interloper

At first I thought this was silly that they needed video to figure this very obvious fact out. But now I'm thinking it's a poorly worded description of the coaches noticing it, and showing Miguel how he needs to fix the issue. At least I hope that's the case, because this was very obvious in early ST to the naked eye. I'm not sure why they let him roll with that armslot so long.

Billy Joel!

He didn't get hurt either! Really a fine performance all around.

Oof.

Basically, for this year, going 5 innings = a good start.

The regression of Miguel Castro has been weird, especially considering we have the tools to help, you'd think. What's different this year? Why isn't he missing more bats? It's odd.

The problem is bad development and subpar talent, along with misguided free agent contracts. That's it. Let's not overthink it. It's going to change, albeit slowly.

🤷‍♂️ I'm still having a blast this season.

I think he's a good reliever waiting to happen. It's just that we need starters right now. Well, we need relievers, too, I guess.

Good morning! 🖐️ David Hess: A far cry from his last outing, so that's a big positive as far as I'm concerned. This is more like the guy we expect him to be as a 5th starter, and that's normally fine if the game doesn't get away from us. 🦄Trey Mancini: 2-4 with an RBI double to deep RCF. OPS is 1.048. He has to slow down at some point... right? Nice catch in RF foul ground. Pedro Severino: Another bomb! His third in as many games. .883 OPS in a tiny sample. Gabriel Ynoa: Welcome back to the bigs, Ynoa. He threw a scoreless inning, which, in this game, is definitely worthy of mention. Jesus Sucre: Speaking of scoreless innings... I mean the guy was perfect out there! 65 mph! Position players pitching: Is pretty fun, don't @ me. Obviously it's not ideal but at least it's been interesting. Hyde isn't too proud to punt for the sake of bullpen health. Hanser Alberto: Bunt base hit! Stevie Wilkerson: Didn't get a hit, but certainly saw a LOT of work in LF in this one, and handled himself well. Welcome back to the bigs. Surely the next game will be better.

Good lord. Silver linings baby!

Not sure why Davis is sitting honestly. Maybe a matchup thing.

Probably does? Just a minor league free agent guy, 28 yrs old. I feel like every team has a few of those guys.

From The Sun: Hyde said right-hander Nate Karns (forearm soreness) would play catch this week, but that his planned minor league rehab outings may be pushed back after the soreness reoccurred during his outing for Norfolk Saturday.

Yes. This happened in Spring Training.

Unprecedented as a league-wide strategy, sure, maybe. On the O's? It hasn't even been done yet. No one sent to AAA is crushing it at this point and all the moves look completely justified at this point. Some guys are perhaps deserving of a look pretty soon, like Stewart. Otherwise? Big ol' shrug from me. I'm not that impressed with Mountcastle's numbers other than it being a good indication he's on the right track. Hays is hurt. Diaz is hitting .224 in Bowie. Sisco is utterly lost, again. Santander is not hitting either. Scott is already up. Kline is up. Phillips is up. All 3 were cut in ST.

Like, when Mullins is hitting 9th instead of your AA SS? It's time. You can't have two of those guys in addition to Davis.

Yeah we may have already missed the boat on it by the time we get our prospects up here.

I know some folks figured you might as well give Mullins until June, July, etc but.. even a rebuilding team at some point needs to make a call both for the team and the player. The manager just saw his team get swept at home with a giant hole in the lineup. Even Davis and Martin are starting to hit a little bit. Mullins has looked nothing like a player who is even remotely close to figuring it out and, as Tony has pointed out, he's stuck in a pull-only mode. It was at the point where you're starting to hurt the player's development.

Personally, yeah, I would hope so. Was also wondering about that. I bet he'd be pretty good out there. The transition worked for Jones!

I had another thought after seeing that Ruiz is playing 1B tonight with Davis on the bench. Once Smith is healthy, if it's a Davis bench night, Wilkerson is a valid (i.e.: better than Ruiz/Nunez) option at 1B. Or in RF if you want Trey at 1B.

I guess one reason is that once Smith is healthy, you have a backup CF on the bench who can also play the infield. So that's something that Williams can't do. The downside is your CF defense is pretty weak overall with Rickard/Wilkerson.

Putting on your GM cap, what do you think could be a possible reason?

It's been tough to get a read on Elias' moves so far. But it seems like he's going with the lesser prospects first to bide time and churn the 40 man a bit. I agree that Mason Williams makes sense if you just need a defensive backup CF. Wilkerson is hitting better, but I mean, who cares? As long as the next man up is not the total non-factor that Mullins was at the plate, you're basically good. If I had to guess at the tie breaker between Mason and Wilkerson? It would be that if you lose Mason to a DFA claim, you have to probably go find another actual CFer for Norfolk. If you lose Wilkerson, there are plenty of UTIL IF/OF guys. But that's not a particularly strong reason.

I guess they figure Wilkerson can hack it as a CF backup. Stewart you definitely don't want playing CF. And someone has to backup CF. I wonder why they didn't go with Mason Williams though.