George

An awful .200 team has an 80% chance of losing a game. The probability of this .200 team losing 19 games in a row is 0.8 raised to the 19th power. The odds are 1 in 100. Very unlikely if the players are all trying to win and play up to a low bar of a .200 winning percentage.

Doesn't matter much if a team picks first, second or another low round. Only the Rays and the old Expos have impressed me with their consistent skill in acquiring young athletes and developing them into high end major league players. Most teams are hit and mostly miss in this critical skill. Too bad the O's didn't choose to rebuild in the early 2000s. The first step should have been hiring the entire Expos scouting and development team from low A to the majors.

People are saying the windfall from Davis's early retirement will be allocated to reduce ticket prices at the Yard.

Afficianados of the race to the bottom know that its the W column that's important. The Rangers have won two more games than the O's. Texas has to live with those 2 wins and cannot decrease their wins with more losses. The O's remain in the driver's seat!

The good news is that the Diamondbacks are on a 4 game win streak. The O's are only one game behind the Dbacks in the W column. Elias can take the first draft pick and deserves all the credit!

The 1960 "Baby Birds" were competitive with the Yankees for the A.L. pennant until mid-September. The team had some very good young pitchers.

5'9 is the same height as Luis Aparcio.

Right now, pitching keeps the O's competitive. The team is only 2 games behind the D'backs in the win column.

Going into the season, I was hoping for a .400 team. That's competitive enough to make each game interesting to watch as a game, as opposed to watching to see young talent evolve up or down.

Hope is the thing with (Orioles') feathers.

Gotta like Hays, mostly for the excellent fielding, speed on the bases as well as in CF, his pleasure in playing a child's game, and the potential a real athlete has to hit well too. All these reasons are already in the comments. Another reason is an invidious comparison with regard to fielding with other position players, who will remain nameless. Hays is old school "Oriole's Way." He is not an affront to the baseball gods with ungodly fielding.

The players loved playing and winning with Joe Altobelli, perhaps in part because they had endured Earl's antics for years.

Hope that Chris Davis's contract will be remembered by O's fans. Perhaps, at least for a time, we will think twice and then thrice about the Davis episode when another fan favorite wants a big mult-year contract. No hope such reservations will be long-term.

Want the O's to win the games I watch, but lose all the games I miss watching. The rational part of my brain sees it one way, the Neanderthal part the opposite.

If you haven't had a crab cake in Baltimore or the Eastern Shore, then you never had a crab cake. You may have eaten a "crab cake" on the menu of some restaurant in some foreign land, such as Alabama, but you were denied a real crab cake.