Frobby

Imagine how much better he’d be if he’d played for the Sooners! (I kid, I kid.)

The bright spot last night was Adley’s grand slam that momentarily got us back in the game. He’s been a little light on the XBH in the early going, but has two homers in the last six games.

It pains me to see Holliday struggle, but I have to admit there’s a part of me that just wants to dredge up every post where someone essentially called Elias an idiot for not having Holliday on the Opening Day roster or accused him of being solely motivated by manipulating service time. What do you think now? I wrote a couple of days ago that I thought Holliday would get two more weeks to show some signs of adjusting. But now I’m thinking it might be more like a week (end of the road trip). He’s really pressing terribly right now.

Most of Manny’s value his first 3 seasons came from his amazing defense. Gunnar’s a very good defender, but Manny was otherworldly for a while. He didn’t really mature as a hitter until he’d been in the league for 2.3 seasons. Gunnar’s been by far the better hitter early, but will he hit another gear in a year or two like Manny did? Hard to know.

How’d you like the show? I don’t know exactly what they’ll do or how they’ll do it, but I’m expecting Rubenstein and Bloomberg to team up and make huge progress on the mess that is MASN. Both legally and production-wise. I think it’s a huge priority for Rubenstein.

2. The Other Baby Birds We get it, Orioles: You’ve got talent. Adley Rutschman, Gunnar Henderson, and Jackson Holliday are consensus top prospects from three consecutive years, which is ridiculous when you stop and think about it. They’re slam dunk great hitters, all of them. They even have the same flowing golden locks and questionable facial hair choices. (In Henderson’s defense, his mustache is allegedly only still around because he broke out when shaving it off.) The future of the Orioles is a great baseball club that looks like a prep school lacrosse team. Plot twist: Those guys have been a mixed bag so far this year. Henderson is mashing, to the tune of a 171 wRC+, but Rutschman hasn’t found his power stroke yet; he checks in at a disappointing 106 wRC+. Holliday got a late start, and he’s still searching for his first extra-base hit. In aggregate, the three have put up a 110 wRC+, not what you’d hope for from a trio of franchise saviors. Not to worry, though. The other prospects the Orioles have amassed in recent years are more than picking up the slack. Michael Baumann — our Michael Baumann, not Baltimore’s — already covered Colton Cowser’s hot start, with the 250 wRC+ and homers to parts of the stadium that no one was even sure existed. But that might undersell how outrageously fun his start has been. The nicknames are coming in hot and heavy. Fans are already calling him “The Milkman.” The Camden Yards faithful moo every time he comes to the plate. “They’re not booing, they’re saying (word)” is a pretty common sports trope, but “They’re not booing, they’re mooing” is definitely a new one for me. Cow masks at the stadium are just par for the course now: Cowser might be turning fans into cow people, but another O’s youngster is breaking out just as much at the same time. Jordan Westburg isn’t a rookie – he played half a season last year and looked like a steady contributor. He’s off to nearly as hot of a start as Cowser, though, and he’s doing it in huge spots. He keeps coming up with runners on base, and he keeps racking up extra bases and RBI. Is his start sustainable? Probably not. It’s hard to run a .349 BABIP, hard to have as many extra-base hits as singles, hard to barrel 12.5% of your batted balls and make hard contact 62.5% of the time without huge raw power. But his approach looks legit, and it’s not like he’s hitting those doubles and home runs by accident. He has a solid approach and a fly ball swing. The stadium isn’t a plus for him given the bite out of the left field fence, but he looks like a nice everyday contributor at worst, and I’m willing to dream on a little more than that. He can also handle second and third defensively, which suits Baltimore’s roster quite well. That doesn’t even mention Coby Mayo and Heston Kjerstad, who are absolutely annihilating Triple-A at the moment. Connor Norby and Kyle Stowers have started hot. Yes, the O’s are headlined by their flaxen-haired top trio, but there are more reinforcements waiting in the wings, and the other birds are helping to drive the offense right now. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/five-things-i-liked-or-didnt-like-this-week-april-19/

Also, the 3-2 pitch to Witt that was called ball four for the first walk had been called a strike all night. In fact, far worse pitches had been called strikes, especially for the Royals’ pitchers. And were called strikes afterwards.

Good to get Urias an at bat.

“Bradish will make his second rehab start on April 21, when he'll pitch for Triple-A Norfolk at Jacksonville. The 27-year-old right-hander made his first rehab start on April 16, tossing three scoreless innings for Double-A Bowie vs. Altoona. He allowed one hit and struck out four while facing 10 batters and throwing 44 pitches (26 strikes). His fastball hit 95-96 mph on the radar gun at Prince George's Stadium.” https://www.mlb.com/orioles/news/orioles-injuries-and-roster-moves

Two seeing eye singles, the second of which Holliday should have stopped from reaching the outfield.

No. Not if he continues like this.

I didn’t notice the thread title had been changed. I guess this stops someone else from starting another Fabian thread.

By the way, I’m also very interested in how Jackson Baumeister and Luis De Leon pitch tonight. Ryan Long, only mildly interested.

Yes, but were you very interested?

By the way, my favorite Povich stat so far is 4 hits in 16.1 IP.