ShoelesJoe

Ya, tomorrow's umpire scorecards page will be lit.

The kid appears to play that "hair on fire" high energy style of baseball that made the fans fall in love with Gunnar. I'm hoping he's at AA by mid-season.

So what kind of contract do you think he's going to get should he test the market at the end of this year? I would have thought it's be stupid money for sure, but there appears to have been some kind of realignment wrt pitcher contracts this last off-season. Certainly, Snell and Montgomery didn't get near the stupid money offers they were expecting. If I was a pitcher approaching free agency after 2024 I'd be feeling a lot more uncertain about my future than a year ago. You think if we offered Burnes 7/250 he'd turn it down?

Ryan McKenna currently has an OPS of 1.091, and has a career OPS at Norfolk of .955. This is why - as thrilled as I am at the numbers our studs are putting up - I'm scared that some or all of them will turn out to be as middling as he's been vs major league pitching.

Orioles' splits for 2024 so far: Against LH -- .236 / .329. / 306 OPS of .635 Against RH -- .248 / .289 / .497 OPS of .786 We're 17/72 with 3 extra base hits against LH pitchers. SSS I know, and at this point one or two games against a dominant starter can skew the numbers. But the Pirates didn't have a dominant lefty on the mound today, and he still held us to one hit and one walk in six innings. Another LH starting against us tomorrow. For comparison -- Orioles' splits for 2023: Against LH -- .260 / .334 / .430 OPS of .764 Against RH -- .253 / .316 / 418 OPS of .733

He dropped the ball on a tag play, which 99 times out of 100 will result in a safe call. The umps still should have gotten it right, but Urias shouldn’t have given them the excuse to overthink it.

Tell me again what Urias brings to the team?

Why shouldn't we look at the last half of 2023 plus how Hays has started this year? Especially if there's some consistency to be seen? On June 20, 2023 Hays was at .327 / .366 / .527. In the 83 games since then he's hit .222 / .286 / .355. The fact that some of those 83 games were in 2023 and some in 2024 doesn't invalidate the trend in his offensive production. Players don't just start from scratch at the beginning of every season. If there's a flaw in their approach in July, August, September, and October of one year should we be surprised if the same flaw appears the next March and April? Of course Hays' problem might not be a flaw in his approach. He might be slowing down, or the scouts for opposing teams have figured him out. But it appears that something changed for the worse in his game midway through last season, and so far he hasn't been able to figure out a way to fix it. I'm sure Hays and his coaches are aware of what's going on and are trying to find a solution. But he's 29 years old, and an 83 game slump isn't just bad luck. If Hays can't fix whatever's wrong soon then the game has a way of fixing it for him.

I was wondering the same thing, re early season blockbuster trades. But if you can do it a week before spring training starts or even during spring training, why not a week after spring training? Surely the Marlins have more of an idea right now as to how their 2024 will go than they did two months ago. A sell off now would probably benefit them more in he long run than a sell off in July.

No doubter to the opposite field off a LH. The ball just jumps off his bat.

4-6, 3 HRs and 7 RBI tonight.

Another Oh-Fer day for Hays w/2 Ks, now batting .111 / .238 / .111 early in the season. He's basically been Ryan McKenna for the last 100 games, which begs the question as to how long Hyde can continue to write him in the lineup almost every night when Stowers, Norby, and Kjerstad are crushing it in AAA. Of course, none of them have Hays' glove, but defense will only go so far for a guy putting up a .600 OPS.

I am pessimistic about our chances tonight, unless our offense can put up another double digit effort. Irvin was shaky during his late spring appearances, and I think Garcia, Witt, and Perez will have big games against him.