Tony-OH

Kjerstad has had a nice season, but I would have liked to have seen a little more game power at Norfolk this year. His .206 ISO at AAA is significantly below Westburg's .272 and Westburg has not exactly lit up his major league stats with good home run numbers. Kyle Stowers (.280 ISO, .420 WOBA) and Coby Mayo (.246 ISO and .383 WOBA) both have outperformed Kjerstad (.380 WOBA) and those two categories in AAA. Kjerstad does lead the organization with a 31.3% LD rate so he's getting a lot of hard contact, he just doesn't lift the ball as much as you would like from a HR hitter. He has the 11th lowest flyball percentage at just 29.4% but his 19.4% HR/FB percentage (6th best in org) indicates when he does get it up, he gets good carry.

Another good statistical start for McDermott but the command was not there finding the zone only 43% of the time and only 39% with his fastball. He did get hitters to chase 40% of the time with a 30% whiff rate on the heater. His slider was his best pitch last night, landing it 52% of the time and getting just a 64% contact on the pitch with a 47% whiff overall. I don't know if the plan was to work on the slider command at the expense of the changeup, but I'd like to see him throw that more than 2 times a game. I'd put this outing squarely in the "C-grade" category despite the good numbers statistically because this would probably not have ended up a good start against major league hitters due to the lack of fastball command.

A little failure might be good because it might give him some extra motivation to make some adjustments this offseason. I think the Orioles knew there were going to need some swing adjustments to get a little more pop into the bat because like many have said, the higher you get up the ladder, pitchers have better control and will attack you in the zone if they don't fear you a bit.

Yeah, he's been a really bad pickup by Elias. It's really amazing how good this team has played with such bad trade deadline work by Elias. Flaherty has been quite the embarrassment and while Elias didn't give up for him, the fact that Verlander, Scherzer and Montgomery have all been good could come back to bit Elias come playoff time. We'll just have to see.

2.55 hits

No kidding. Urias with the "game winner" after it looked like just some more insurance!

Flaherty needs to go to the pen. He's been awful.

Ok, that's the first time all year I've yelled at my TV. Awful, awful appearance by Cano. What an absolute shit performance by the pitching and defense and somehow come out with a win. Maybe this team is on a mission because no way they should have won that game.

Cano has no command.

Cano is frickin' awful right now.

Why is Krehbiel just getting warmed now? Are you shitting me?

Now this is not fun at all. Jesus Cano... GET SOMEONE OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shit call by McCann. Why an outside sinker? c'mon. All he's got to do is stick his bat out.

Haha, I was about to say, This is fun!

Yeah, but the calls look right.

Can't say this game is not a blood pressure game! lol

Lopez is like, I'll just have to strike this guy out because the defense behind me is not very good up the middle.

Good thing the Orioles bats came to play today.

Good freakin' Lord, now the defense is going to suck. Mateo has to make that play.

Hicks has to catch that. Just awful. He can not be playing CF if he's going to be that slow.

After watching Coulombe up there throwing a high school level crap up there, I'm happy to see Lopez.

Another S call against Adley.

A major league pitcher should not be grunting on every pitch when you throw a 80-81 MPH slider. Embarrassing.

I hate this kind of crap. Look, they wanna celebrate the bombing victims, feel free to have a game dedicated to them. Don't wear ridiculously ugly uniforms with colors that make so sense to the team wearing them.

The Orioles are going to need to get lucky and have someone lone out because Coulombe is throwing BP stuff up there.