ShoelesJoe

10 Day IL.

Serious question -- how does a pitcher warm up in the bullpen for five or so minutes, then warm up on the mound for another minute, and once the batter steps into the box throw pitch after pitch after pitch nowhere near the strike zone? One of Ramirez' pitches actually hit grass fifteen feet in front of home plate, and may have been the wildest pitch I've seen in a decade. How does that happen?

You'd have to give me the name of the reliever before I could answer that question. If the guy is prime Mariano or Dennis Eckersley (or 2023 Félix Bautista) then I'd make that trade. But who's that guy right now?

2 HRs and 6 RBI tonight.

They appear to be seeing the change up out of his hand.

Santander!

Adley!

Nights like this make me wish we had more RH impact bats on the team. On a related note Coby Mayo hit his 6th HR in the first inning tonight.

Mullins lost the game by popping up with one out and the bases loaded on the first pitch he saw after the pitcher had walked the previous two batters. Akin lost it by throwing batting practice in the middle of a tight game. The Orioles lost it by being the second best team on the field last night.

We stole two of the three games against KC when they came to Baltimore two weeks ago, and everybody knows it. My guess is they'll have a chip on their shoulder about that. They out-hit us and out-homered us in our own park, and an unlucky bounce here or there and we could have been swept. I know the Brewers blew us out two of three, but IMO the Royals are the best team we've face so far. I'm expecting to lose a couple in KC but wouldn't be surprised if we lost all three.

First off, nobody's talking about cutting Hays. The worst that'll happen is he gets sent down to AAA to work on things. Second, guys in slumps do actually get DFA'd all the time if the slump lasts long enough. The question is at what point does a slump become the new normal? Sucking eggs for 10 or 20 games is a slump. Hitting .209 / .270 / .332 over 95 games and 316 ABs wouldn't normally be considered a slump. Hays has been worse than Mateo over that period, and people here were rending garments over Jorge's pathetic offense last year. Since the third week of June last year Austin Hays has been worse offensively than Joey Rickard, Caleb Joseph, and even Austin Wynns were when they played for us. How long did their slumps last?

If Gunnar had hit .204 / .268 / .332 over 81 games and 265 ABs he'd have been sent down, and not a single person here would have objected.

Hays was 0-2 on Wednesday, and is 1-28 in April with 1BB and 6Ks. In his last 81 games and 265 AB he's at .204 / .268 / .332. People are asking if Hays is the new Ryan McKenna, but I don't know if McKenna was ever this bad at the plate for that amount of time.

That is correct. At that spot in the stadium it is not physically possible for a fan to reach on to the field of play and interfere with the OF attempting to make a catch. The umpires were out of their minds to even entertain a challenge on that play, and if NY had come back and overturned the HR call it would have been a fiasco of historic proportions. I was praying that it wasn't Angel Hernandez' turn to be the replay ump tonight, because he might be the only guy on the planet who'd believe that was fan interference.

Irvin is probably the most frustrating pitcher on this team right now. He has good velocity and good movement, but consistently misses his targets by a foot or two. Monday night the Twins hit a number of missiles that by luck or pluck didn't fall in, but a better team would have probably put up a touchdown against him. I think Irvin would have more success out of the pen, throwing as hard as he can for 20 pitches, rather than as a starter where he has to hold back a little so as to eat innings. Of course that's not going to resolve his problems with lack of command, but at least he'd be in a position to do less damage out of the BP than by starting every fifth day.