Moose Milligan

Safe chance DJ Stewart wasn’t going to block anyone. In regards to Ellis, ugh.

Shut up.

I dunno. I don't want to mess with whatever little success is working so far. Some guys, IMO, just can't hack it as a starter. They've got four or five days to sit around and stew. Akin might be that guy...but as a reliever, he's got a few minutes to get ready and then two, maybe 3 innings to cut loose. There's no time to get nervous or overthink things....or know that he has to go 5 or 6 innings. If he's going good as a reliever, let that sleeping dog rest. The game is different now, starters are being used as a bridge to get to a really good bullpen...and if he's part of a really good bullpen, so be it.

I think it's stupid that they're pennypinching so hard at MASN that they can't send a broadcast team. I could not care less that a newspaper isn't able to send their reporters. I mean, there's nothing ultra important that they can report on any better traveling with the team. What are we looking for? At this point in the season it's who's being called up/sent down and they don't need to be in Oakland to relay that news. Later in the season it's trade rumors and they don't need to be on the road for that, either. Fluff pieces/interviews with players and coaches can be arranged through the team and agents and can be performed remotely. Postgame interviews/comments are usually fluff and riddled with cliches and don't really need to be covered in person, either.

You would.

It absolutely won't get shelved for good. This is here to stay, unfortunately. IMO, the only way it wouldn't get shelved if there's enough backlash for fans not buying jerseys, but even then I'm not sure.

I don't fancy myself as a baseball purist. IMO, the baseball purist types are exhausting. But I will say that I think the absolute worst thing to come out of the new CBA is that MLB teams can put ads for companies on their jerseys. And news just broke that the Padres are the first to do it, inking a deal with Motorola (really, Motorola is still a thing in the Year of our Lord 2022?). This is, IMO, disgusting. I think it's terrible that the NBA allowed this a few years ago, probably paving the way for something like this. Seeing the New Era logo on the side of hats and the Nike swoosh emblazoned on jerseys is bad enough as it is. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2022/04/19/padres-motorola-sponsor-dodger-stadium-presenting/7369994001/

We kind of agree.

Yeah, I'm obviously no expert on a triceps strain but it doesn't seem to be an injury that should take this long. I mean, it's not a tear. It's not a pull. It's the most mild version of a pull you can get. He's not hit the conservative timetable that was laid out for him at the start of it. There's no mention of when he'll be able to play games...right now there's just "hope" from Connolly and whoever else. I was hoping that at the very least, he'd be up in Baltimore by May 1st but I think that's out of the window now. We know how conservative Elias is with everything and I'm wondering if mid-May is even reasonable now. I can just hear it now...."There are some things that he needs to work on before we promote him," etc, etc.

Well I'd like my 1B to know his limitations and if he has any hesitation that he's going to botch a pick attempt to make sure that he doesn't make a potentially bad play worse. RMC should have known. I mean, he was falling all over the place. Maybe in this case he couldn't have actually blocked it since he was, IIRC, already falling over when the ball arrived but it was his fault that he put himself in a bad position to a) make a pick in the first place and b) block the ball if he couldn't make a pick.

Yeah, the most puzzling part of that play for me is why Mountcastle was off balance in the first place.

I think that's being conservative. I think there already has been a setback and they're being strangely quiet about this. IIRC, he's already behind the timetable that was laid out at the beginning of his injury. IMO, that means one of two things (or maybe both): The injury was worse than initially reported and/or there was a setback. I didn't see Connolly's chat, but that's HIS expectation and I'm not sure where he's getting that notion from. That's not necessarily what's going to happen here. My bull**** detectors went off on Means' initial injury prognosis and I'm getting the same feeling here. Something stinks.

I don't think Cust was a bad baseball player because he fell down. I think that's just a memorable blooper that might have unfairly defined a career, especially by Orioles fans because he didn't get much playing time here...there's nothing else to remember his time in Baltimore by. He didn't get much of a chance here but went on to have some good seasons in Oakland. I wonder how A's fans remember him. Robin Ventura unfairly gets remembered for tangling with the wrong hombre in Nolan Ryan. That's the biggest memory from a great overall career. Similar to @Jammer7, I liked Severino at first but grew tired of him, especially his defense. I think we're better off at C this year even if AR for whatever reason doesn't come up simply based on the fact that Chirinos and Bemboom seem more engaged. Chirinos seems like a Sal Fasano type, grizzled vet that everyone respects and likes.

Without looking, yes. After looking, yes. Urias has some responsibility here, he shouldn't have bounced that throw. As mentioned above, he tapped the ball in his glove and had a lot of time. It's not like he was falling into foul territory and had to make a throw from deep in the hole. But the question that Wildcard posed is if Mountcastle should have picked it and I think absolutely. The other thing he failed to do on this play was to block the ball. Come off the bag, forget making the out at first, just block the ball and keep it in the infield so no one an advance. Mountcastle was in a really weird, awkward position to make that pick in the first place, but he was also in no position to block that ball if he felt like he couldn't pick it. If he blocks that ball, McKinney doesn't make it past second base. In regards to first basemen that could have made that pick, I always felt that Chris Davis didn't get a lot of credit for bailing Machado out a lot. Davis, before he became a pariah, was a pretty solid defender at first, IMO. I think Davis, in his prime, would have made that pick, too.

They say offense is always behind pitching to start the season and that seems to be true this year. Posnanski's article about homers decreasing is some evidence of that. But this offense is what it's always been for the past few years...low OBP. Impatient hitters. Boom or bust. They'll explode for a few runs one night, get shut out the next.

Nope. Probably goes to a west coast team or the Yankees.

Hope it's a Vlad Sr/Vlad Jr situation where the father was plenty good but the son turns out better. Or Griffey Sr./Jr. type deal. I suppose if we take him with the #1 pick, he'll be ready for Baltimore by his age 30 season. Looking forward to it!

Well that's because they'd be living up to expectations.

Seemed to work out well for him didn't it?

I think Gunnar is a bit too far off.

I agree, except for Hall. I don't think we see him at all in Baltimore in 2022.

Just because I called you out for loving small sample sizes means I'm being negative in this one specific case. Sure, they've done well this year so far. Doesn't mean that they're going to keep continuing to do so. Can they really have the 5th ranked bullpen in all of MLB for an entire season? It's possible. Is it likely? No. But what do I know? I'm too busy wallowing in negativity here.

I'd argue that Cortes needed a change of scenery, too. Sometimes that has to happen as well, which is an obvious statement coming from an Orioles fan who's thinking about Gausman and Arrieta. In regards to the Bad News Orioles that you listed, yep, I am "over" those "prospects." That doesn't mean that they can't be tried out in the bullpen, that's fine. Akin has looked good there so far. But by and large, yes, I'm over them. I can't even keep Bauman and Zimmermann straight because they've not given me a reason to do so.

Yes, I wasn't including Lyles in that hypothetical rotation because I didn't want him in the first place. I picture a fight between Akin, Kremer, Lowther, Alex Wells, Baumann, Ellis, Watkins and Smith looking like this: