When four guys all drink after a grand slam, that’s going to be even more glorious.
Hello, friends.
There won’t be any suspense this series about whether or not the Orioles can continue to avoid being swept in the regular season. They took down the Twins in the series opener, 7-4, to improve to 10-6 in the 2024 season. The streak is now up to 97. The Orioles are on pace, through just shy of 10% of their games, to equal last year’s total of 101 wins. Pretty good. It’s one win better than the record through 16 games in 2023. The O’s now sit 1.5 games back in the division after the Yankees lost again on Monday.
Monday’s win also brought the debut of a new Orioles home run prop. Following up on the theme of water celebrations from last year, the O’s have now had the homer hose evolve into the homer hydration station. On MASN, Kevin Brown suggested it looked like an alien from The War of the Worlds. Ben McDonald thought it resembled an udder. It’s probably actually called a Bongzilla. Every baserunner gets to drink as well as the batter who hit the homer. Now we can all wait with anticipation for a grand slam.
If you want to be a Debbie Downer, you can find stuff to be annoyed about even as they won on Monday. The main one is that Cole Irvin wasn’t able to finish the fifth inning, adding to the workload on the bullpen. Colton Cowser cooled off in a hurry with four strikeouts. Though Jackson Holliday had nothing to show in the hit column with an 0-4, he finally had a couple of well-struck balls in the air. For more about the game, check out John Beers’s recap.
You’ve probably already seen this, but it’s awesome and we could all stand to watch it again:
The flyest guy around pic.twitter.com/bZBlIAmUmW
— Baltimore Orioles (@Orioles) April 15, 2024
Like the meme says, you can’t escape him.
It was an eventful day! Before the game, manager Brandon Hyde revealed that Kyle Bradish’s rehab is going to get started at Double-A Bowie today, with the plan being for Bradish to throw 40-50 pitches over 2-3 innings. Assuming no setbacks and full use of the 30 days a pitcher can go on a rehab assignment, that’s a mid-May return.
The series continues tonight with another 6:35 game against the Twins. It’s going to be Bark at the Park night at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, so if you go to the game, maybe you can enjoy seeing some dogs. I will be at the game hoping not to encounter the dogs. Sorry.
As the Orioles look to win a third straight game and guarantee themselves a series win, they’ll have Grayson Rodriguez on the mound. It will be nice if that means good things! Minnesota’s offense has not been good up to this point. The Twins starter is Chris Paddack, who has a 4.15 ERA in his first two starts.
Around the blogO’sphere
Orioles Cedric Mullins and Dillon Tate talk about Jackie Robinson Day in MLB (Steve Melewski)
On the day where MLB honored Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in the game, hearing from the two Black players on the Orioles today was important.
Craig Kimbrel wasn’t worried about the dip in his fastball velocity, and his performances prove him right (The Baltimore Banner)
One should never get too carried away about a handful of outings, but Kimbrel has sure looked pretty good overall so far and that’s been fun.
As Austin Hays slumps, Orioles brass remains confident in All-Star: ‘He’s still a huge part of this team’ (The Baltimore Sun)
We’ve reached the point with Hays where we have to hope that his hitting a lineout at 104.5mph last night could be some kind of sign of the start of a turnaround.
What it means that Colton Cowser is now an everyday player (Press Box Online)
Among Glenn Clark’s musings are what might happen if Anthony Santander’s slump continues on for too long. The Orioles have a lot to juggle. Hopefully it all works out over the course of this season.
Birthdays and Orioles anniversaries
There are a pair of former Orioles who were born on this day. They are: 2017-20 reliever Richard Bleier, and 1972-73 catcher Sergio Robles. Today is Robles’s 78th birthday, so an extra happy birthday to him.
Is today your birthday? Happy birthday to you! Your birthday buddies for today include: aviation co-pioneer Wilbur Wright (1867), actor Charlie Chaplin (1889), baseball Hall of Famer Paul Waner (1903), actor Martin Lawrence (1965), singer-songwriter Selena (1971), rapper Chance the Rapper (1993), and actress Anya Taylor-Joy (1996).
On this day in history…
In 1457 BC, about 10,000 Egyptians led by Pharaoh Thutmose III defeated a roughly equal number led by the King of Kadesh in the Battle of Megiddo, a significant battle because it’s the earliest in history with some kind of reliable record of its occurrence.
In 1746 AD, British forces defeated a rebelling army of Stuart supporters in the Battle of Culloden in Scotland, after which there was a substantial crackdown of Scottish Highland traditions and people.
In 1945, the advancing Soviet Army initiated the Battle of Seelow Heights in the outskirts of Berlin, with nearly a million combatants in what turned out to be the final major battle of World War II.
In 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. penned his letter from Birmingham Jail, in which he wrote, among other things, “Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”
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And that’s the way it is in Birdland on April 16. Have a safe Tuesday. Go O’s!