allquixotic

Why though? Because we lost first place for the last time in the season? That's likely, but this game hasn't come up out of nowhere... We've been very sub-par for about a month and a half, going on 2 months. We had a good start to the season, but completely fell apart, as if everyone trained for an 80 game season. They were as tired and as spent rolling into the ASB as most teams are at the end of the regular season. This started in the off-season, IMO. We took a completely wrong approach to the entire season, by not conditioning the players properly. Utter failure to take care of our pitchers and work to prevent injury, leading to numerous TJ surgeries. Utter failure to teach the players the importance of endurance and consistency. And, evidencing their physical fatigue and mental exhaustion, the extremely high rate of errors, led by Error-A-Day Gunnar. Then we make a bunch of pointless trades that get rid of a lot of farm talent in return for players who are not going to impact our ability to get to the playoffs or win the division. A bunch of C-list players who may be marginally less tired than the rest of our team, but that will soon change the way they overwork and underprepare them. This game may have been the point in the standings where our collapse became mathematically realized, as we slide into second place, but all the causes have been staring everyone in the face since mid-June. The front office and the coaches simply refuse to recognize them; or if they do, they aren't doing anything substantive to address said causes. Another lost year.

Soto needs to be released outright. Use a lighter on his contract.

Doing better now with a 4-hit inning and scoring 2. Only problem is, next time freaking Josh Naylor is up again against us, he'll probably continue to do damage. He's like their Mountcastle and we're the Blue Jays.

Well there's our wake-up call: after tonight we're gonna be tied with the Yanks for first. It'll only take a few days of O's lose / Yanks and Sox win to kick us out of the first wildcard spot. So, if they're gonna come out of this slump like it appeared they might vs the Blue Jays, they'd better do it now.

If Gunnar had as many additional home runs as he's made errors, and didn't make those errors, he'd be a lock for MVP. Instead, he's got the ugly distinction of being Mr. Error-A-Day.

Grayson is my #1 as far as I'm concerned on the pitching staff. I know Burnes is excellent, but every time out Grayson gives us a gutsy effort.

Anything is possible, including a WS run, but I think we have about 50/50 odds of missing the playoffs. It depends on whether they manage to turn around this 6-week slump and play like they did in April-May. If their winning days are behind them, we can still fall out of the wildcard race. We might not even be in contention on September 1.

Why not? It's not like first place is on the line or anything. Just do whatever.

5 outs to go.

Wieters was good enough at throwing out runners that we adopted the slogan, "Never run on Wieters." Adley throws out 19% of stealing runners this year, which is not good (even by 2022 Adley standards), and all of his catching stats are regressed from 2022-2023. If he can't hit either, that's just another example of the team going down the tubes. It's like they were conditioned for an 81 game season.

GD Profar!!! I hate him!!!!

Can't pitch, can't hit, can't field... the woes continue ANOTHER freaking day... we're on the brink of no longer being in contention, just need another week of this suckage.

The luck vibes in this game are just completely bass ackwards. Marlins with nothing but luck, the Orioles with nothing but awful luck. I can't believe it. Why, when they're going bad, do they have to go REALLY bad with an extra helping of bad luck?

You already know the answer. These are the Orioles.

The deflected ball was perfectly placed in between the infielders and Norby had to run back and grab it.

Looked to be off the shoe. Hopefully it was off the hard sole and not off the soft side leather. They didn't do a close-up replay. He didn't seem to be in pain, though. He was mostly upset at having to come out of the game.

The Marlins are so damn lucky. Unbelievable. Junk bloops and flares to take away an 8 IP from Corbin.

Verdugo laying out like that is going to become a meme for sure. Yankees fans might seize on it the way we did Complacent Reynolds.

You might not have noticed, but the site is basically broken and has been for days. Most posters consistently receive an error message when trying to post. Tony is trying to get the techies to fix it, but so far it has not been successful. You must have been one of the few lucky ones able to post at this time.

Hard to believe an entire team of 30 people can simultaneously become so inept. What would a hospital do if all 30 surgeons in the emergency room came in on a busy Monday morning going, "What's a scalpel? Uh.... try wiping it with a Kleenex? I dunno..." That's the level of sheer incompetence the O's are consistently displaying. It's like the coaches arranged a team meeting and went, "Everything you've learned about baseball? Throw it away. Forget it. I'm teaching you something new. The goal of the game is to lose -- here's how you do it."

We may have the better record for the moment, but the Yankees seem poised to come to Baltimore to get right, while the Orioles are in an absolute free-fall with no interest in doing anything differently on or off the field to change that. A few competently pitched outs by the 1,971st MLB player with the last name Smith isn’t going to move the needle. Gunnar, Adley, Santander and Westburg ALL seem to have Chris Davis Syndrome right now. Watch their ABs frame by frame as the pitch is delivered. They are turning their heads to look at the baseball as it sails through the strikezone, with the bat on their shoulder. This is a completely worthless action, as you can’t make a decision to swing that late in the pitch delivery. They need to be looking at the pitcher’s pitching hand and the ball as soon as it comes out of the hand. Then they need to make a decision to swing or not, while the ball is still coming to them, and live with that decision. They are over-analyzing, and their brains are slower than their body can react once they think they recognize the pitch. They need to recognize the pitch much earlier in the delivery. If they can’t, they need to keep practicing until they regain that instinct. It has to be quick, immediate, reflexive, not something they’re actively thinking about like you would a math problem. There’s no time for that. Gunnar watching strike 3 over and over and over is exactly what Chris Davis suffered from. I swear to Christ, we need a sports psychologist on staff. Brian Ebel is an accomplished sports physician who is great at helping the players through physical injury, but it doesn’t appear that he is helping them with the grey matter in between their ears.

Yes we should be sellers if this continues much longer. Reevaluate at the trade deadline. The difference between a slump and a full-on collapse is about 20 games. If we're still bad at the end of the month, it's a collapse -- in that case, blow up the damn team. If we recover, continue to play for this year.

They better give Judge a concussion tomorrow. I've had enough.

Well, 30 minutes into game 1, anyone who voted Orioles Sweep is wrong. I voted Orioles win 2-1, but that means we need to beat both Gil and Rodon, and Kremer needs to pitch better than he has been while the offense wakes up. Not optimistic.

You made a lot of good points, but you lost me when you expressed confidence - before the All-Star Break - that we will end up in the playoffs. Do you not remember the 2011 Red Sox? They were 55-35 on July 10, the last game before the 2011 All Star Break. We are 57-36, which is only 1 game better than that. We are more than capable of a collapse. We could collapse very quickly and suddenly like the 2011 Sox, or seemingly the 2024 Yanks, or we could just under-perform for July, August and September, playing only somewhat under .500 and missing the playoffs due to the strength of other AL teams. If the Red Sox or the Yankees take first in the division, we could easily be eliminated. It worries me when folks take our playoff run for granted, especially this early. The team has a lot to prove still before we know that we will contend this year.