allquixotic

The only saving grace here is there are only about 43 games left in the season. I say "about" because we're part-way through this one and we have to play 3 innings of one tomorrow, so I counted each as ".5" and rounded. With that few games left, stretching out the pen some is much more manageable. Especially if they're good and take care of their own business. It's incredible how bad the Phils' pen is. These 43 games will feel like 143 to them!

Haha, did you guys see Harper's reaction on that fly-out? He took another practice swing as he was on his way to first base. ?

Thanks for the great info. It's been long enough that I basically forgot the story around him. I knew it wasn't so cut and dry as "we didn't let him throw his magic pitch".

From my 49" TV watching MASN, it looked like a good send. In theory it's never a good idea to make the first out at 3rd, but in practice he had a good chance, based on scouting of their OF and the ball off the bat. It was forgivable. You don't get situations like that very often. If the OF were known for a good arm and he still tried for 3rd, then it would've been a boneheaded play.

Where are those stats where they summarize how "injury-prone" a team is in a given season? I feel like the Yanks are having worse luck with that this year than the O's usually have this decade (and it often hasn't been good for us, from what I remember). In a 60-game season, losing a star for a week or two is a huge blow.

A terrific failure and myopia by the O's (everyone who's involved in that kind of decision). Doesn't mean I don't revel in Arrieta getting hit hard by the O's.

The exact same pitch that has been a strike to every Orioles left-handed batter the entire game -- about 1 baseball off the strike zone, outside, vertical middle -- was called a ball against Eshelman. More of this "umpires inserting themselves into the game" nonsense. I mean, it's technically a ball to begin with, but if you're going to call it a strike, call it a damn strike for everyone, not just for the O's. Arrieta was hammering that spot for innings and making left-handed batters reach for it.

So they have to play .227 ball through 44 games to exceed expectations? I guess their early success has really lowered the bar for the rest of the season.

YES!!!!!! Looks like I got my wish! It wasn't a back-to-back-to-back homer, but we made Arrieta pay! We got to that guy! I'M FIRED UP! Eat dirt, Arrieta! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!

I love that our guys are just having a fun time out there. They're relaxed. There's no tension. They have nothing to lose. All they can do is exceed expectations, which were basically zero to start the season.

Wow, Valaika looking like a real major leaguer there! Great AB!!! Absolutely fantastic! Gutted out the run to first so we could score, too!

I can't help but want to see Arrieta suffer and lose, especially against us. It annoys me to no end that literally going to a different park made him Cy Young. I know we should also blame our coaching and development program, but it just rubs me the wrong way how he flipped a switch the instant we got rid of him. I'd love to see us swat three back-to-back no-doubter homers against him in the top of the 1st. Not only would that be tremendously fun because the O's would be winning, but I would be laughing at Arrieta. Guffawing. I wonder. If we traded Chris Davis to the Rockies today, would he hit 20 or 30 home runs before the season's out?

I don't have a problem with the baseball knowledge or game calling accuracy of anyone on the TV or radio crews this year. I fully understand the difficult circumstances and that they're beholden to what they see on TV. I don't think any of them are dunces about baseball. I'm sure all of them are very nice people, too. The lack of excitement -- especially with Scott Garceau -- is the worst thing for me. Jim Hunter may not have known the sport, but at least he knew how to make a home run call. He was also an excellent setup man for Jim Palmer's often sarcastic retorts. Palmer was so great at underhandedly insulting Hunter for not even "getting it" after Palmer hinted at it and it was so funny. Their dynamic was far more entertaining than Garceau and McDonald.

In some areas of private industry, there's a (fairly brutal, honestly) performance management process called "stack ranking." In stack ranking, everyone's performance is compared against each other, using a combination of objective and subjective metrics. The elite few at the top get raises and/or promotions; the solid contributors get to coast along undisturbed; the struggling end up getting "help" to try to improve their performance; and the worst of the worst get fired. This happens on a monthly, bi-annual or yearly cadence depending on the company. Stack ranking of umpires would be based on their accuracy on calls compared to the "correct" call via video review / electronic strike zone. You could set up the strata exactly as you do for tech workers: give raises to the best, let the good ones keep going, pull the struggling ones from daily MLB games and have them work on their calls and improve in some kind of umpiring camp, and just fire the worst ~1% every year. The other thing you could do is add more umpires to the umpiring pool. This would increase the "overhead" cost of umpiring, yes, but by adding more umpires without adding more teams or games, you could set up a situation where only the best X% of umpires get to call MLB games on the regular. The rest would either call simulated games, extended spring training games, or minor league games until they get better.

I haven't heard much from our radio guys, but it's kind of hilarious how the MLB editors in this highlight reel had to pull in our radio broadcasters multiple times for the call when Scott Garceau is using a living room conversational voice to call a big play where the O's are scoring. Based on this, I'm satisfied with the radio crew. I just really hate Scott Garceau's complete and total lack of energy. Ben is a great color guy but I wouldn't want him calling the play by play either, he's also extremely sedate.

I want Jim Hunter, Gary Thorne and Joe Angel back (and more of Palmer). Listen to the excitement in their voices in these calls and then tell me that Scott Garceau and crew are any good: Compare to: The Phillies announcers were energetic. Our guys sound sedate. Like they're on downers.

The other thing to be aware of is that a lot of our current crop of scrappy players, the ones who are winning us games, were claimed on waivers from other teams. So even though we traded, DFA'ed or let walk a bunch of guys who are now good, we also acquired a bunch of guys who are now looking pretty good, at least with the small sample size.

Wow, good points on all. However, it was impossible we could've known about Arrieta's renaissance. Either the coaching here was just atrocious at that time (and/or still is), or he literally just needed a change of scenery, and nothing we could've done keeping him in Baltimore would've helped. At the time, it felt like keeping Bundy wouldn't help, because having one piece of a puzzle when the 20 other pieces are missing does you little good. It wouldn't have been possible to keep Manny. The club put their franchise man money behind Chris Davis. The only way we could've signed Manny is if we let Davis walk at the end of 2015, and we didn't. Baltimore just doesn't have that kind of money. Losing Villar was part of the rebuild plan -- a deliberate move during a realization that the team needed to rebuild hard. Sure, if we had stayed pat on all these guys, there's a chance that we could be good now. But some of these guys got good because they left the O's organization, and some were flat-out too expensive for us to keep in a mid-market team and with Scott Boras as their agent. We just got unlucky, I think. Traded a bunch of guys we would've been better-off to keep, and kept the one guy who'd turn out to be one of the worst players in MLB (Davis).

At least he was an equal opportunity incompetent umpire! It would be hilarious if he ended up tossing both teams' managers. I can think of at least a few former Orioles managers who would have gotten tossed tonight. Buck. Earl.

Is this entirely in the past, or will we ever see a glimmer of this again?

Ump Tiers Great: Consistently adhere to what the actual strike zone is. Good: Has a modified strike zone (not adhering strictly to the regulation), but he calls it consistently and accurately the same way for the whole game, and his zone is very similar to most other umps in the league right now. Average: Has a modified strike zone, he calls it consistently and accurately, but his zone is a bit unique to this specific umpire. Bad: Has a modified zone, calls it inconsistently (the same pitch is a ball or strike variously), but at least it seems to mostly be similar to other umps in the league. Awful: Has a modified zone, calls it inconsistently, and it's totally different than other umps or nowhere near what the regulation calls for. I've seen a lot of average and bad this year. Tonight's might be awful.

To be fair, I've been watching every pitch closely this season, and that "near-strike" inside pitch gets called a strike VERY often -- both for, and against, the Orioles. And not only with this umpire, or in this park. I know the strike zone is supposed to be a specific thing, but at least the umps as a group seem to favor pitchers on borderline calls this season. I know this home plate ump has been very unpredictable and random tonight, and I don't like that, but at least on that specific call, he went with what the majority of umps this year are calling. I mind it less because it's a consistent thing across multiple umps and games, so the hitters should expect that pitch to be a strike. Of course the ideal would still be to strictly adhere to what the actual strike zone is.

If it were the franchise, he'd realize how awful he is and bow out of his contract and voluntarily take the team off the hook for the remainder of the money he's owed. But no, he needs his millions on top of the tens of millions he's already made.

Well, that was fantastic. At least we cashed in on the 2nd and 3rd no outs. Sisco the man. Answering there keeps us in the game.