Tony-OH

Are we supposed to know who this guy is in the booth?

I don't know, you will be amazed at what some fans will buy.

Cut it out. You have no idea about his father. Calling him a "Neanderthal" based on one comment shows how judgmental and immature you are. I find if frickn' amazing how a few of you feel you have the right to talk abut someone's father based off a comment that you have no context to. Back to baseball.

Stop man. Nobody gives two squats about your feeling on the generation before us.

Say what you want. Not a single Oriole was hit by a car that night!

Over/under on the amount of questions Melanie Newman asks Jim Palmer on today's broadcast? (Note: It only starts once the game starts) 22 What are you taking?

BTW, it's ok to be disappointed in Grayson and not also think he's going to be a bust. Grayson has a lot of talent and I still expect him to be a part of winning teams here in Baltimore, but he also clearly needs more development mentally as well as mechanically. I mean, if anyone wants to think he's a bust after his first ten starts feel free, but I prefer to say he's be disappointing vs a bust. He has a long way to go to reach bust status and that's not going to happen after one season. Not with that arm.

He has "Lackofmaturityitis" to go along with his "lackofcommandofmystuffitis." Hopefully he'll find it in AAA because no matter how anyone wants to shake it out, he was a giant disappointment through his first ten starts. I was surprised about how bad he looked in spring training when he would let innings get out of control and clearly it's a continual problem for him. He's just getting hit way too hard to often and I despite what the cracked reporters at the Sun reported, I don't think it has anything to do with him tipping his pitches.

Well, he also has not been very successful at developing pitching. Bradish is probably the best example of taking a guy with a good arm and developing him into a decent starter. Kremer probably could be in that category as well to an extent. Maybe if you want, you can add in Tyler Wells, but was basically developed at the major league level vs the system. The Orioles do strange things in "developing" starters in that they piggy back them, bring them in relief sometimes, suddenly give them a one or two inning start, and rarely letting them go over 80 pitches in any outing. Neither Grayson or DL Hall have developed much under them and they were the best two arms they had. The only highly paid guy they drafted and have tried to develop is Baumler and he can't stay healthy. They have put all their eggs in the position prospect basket but won't trade any of the ones that end up with value but prefer to stack them at AAA while playing veterans at the major league level. If you can't develop an arm like Rodriguez and Hall, you have to question your pitching development guys.

This is a pretty good assessment overall. I still hope that Grayson will have longterm success, but the hope was that he was ready to be a solid everyday starter from the get go. I'm hoping he can mature out of the absolute inability to stop an inning from snowballing on him. Seems the second something goes bad, he starts pumping pitches in the middle of the plate and major league hitters know it about him. I'll admit, his lack of mound presences and maturity has been a surprise. You never really know how the bright lights of the major league spotlight will affect a player/pitcher until they get into that spotlight, but the one thing is clear is that Rodriguez is not ready to be a consistent major league starter right now. I will also say that I noticed at times that his fastball was a barreled up a little too often in the minors for it's velocity, and unfortunately, the same can be said in the majors. I know some pitchers take a bit to get it down, and I see the swing and miss rates and the movements of every pitch has throws has plus movement in some direction, but a 53% hard hit rate is in the bottom 2% of the league and that is very concerning. He's 10 starts in and is sporting an embarrassing 7.35 ERA and 6.00 xERA, with bottom of the league hard hit percent and XWOBA. We all want him to do well, and he very well may still have a bright future, but there are hosts of other rookie starters that have not gotten beat up this badly to start their careers. He needs a mental reset and maybe a little reality check that he needs to improve his command and pumping pitches down the middle of the plate doesn't work in the majors.

Especially the fastball. It's surprising how hard his 97-99 MPH fastball gets hit.

That's hilarious!

Voth better get his act together because he's not coming out anytime soon. Of course, we've seen that Voth can not warm up quickly so this is not surprising.

Well, he wasn't in all that much trouble in the minors. Plus, there may only be 2-3 hitters on a team and then there's the other guys that couldn't hit water if they fell out of a boat. Pretty easy to get them out with Rodriguez's stuff.

The good news is that this is just one game. I mean, it sucks that our only ready pitching prospect has been a major disappointment, but it's still just one game. Send Grayson down and bring up Irvin and take your chances for awhile until Rodriguez can learn to control his emotions and can stem the tide a bit.

You mean from the crack Baltimore Sun reporters? lol

Rodriguez just doesn't have the ability to overcome mistakes behind him. This has happened multiple times this year. Innings just snowball on him and he can't control his emotions and make good pitches after something bad happens behind him.

I don't know what's worse, the fact Rodriguez can never seem to stem the bad tide, the little league defense they are playing behind him, or the incessant question asking by Melanie Newman of Jim Palmer.

That's pretty good.

I don't think, or at least I hope no one thinks that Holliday is going to continue to hit over .400. That's just not sustainable even for someone as talented as Holliday.

Perhaps, we shall see. His problems were more command related to me, but maybe there was slight tipping that did not help him. Seems like every time an Orioles pitcher gets hit a round a little bit we hear about tipping.

Well actually, his velo remained down during his last start. Everything from velocity, spin rates and outside of his changeup, his swing and miss are down from last year still. When you take in his injury history and the way he looks right now, I think the best move is to put him in the pen and see how he looks pitching every couple of days and on back to back days once inawhile. It's time for the starting pitching fantasy to stop. He's never going to be a consistent rotation piece at the major league level and they need to find a valuable role for him. Now could he take the long guy Akin/Irvin role at some point? Sure. Now the Orioles may keep starting him and then include him as a tantalizing piece of a trade for another starter down the stretch, but they are risking him imploding a bit in a role he's not best suited for.

We may have to define this question a little closer. Maybe it should read, "How much longer can we endure Mountcastle's and Mateo's OBP against right-handed pitching?" Mountcastle vs RHP - .196/.231/.341/.572 in 147 PAs Mateo vs RHP - .217/.261/.398/.659 in 94 PAs That's a lot of bad production offensively over 241 PAs this season. Both hit significantly better against left-handers Mountcastle vs RHP - .328/.348/.734/1.082 in 69 PAs Mateo vs RHP - .275/.339/.451/.790 in 57 PAs It is worth considering platooning them a bit, especially Mountcastle if he can not pick it up against right-handers. O'Hearn is the obvious choice against right-handers at first base now now (.310/.364/.552/.915 in 33 PAs) though if Cowser can get healthy and back to hitting the way he was prior to the Quad injury, bringing him up to play LF, move Hays to RF, and Santander to 1B could also be a way to go. As for Mateo, it's been covered in this thread, but clearly his May struggles should see him losing playing time if he can't bounce back. Now the question is, with Urias on rehab and on his way back, he'll need playing time and with Frazier and Henderson of late doing well, Mateo is the prime suspect to lose playing time with Henderson moving over to SS. With Mateo's speed and versatility, he's not the worse bench guy so you would expect Ortiz back to AAA to play SS everyday when Urias returns. Maybe you end up with a Mateo/Frazier type of platoon against right-lefties though obviously you move the other players around defensively.

Ah, they adjusted it. Damn, makes my joke about him being the anti-analytics guy who hit a 311 ft home run down a 314 ft fence less funny now!