How Much Are You Watching?

[Bahama O's Fan]

Are you watching every game? The entire game? How much of the? Are you going to games at all?

[Moose Milligan]

Still watching as much as I can.  Even though they suck and it's usually a waste of time, I can't imagine being home with the game on and choosing to watch something else instead.  At this point watching for Mullins, Mancini, Means, Urias...individual performances, really.  I haven't seen much of Mateo but he's electric and fun to watch, too.  The speed is incredible.  

Also, just watching on the off chance that they get a win and someone steps up with a great pitching performance or something.  Doesn't happen often, don't want to miss it if it does happen.

[SteveA]

Still watching daily when I can.   If I'm at home and they are playing I'll be watching the game.

On a week night, if it's a blowout, at some point I'll move it to TV #2 with the sound down and watch something from my DVR or Amazon Prime on the big screen.   But if it's a relatively close game I'll have it on the main TV all game.

Last night the end of the game played second fiddle to the Ravens preseason game which started towards the end of the O's game.   

[eddie83]

Every game that I can. Only thing different is I go to bed before some games finish. 

[HowAboutThat]

I watch the start of every game. I watch the end of some games, I watch the middle of some games.

watch a lot of Seattle too…

[HowAboutThat]

Remember, kids, bad baseball is better than no baseball at all. You may think otherwise now, but just think about mid December…

[GuidoSarducci]

If the game is on and I don't have anything else better to do, I watch.  This afternoon I vacuumed my living room while the game was on.  Took a break to watch a bit more closely when the Os were at bat..  Really wanted Mullins to punch one in at the end today and keep the streak going.

 

[Moose Milligan]

1 minute ago, Philip said:

Remember, kids, bad baseball is better than no baseball at all. You may think otherwise now, but just think about mid December…

Yeah, there's this, too.  Agreed 100%.  I'd rather watch the Orioles be terrible than not have anything at all.

It's not even like we've got things to look forward to in the offseason, we're never acquiring any players to be excited about.  I'm expecting a carbon copy of last years offseason for this upcoming winter. 

[hutchead]

I watch every inning of every game. However, to minimize the agony, I record every game so I can shorten it as much as possible, skipping the commercials. I'll also admit to watching blowout games in fast forward and only slowing it back down if we somehow make a comeback.

[Sanfran327]

It aggravates me too much that we are this bad. The 1999 - 2011 teams were not good, but this squad is just wretched. Just absolutely sickeningly awful. So even when I am winding down for the night and I’m about to put the game on the tv or radio, I usually check the score to see what I’m getting into. Lately, that’s as far as I get. We are never in games anymore after 3 innings. I’m a very passionate fan by my definition, but I will not subject myself to this voluntarily. I will sleep, work, or spend QT with my sons instead. 

Circumstances have changed for me significantly since I joined this board. I watched a LOT of bad O’s baseball in my day. I do not need to earn that badge of honor again. 

[HowAboutThat]

2 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

Yeah, there's this, too.  Agreed 100%.  I'd rather watch the Orioles be terrible than not have anything at all.

It's not even like we've got things to look forward to in the offseason, we're never acquiring any players to be excited about.  I'm expecting a carbon copy of last years offseason for this upcoming winter. 

There’s always the rule five!

Edited August 15, 2021 by Philip
Doubling

[survivedc]

Hardly watching at all. I may still listen a bit. Mostly checking game day and watching highlights after. Still watching other MLB teams on about a daily basis though.

[CharmCityHokie]

I don't have cable and live in the MASN-zone, so MLB.TV is useless. I follow daily on Gameday.

[spiritof66]

I watch less, and it's probably accurate to say much less. than at any time in the last ten years. I rarely watch a full game, and when I do watch I'm usually doing something else while watching. "Multi-tasking" during an O's game used to mean watching, and following the Game Thread and thinking through what pitching changes or other moves might be made. Not any more.

I usually take one or two trips to Baltimore each season, sometimes more, to watch a game or two or three. Last season, and over this off-season, I looked forward to doing that this year and checked off some possible dates, but I'm pretty sure I won't bother. Aside from the fact that the 2021 Orioles are among the worst and one of the least interesting major league teams I've seen for a long time, these are the reasons:

1. Nobody with responsibility for the team seems to care that it's so terrible. How terrible: even though there are some other real bad teams this year, the Orioles have the largest negative run differential in MLB by 21 runs, and they're last in the AL in ERA by .84 runs -- almost a run a game -- and 13th in runs scored. I have resisted the idea that Elias wants this team to lose as many games as possible because it's my opinion, and I know it's shared by very few, that if that's the case the guy has no business being in organized baseball). As the season wears on, I'm taking that possibility more seriously. What other explanation is here for putting Mikhail Franco at third base and leaving him there for the full season? Whatever his objective is, Elias seems to think that this miserable performance is just fine. He says virtually nothing about the team he's the general manager of (other than an occasional "be patient"). And not a word from the Angelos family, including the CEO of the club. What does he think? 

2. There has been little sign of improvement over the season. We've seen bursts of good pitching from Valdes, Plutko, Wells, Harvey, Watkins, Tate, and now Diplan. (I am tempted to add Means to that list, but I won't.) But virtually nobody on the staff now looks like a better pitcher and a better pitching prospect than he was expected to be at the beginning of the season. The same is true of the hitters: other than Mullins and Mountcastle, who else has developed this year? Urias, I guess. It would be easier, a lot easier, for me to watch and take interest in a really bad team if it showed signs of progress, either as a team or a lot of individuals. 

3. I can't figure out why Brendan Hyde is the manager of this team. Because he works cheap (I assume)? Because he can be trusted to keep his mouth shut when he sees something he doesn't like? He's a bad in-game manager, but I don't think that's been much of a factor. More important, there are managers who have reputations for being good with young players, or for being innovators. Couldn't this team use a guy with those abilities? Hyde doesn't seem to be accomplishing anything in terms of teaching guys how to win or how to play better baseball -- like situational hitting, sacrificing, smart baserunning or communicating on the field. I have no idea whether he's trying; for all I know, he's agreed not to try. The players seem to like him; I'm not sure whether that's a good or bad thing. What I see is a guy who is resigned to losing night after night, and seems to be bothered by it only once in a while, when the Orioles blow a game it looked like they were about to win. I'd like to see the manager of a team that's getting pummeled night after night yell at a guy who screws up on the bases or doesn't try to hit the cut-off man or swings against a pitcher who can't throw strikes. Maybe throw some equipment around. I'm not going to mention Hyde's coaches, other than to say they either aren't delivering effective messages or aren't getting those messages through to the players.

4. I'm concerned that the players have absorbed the idea that, no matter what they do, the team is gonna lose 2/3 of their games, sometimes by having started getting hammered, sometimes by relief pitchers blowing a lead, and that's OK. If there's a guy out there who hates to lose and takes it home with him every night there's a loss, I don't see it. Maybe Mancini. Maybe there are others, and I just can't tell. But there are players -- guys who are expected or might be part of the team's future -- who have been with really lousy teams for a few years now. Have they gotten the idea that when you're wearing an Orioles uniform you're going to lose most of the team, often in a game that's not really competitive, and nobody's going to say or do much if you screw up? If so, will it be easy to turn that around after another year or two of losing baseball? I don't know, but I'll bet Angelos, Elias and Hyde don't know either, and I don't think they're doing a damn thing to make sure it doesn't happen. They seem to assume that "being patient" doesn't mean the elongated period of losing will have any effect on building a winning team. I'm not so sure.

I would watch more, even watch a bad team. and I might even get myself to Baltimore and pay to see them, if I had any indication that anyone with the Orioles cares as much as some of their fans do about losing so much for so long, or showed any movement in a positive direction.