allquixotic

The nearly .500 Gnats playing us like they're a World Series team that refuses to be denied. They're putting in max effort.

Kimbrel needs to retire. If he won't, we need to release him. If we don't want to release him, here are some useful things he can do with his abilities: Mop-up man. Pitch a few innings when the O's are down by 6 or more runs. Ball boy. Bullpen catcher. Minor league bench coach. Aberdeen Ironbirds assistant pitching coach. Oriole Bird mascot (wear the suit).

Some nights, you sweep away a >.500 team and they barely manage to do anything against you... Other nights, your offense doesn't show up to the park against a .500 team. Baffling and puzzling, but that's how baseball goes I guess...

The pen's general flakiness is really exaggerated by their failings in just a few games. We can't ignore those games and pretend they never happened, but there have been plenty of examples of the bullpen's success. We have a decent core in the pen, but I think Kimbrel's chances are running out, and if he doesn't have it, he needs to go somewhere or lose his closer spot and get relegated to a cleanup man. Better to have Cano just close the 9th than to watch Kimbrel almost blow it, then have Cano come in to bail him out.

It wouldn't be, if Balkin' Bob were the ump.

I hope you both have a lot of fun. My mom has a fond memory of a game at Memorial Stadium with her father. She was confused, and said the game was boring, because the other team couldn't hit anything our pitcher was throwing. My grandpa had to explain to her that this meant he pitched extremely well, and everyone was cheering and celebrating. It was a Jim Palmer no-no. August 13, 1969. This was the beginning of her fandom.

Holmes may not be available tomorrow, so if it's a close game, we may have a real chance in the 9th tomorrow. Win the series. Might need a team meeting to talk about batting, though. We had chances tonight before Holmes came in, and we absolutely squandered them.

Normally I'd say Holmes = game over, but making him pitch 5 outs with men on base in the 8th is a tough ask for any closer who's accustomed to pitching a clean 9th only. If you're going to beat Holmes, this is the setup to make it happen.

I get charlie horses in my legs BAD when I eat Chipotle. It's not that I don't get enough potassium, but their insane levels of sodium push the potassium out of my system. I wake up screaming because of the pain. I have prescription potassium packets for this, and I've only ever had to use them after eating excessively salty food. If I eat normal, I'm fine.

3 outs left. I know the scoreboard says 6, but face it, Holmes isn't going to give up a run. If we don't score in the 8th, the Yankees win.

Facing Clay Holmes is not an improvement over Cy Gil. After all, if you take out the "la" from his first name, he's Cy Holmes. I'm pretty sure Holmes can't pitch 3 innings, though, so we'll have a window. A small one.

I expect these O's to deliver a series win, but a 4-game sweep is extremely improbable. Tonight might be the loss.

Welp A lone 2 run bomb in the bottom of the 5th wouldn't be a disaster, if we could, you know... ... Score.

You were right, unfortunately, but he did get more pitches out of that AB than most of our guys tonight. A few more of those and we can deny Cortes an 8+ IP game.

Lol, CB Bucknor stared at Gunnar's head like he was contemplating a super late strike call, then figured, "eh, too late." It was clearly a ball, but it was a Bucknor Strike and he let Gunnar get away with it for a walk. Adley gets a hit!