Tony-OH

There's 95 swing and miss for a K. Seems like he needs to warm up a little. Threw a couple nice changeups in there as well.

Well the lineup included Maton and McKenna to stifle it so there's that!

Ok, starting to pop 94 by the 3rd batter.

McDermott just 91-92 with no command to the first batter. Interesting. Not in a good way interesting either.

And next year, it would not be surprising if Samuel Basallo is starting 2025 season in Norfolk and could very well be the #1 prospect in all of baseball with a great year this year.

Ha, it took Maton and McKenna to slow down the offense by striking out back to back.

Helps to have no Orioles game. lol

Stowers gets down 1-2, then just misses a homer by a few feet for an RBI double.

Three batters in and it's 1-0. They actually got an out when Mayo popped up.

I'm very happy he's getting a lot of outfield time. I hope once Holliday is promoted, they don't put him back at 2B very often. He's got the speed and arm to play outfield and the more experience he gets out there the better he's become. Plus, he need a lot of injuries to become a viable effort at 2B for the Orioles. I realize he may need to be showcased at some point to another team come the training deadline, if that team needs a 2B, then you play him there again (assuming Holliday is already promoted), but until then, play this man in all three outfield positions. While I think he's more than a Ryan McKenna, he's AT LEAST a Ryan McKenna in the big leagues if he can make himself a viable defender out there.

Burnes was exactly what we had hoped for in ace last night. He's the guy when he didn't have his A-stuff or A-command, kept his team in the game when they weren't hitting ball at all. Gave them 5 2/3 innings and left the game down only 2-0. That is exactly what "aces" do when they don't have their best stuff/command. I was impressed with how he battled and how he made pitches when he needed to.

This is the most important piece to Povich. He needs to show he can do this consistently. I've seen Great, good, eh, and terrible Povich and too often that's over 4 starts. While his WHIFF rate was low, he threw a lot of strikes and didn't get hit hard with an 83.8 MP EV. That tells me that while he didn't miss bats, batters also aren't barreling him very often either. He had a 50% GB rate which is better than he's had in the past. Again, I'm not thrilled with 100% zcontact, but at least it was soft contact.

Stowers is one of the reasons why I wanted O'Hearn or Santander moved this offseason for prospects or a quality relief pitcher. Elias likes to hoards talent. That's good from an organization standpoint, but it hurts legitimate major league prospects from breaking into the majors when they are ready. Instead of moving Hays or Santander or O'Hearn this offseason for legitimate lower level pitching prospects or a reliever, he's short a quality reliever and lower level pitching prospects. Instead, he's got an absolute logjam in AAA but he's playing lesser players like O'Hearn in RF or Kemp at 2B (though I understand why Holliday and Mayo are in the minors).

No doubt. Walke is a good example of a guy starting a little late and becoming very, very good. Of course I've always been on the Stowers bandwagon. I said even after last year that he was going to be a good major league hitter if a team can live with the K's.

I am wondering a bit about the ball being used in AAA. It's supposed to the be the major league ball and if it is, then it's just the hitters are ahead of the pitching. But good Lord, the hitting at Norfolk has been absolutely insane.

I don't know about that. It was getting a little ridiculous watching the Tides tee off on a position player throwing 58 mph the last few innings. If a team is planning to use position players to pitch and it's 8th inning or later, I'm ok with them having the option of forfeiting the game.

Three of them were, but yeah, they are absolutely crushing the baseball in Norfolk this year.

Mayo averaged 99.4 MPH on his 5 hits tonight.

It's not like they are getting "lucky". They are absolutely destroying the baseball.

Norby looks like a guy going back to AAA for his 3rd season knowing he belongs in the big leagues on this picture.

They're just putting up video game numbers at this point. Since O'Hearn has only played DH and RF, seems like Stowers might have been a better choice had they moved O'Hearn for something this offseason.

Cowser is not good against left-handed breaking balls. He wasn't in the minors, and he's not going to be against them in the majors any time soon. There was no doubt he was sitting dead red on the 0-0 for some reason. Obviously no one wants Cowser up in that situation against that pitcher, but the way the bench was set up, only O'Hearn and Kemp were in the game and things start getting dicey defensively if O'Hearn has to come in for Cowser if the game ends up tied going into the 10th. Then again, O'Hearn is not exactly known for hitting left-handers either. This might be a good reason to have had Nevin instead of Kemp on the final roster. Have we found a reason why Kemp is on this roster besides keeping Holliday down until they gain the extra year of control?

No, but that's covering a significant amount of at bats by this point. Now clearly I think he's hit better than that, but I do think he'll start to lose playing time if he doesn't pick it up by the beginning of May.

Truth. Ragans was extremely impressive, even if it was driving me nuts!

4-2 was where we probably were realistically hoping they would be after 6 games. I mean, it took two walkoffs to make it happen, and I'm pretty sure the Orioles never led a full inning over the last 4 games, but won two of them so I'll take it.