Three Run Homer

If he really wanted to be pedantic he would have talked about priors, posteriors and Bayes' Law. I credit him for translating Bayesian updating into English.

Why not go to the plate looking to drive an outside fastball the other way?

My takeaway from the discussion about Hays' numbers last year is that he's a very streaky hitter. Right now he's in a slump. He's likely to turn it around.

Can someone remind me whether his current injury is elbow-related (i.e. he hasn't recovered from or has relapsed from TJS) or is it something else? It's sad to think that this might be the end of the line for Means. He was the main bright spot on the team during the dark days and he deserves to be here for the good times.

Why did Hays pinch hit for O'Hearn? Wasn't there a righty on the mound?

He hit another batter in his first appearance with BAL. Now 25 HBP in 132 career IP. I thought this was insanely high. I did some research at BB-Ref and...yeah, it's insanely high. I looked at every pitcher in the top 1000 for career hit batsmen (the cutoff is 34 career HBP). I found only four pitchers with a ratio of HBP to IP higher than 0.1 (i.e. one hit batsman every 10 IP), and three of them pitched mostly or entirely before 1900. They are: Ed Doheny, 141 career hit batsmen in 1405 IP Danny Friend, 60 career hit batsment in 551.2 IP Randy Choate, 45 career hit batsmen in 408 IP Gus Shallix, 39 career hit batsmen in 291 IP Anyway, Yohan Ramirez is off the charts even compared to these pitchers, with a HBP rate approaching 2 every 10 IP. I conjecture that this is the highest ratio of all time for any pitcher above (say) 100 career IP, but would need more research to verify this.

Given the umpires the O's have had to deal with, I'm not surprised that they haven't drawn many walks.

I'm tired of seeing these s***ty umpires with their expanded strike zones. It works against the O's because our hitters generally have excellent strike zone judgment that they then get penalized for. And is it just me, or does it seem that for some reason our pitchers aren't as good at taking advantage at expanded strike zones?

We'll see how Tate does but I don't have a problem with taking Irvin out there. Jeffers is their hottest hitter and he got a loud hit earlier in the game. I don't trust Irvin much these days.

For this season, the plan is (and should be) to see what Means and Bradish can provide, and then make midseason trades if one or both of them can't pitch effectively and stay healthy this season. If both of them come back healthy and good, then we are set--Wells and Irvin can go back to the pen, and Kramer is fine as a back-end starter. It's not too early for the O's to scout good starters on bad teams for the deadline. The O's still have plenty of ammunition to make trades. They could even do a hitting-for-pitching lateral type trade with a team that is in contention, offering someone like Mountcastle or Santander, with Kjerstad or Mayo waiting in the wings to take their place. For next season, I hope the plan is for David Rubinstein to loosen the purse strings so that the O's can make a serious bid to re-sign Corbin Burnes and/or to pursue other top free agent starters.

He needs to face nothing but splitters and sweepers in batting practice until he gets better at recognizing which are going to wind up in the strike zone.

I couldn't watch the game tonight but what I saw in the Boston series is that he's getting pitchers' best stuff. He's probably seen very few breaking and offspeed pitches of this quality and for now he is overmatched. Regardless of a quip I made in the game thread, there isn't anything to do except stick with him and let him work it out. He won't learn how to hit quality pitching in AAA. Adley started out 8 for 51 and Cowser was terrible last year, and both of them were a lot older at the time. Jackson has too much talent not to figure it out.

Mayo up to play 3B, Westburg shifts to 2B, Holliday back to Norfolk.

Might as well leave him in the rest of the game tonight, though.

He's 23 so if he keeps pitching well, he shouldn't be in Aberdeen for long.