Morgan423

Must have forgotten than last game's home plate ump isn't back there anymore.

Ugh. You're the home team down by one, late in the game, corners and one out? Lay your bat on the ground for that first pitch, it's going to be the worst pitch you see all week. Not the best approach there.

I've always found it funny that they can precision-guide a baseball to within an inch of their attempted target 60.5 feet away 95% of the time, but if you ask them to throw it another distance / direction.... who knows where it's going to go?

They'd have ranked us dead last even if we just won it all, it's just how they are. "Sure, on the surface, the Orioles just won the world championship, but underneath that champion's exterior lies a deeply flawed team that I suspect will go on a fifteen game losing streak any moment now."

These ghost fans have quite a lot of energy.

Did he just call him Chad Sisco?

Gone off the bat, you didn't even need to see it to know.

Definitely. It's not a minimum wage dime a dozen stink job where you go, eh, forget it, I'm not going in today. This is pretty ominous.

It stands to reason that if he's being walked three times a game, no one is actually throwing him pitches that can be hit.

I guess I'm more of a traditionalist, but if the goal was to not have super-extended extra inning games, I would have rather have brought in tie games in the regular season (say, if no one wins by the end of the 12th than it's a tie) than this. It just kind of comes off as beer-league-softball goofy to me right now. Maybe it'll grow on me later, who knows.

This isn't the next contending team, at least in a normal season that isn't being played in the Twilight zone as for as rosters go. But, it's starting to look like we are going to identify several pieces of that next contending team this year. For me (someone who really just wanted them to give up on this season, and really can't bring myself to look at it as anything else but an extended Spring Training), that's the best I could have hoped for from this endeavor.

That feels like a double fail for Sisco. It's not like Drake is going to surprise him, he's only caught Drake a gazillion times.

Welcome to the team, dude.

It should be the standard for every home-hitting extra inning where the game is still tied and it's not a super-weak hitter you can exploit. The leadoff hitter is completely meaningless except with what he can achieve with the bat.

So, I know technically a few of those runs were "unearned," but could we please go ahead and charge them to Armstrong anyway, since he's the one who threw the ball into center field instead of to first base when the team is up by three in the 8th? Thanks!

Never show up the ump and try to walk to first before the call. That ball could have been thrown into center field and it would have been a called strike once he started off to first before the ump said to.

Velasquez, lay the bat on the ground til he throws a strike, dude.

I tend not to get angry over impossibilities. Life is much less stressful that way.

Statistically with us up by one in the 6th, it increases the win percentage. But only microscopically so. It's marginal. Main benefit is not hitting into a GBDP I suppose.

That second pitch to Davis was the kind of pitch he used to hit out of the stadium five years ago.

Ah, here's where your misconceptions stem from. "Resigning him at a savings" wasn't a thing. You do realize that he got almost $40 million from the Yankees for three seasons, right?

One of these guys could still very well be our second catcher. Question is, which one? Or either? I know that's likely a decision for 2022, but our catchers should be considering this as a season and a half audition to stay on this team once Rutch is up.

In total agreement with you on all fronts. That it's silly to imply that umpires can not / do not impact games when they miss calls... even ball and strike calls. Every blown call is a change in scenario in an at bat that can lead to pitchers having to take extra risks that they otherwise wouldn't have, and there definitely may be a different result at the end. And I wholeheartedly agree that yes, this would have been the perfect year to implement electronic balls and strikes at every stadium where MLB games are being played that are equipped to handle it. As a disclaimer, I also was not up to see the ninth last night (working from home and my day starts at 7) so my comments are not stemming from last night's game. It's just a road that we've walked down far too many times before.

In context, I think he means "now that we know they've been exposed." That's some terrible phrasing right there.