terpoh

The Soto option will be an interesting one. The easy answer right now is to just say let him go and dont pick it up. But I also dont want to necessarily write him off because of two blow up outings. He does have 5 consecutive scoreless outings right now and has a track record of some success in MLB.

To my untrained eye I actually feel like the slide is why he was safe and he wouldnt have been safe if he ran through.

Hopefully this inning catapults this team. Been missing some magic like that for so so so long

We'll most likely get one more solo homer. 8th or 9th when its clear the game is over.

This team is so hard to watch.

I know. I was saying we spent June and July hoping for the Yankees to lose, as we struggled. That ship may have sailed, so now we've moved on to hoping the Red Sox lose. If we happen to make the playoffs this will be one of the most glaring examples of "backing our way in" I can remember.

Two months of trash baseball just hoping the Yankees would lose as well. I guess we now have 1.5 months of trash baseball to look forward to just hoping the Red Sox lose.

Yea I wasn’t disagreeing with you at all. I literally don’t know if he can hit MLB pitching.

Another game of only scoring on home runs or other teams mistakes. 2 hits. Pathetic display, as per the usual lately.

Don’t know. Wasn’t really given a real chance. 2-3 at bats every 4th game then subbed out

A lock for the playoffs

NVMD

Povich may be HIM

He was in the original lineup the following day before being scratched because he didnt feel right pregame.

It’s much longer than that. But yes, for the 39 games since they went 24 games above .500 For the last time.

I wasn’t trying to pick a random date, I didn’t realize they got back to 24 games over later. My mistake. But regardless the point I was trying to make stands in that we are a 500 or below 500 team for a pretty extended amount of time.

This has nothing to do with what I said. Our approach last year wasn’t great either. We started a bunch of guys in the low .300’s or close to the .200’s in OBP last year. I said their approach is not good, Didn’t say they changed their approach. my reference to 2023 was strictly in regards to hitting with RISP. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.

This is not true. We have lost a ton of ground. At our "high point" after the 17 run outburst over the Yankees we were sitting at 49-25, 24 games above .500 and .662 winning percentage. Most likely not a sustainable pace over 162, but thought of as a legit contender. We were 8 games ahead of KC, 8.5 games ahead of MIN, and 9.5 games ahead of Boston. As is stands today we are 2 games ahead of KC, 2 games ahead of MIN, and 5.5 games ahead of Boston. We have lost a ton of ground in this wild card race. Holding on to the "we're guaranteed to sneak in because were so far ahead" is quickly fading. 2, 2, and 5.5 is not insurmountable over 6 weeks and its pretty realistic if we keep playing the way we are. At that time, at our high point, it was true that if we played .500 ball the rest of the way, we would get in comfortably. Thats still true if we're able to get back to 24 games above .500. However, we have been 6 games below .500 since that time, and its not looking like thats going to change any time soon.

Why are they not a .500 team? Theyve been that longer than they were a powerhouse. They were 18 games above .500 on June 1 through essentially 2 months of play. They are 19 games above .500 today over 3 months later (and will probably be worse than 19 games above by next week at this time). The injury excuse is a valid one, I think we would be running away with the division as the best team in baseball at full strength. But the roster, as currently constructed with all the injuries sure seems to be a .500 or slightly worse team.

Every draft is only going to have one "best player" at the end of the day. From 2019, we may end up having that one guy on our roster when its all said and done in Gunnar Henderson. Is it fun to say "what if" and look at Witt and how amazing he is sometimes? Sure. But as long as Adley is a productive every day catcher for this organization it was a good pick. There are first picks who have been far worse. Witt looks generational for sure, and Adley may only be a good player at a premium position, but you can do this about just about every pick in every draft.

Agreed. The offense looked bad even before Westburg got hurt. Lack of discipline, free swinging and just an overall inability to hit with RISP like we did in 2023. This has been an issue all year. We dont score much outside of homeruns. I saw a stat a few months ago that we scored something like 53% of our runs by the homerun, and compared that to recent WS champs who were like 47-49%. This stat was presented as a means of saying our offense was fine and we didnt rely too much by the homerun. At the time I thought being 5-7% higher than those other teams was a significant amount, but I didnt say anything because we were still winning. I would bet that since then we are far higher than 53% and those red flags of relying on the homerun have caught up to us as many feared they would. I know that offense is down this year across the league, but we have two "every day" hitters over .330 OBP right now (only one if you only include qualified hitters), and its just painful to watch. As a comparison. The Red Sox have 8 hitters over .330 OBP and 6 over .350. And yes, like I said, I understand offense is down, and most teams struggle but if you watch every day like most of us do, you can just see that our offense does not consistantly get the job done, even when the runs per game average finds its way around 5.

This game will not help the “runs per game” argument

5,3,6,3,3 our hit totals 5 out of the last 6 games

I don’t remember very many bases clearing doubles or triples

Honest question. When is the last time the Orioles got a "timely hit"... and when was the last time before that. Scoring too many runs on homeruns only has been a problem all season.