Tony-OH

Six inches inside... Let it go Ryan, let it go!

No, but they may want to pick and choose his days off against lefties until he can work this out in the cage.

Yikes, that's three real bad ABs as a righty for Rutschman.

Absolutely.

Good start with a nice PA by Hays.

The raw stuff is there. I'm still not ready to give up on him as a starter, but if I had to choose, I think he's going to end up a power impact reliever.

Let's see what Hall we get. He typically has been one good out one bad outing.

They had their chance in the second. Now they making Corbin look like Cy Young with some very easy sad innings of at bats. Loaded bases, no outs, you cant crap your pants and only get one run in. All goes back to McKenna's poor bat speed and his limitations against anyone who don't screw up and throws him a slider and speed up that slow bat.

No, no, and no again. But I'll take deGrom!

Frobby showed some stats where switch hitters have weird splits some years and considering Adley was a better hitter from the right side vs the left last year, I doubt they are asking him to bat just left-handed anytime soon. Saying that, he's had two pretty bad at bats against Corbin tonight so far.

McKenna was the big issue in that inning because of his slow bat. Works it to 3-2 laying off a changeup in the dirt after swinging through a down the middle of fastball for strike two. Then knowing Corbin is throwing a fastball, he allows him to get a 93 fastball in on his hands and he weakly grounds back to Corning who should have turned two. That at bat just highlights McKenna's limitation as a hitter.

Maybe, but Elias has bee pushing his college draftees really quickly to High-A ball. I imagine some might begin in Delmarva, but this year it was clear that he did not care about putting a competitive ball club in the field at the FCL or A-ball levels until his draft when he the college guys helped Delmarva in the second half.

You say this a lot. So who do you blame? It's somebody's responsibility that he was signed. Maybe the word blame bothers you, so let's change the word to responsibility. Who's responsibility was it that Chirinos turned out to be bad? Is no one responsible? I'm guessing then you say Elias/Sig is NOT responsible for the good players that they have brought in either right? I assume in your way of looking at things no one is really responsible for any good or bad actions by players, right? Must be nice that no matter how a player performs, the men who signed them to play on the team bare no responsibility for their performance. I tell you what, I'd love to work for you. Be able to make any move or decision and not having to take responsibility must be a great place to work. I have a little different way of looking at things. Elias is the boss and makes the final decisions. I believe he bears responsibility for the good and the bad performance of players, especially if he choose them over other players. Now I'm not talking injury related issues which I would agree, that's not their responsibility, but yes, when you sign and play well below replacement level players all season and don't upgrade and your team falls a few games short of a playoff bid, then yes, I believe the boss (Elias) deserves to be held responsible.

of SOME posters on OH. You know better than to generalize the board.

I'll be honest and say that I haven't done the research to answer this questions effectively. I will say though that I think great pitch framing and blocking should be priorities when looking for a backup catcher along with the ability to control the running game, a skill that will be more needed when the bases get bigger next year.

These are very good points. I always take dWAR by catchers with a grain of salt. Baseball Savant gives us great pitch framing stats, and pop times for catchers, but they don't yet have metrics for blocking pitches.

Yep. Severino was so poor defensively that he hurt the team way more than helped. While Chrinos did have a decent offensive season last year, he was always going to be 38-years old this year. That's a dangerous age to expect a catcher to still perform well. It's not a be all end all concern, but I'm hoping that Elias will work to get better options to back up Adley next year. We know that Gallagher is at least a good pitch framer, but he can't hit. We don't know how good a pitch framer Handley is in AA, but the fact that did not promote him to AAA this year when all the injuries happened suggest he's going to AAA next year and will not be an opening day option as back up.

20 games in a little over three weeks. About right if you consider it spring training after his rehab was complete.

While we all know how good Rutschman is and that he's only scratching the surface, I think this also highlights just how bad Chirinos and Bemboom were this year. Elias has to take responsibility for not acquiring good backup catchers. Yes, we know that no one expected Rutschman to get hurt this spring, but Bemboom and Nottingham were terrible back up plans in that Bemboom can't hit, and Nottingham is one of the worse receivers and blockers you will see at the AAA level. Not to mention that Chirinos was not a good pick either since he hasn't even been good at pitch framing and his bat has been awful pretty much all year. Gallagher has been in AAA pretty much all year so you have to wonder if he would not have been a better backup to Adley this year than Chirinos. Yes, Chirinos is a veteranosity kind of guy, but I don't get the feeling that Adley needs that vet that some young players do.

Buried in Chucks great game review thread (You should check them out and give him some love) was a the Mountcastle-Harvey bromance story. Not often do you see a guy laugh after giving up the game tying home run. But here's why in case you missed it: https://www.mlb.com/orioles/news/ryan-mountcastle-homers-off-former-teammate-hunter-harvey

I don't believe if we go back to being a 47-26 between June 11 and September 3 team (unlikely) that will be enough to overtake the Blue Jays unless they collapse. Yes, i'm ready to throw in the towel because I'm realistic. Honestly though, it doesn't matter whether they "are going for it" or not, the team is still going to try and win. My only point in all of this is that Odor and Aguilar should not be the lineup much if at all from this point on. Odor has earned his right to play out the year but can do it from the bench with Chirinos. Stowers is the guy that needs to be in the lineup almost every day down the stretch. Vavra they can pick and choose times to get him in, but honestly, his defensive and power short comings really don't give him a ton of chance at playing for the Orioles as a starter without a lot of injuries now or in the future.

The original Delmarva team was an embarrassment to the organization and hopefully was a transition year. This was the first year after he draft was limited to just 20 rounds so the organization didn't have those senior signs that typically can fill out a A-ball team and keep it competitive. Instead, Elias choose to promote guys who were not even good FCL players, including some that did not even belong in pro ball. They included: Josué Cruz - tall, lanky Dominican with an awful beer league softball swing and one of the worse defensive players I can remember seeing in pro ball at 1B. Moisés Ramírez - I know some of the fanboy reporters down in Sarasota would talk him up, but he had serious contact issues in the FCL and that translates to awful numbers in Low-A. Michael Mantecón - Org catcher who couldn't hit water falling out of a boat. But as bad ass some of the hitters were, it was was horrid pitchers they sent up there that were the worse. Yeancarlos Lleras - Nothing highlights the pitching "talent" like this young man who couldn't get one of the 8 batters he faced, walking 7 and once throwing 22 straight balls. He was rightfully released, but how was he even on the team? The Orioles sent 13 pitchers to the Shorebirds that put up a more that a 2.00 WHIP. None of these guys who were at the FCL the year before were even good there, but they had no pitching to send there because they didn't draft many. Honestly, it as unfair to the fans that went to the stadium that the organization would have sent so many players who were not A-ball players or pitchers. Even some of the guys who did have some slivers of talent did poorly there, probably because they would be down like 7-0 in the second inning with a guy coming in that should not even be pitching in the FCL. Unfortunately, while there are some talented arms like Juan Nunez, Juan Rojas and Raul Rangel (if healthy) and you have to imagine Deivy Cruz, Carter Baumler (if healthy), Moisés Chace and Yaqui Rivera will return, there's not a ton of other guys that look ready as the FCL pitchers put up an embarrassing 6.71 ERA, even worse than the Shorebirds 6.42.

Ah, good point on that. I don't know why BR lists them in the WC standings without some kind of asterisk. My fault though on that, should have checked.

Stowers starting tonight vs the Nats in LF. Hays to RF, Santander to DH. So 1-for-1 since my "Time to play Stowers." No Vavra, but Urias is at 2B and Henderson at 3B, so I'm ok with that.

Can't believe no one wanted a 5-foot-9 right-hander with no out pitch.