prospects are going to best help the Orioles by being traded for an established MLB player. But for today let’s not think about that, and just enjoy 8/9 of a fun starting lineup, with possibly more fun substitutions to come late in the game.
On some of the specific absences from this lineup, manager Brandon Hyde provided some updates to Orioles beat reporters, including MASN’s Roch Kubatko, this morning. Ryan Mountcastle, who now has not played for a full week with neck stiffness, will be taking BP today and in the lineup tomorrow. Hays has also missed a few days due to an illness, but could be returning to the lineup tomorrow as well.
Blue Jays lineup
- George Springer – RF
- Vladimir Guerrero Jr. – DH
- Bo Bichette – SS
- Justin Turner – 1B
- Daulton Varsho – LF
- Alejandro Kirk – C
- Kevin Kiermaier – CF
- Isiah Kiner-Falefa – 2B
- Cavan Biggio – 3B
Pitching for the Blue Jays to start is Chris Bassitt.
As is expected for the home team when there’s only six more games to go in spring training, this is a pretty regular-looking lineup. The Orioles will definitely be testing their skills against real big league-caliber players. It’s fun that we’ll get to watch it. Nothing that happens today counts, and it might not even influence any decisions that will be made before Opening Day, but hopefully it’s a fun watch for Orioles fans nonetheless.