That was a big win

[Frobby]

19 minutes ago, spiritof66 said:

McKenna has the fourth highest OPS on the team, the fourth highest OBP, and the highest BA. Those numbers are inflated by his rarely having to face RHers, but those numbers are still pretty good for a late-inning defensive replacement/pinch runner.

His wOBA is .351 while his xwOBA is .262, so you could conclude he’s had a bit of good luck lately, too.   

Conversely, James McCann has a wOBA of .262 and xwOBA of .366.   The other outlier is Mountcastle at .320/.390.   Everyone else is +/- .035, which would be a pretty insignificant variation at this time of year.   
 

[Just Regular]

23 minutes ago, spiritof66 said:

McKenna has the fourth highest OPS on the team, the fourth highest OBP, and the highest BA. Those numbers are inflated by his rarely having to face RHers, but those numbers are still pretty good for a late-inning defensive replacement/pinch runner.

For sure I hope some GM of another team is looking at him like, here's a 200 PA guy I'm curious to see what he could do in a 500 PA role.

Same basic deal as Darell Hernaiz may be the OAK 2025 SS, and Orioles pitching will put a 2-for-20 in seven games on the guy.

[deward]

1 hour ago, NCRaven said:

Or we could point to a total lack of timely hitting in the recent three game losing streak.  Or any other single loss during the season.  Blaming a single play by one player in Game 2 of 162 for missing the playoffs by one game is total BS.  Really hope you were just trying to be sarcastic with that take.

I was mostly being snarky, but this seems like an overreaction. Yes, if they miss out by a game, then there will be a number of moments someone could point to over the course of 162 games that could have gone differently. There (so far) is only one where a player was too lackadaisical about catching a routine fly ball that would have ended the game. It's an obvious moment where a dumb mistake literally cost the team a win, I don't think it's apples to apples to compare that to a player not getting a timely hit. There are other variables involved in that equation that don't exist in this specific instance.

To be clear, I'm not worked up about it, nor will I be worked up about it even if the season actually comes down to missing out by a game. McKenna is fine for his role, errors happen, that one just happened to be spectacularly poorly timed. It'd be an obvious moment to point to in any post-mortem of a stretch run that falls just short. 

[Frobby]

The way I see it, if we miss the playoffs by one game, we’re really not a championship level team.  If we do make the playoffs, whatever happened in Game 2 of the season won’t affect the outcome.  So, I don’t expect to spend the rest of my life wondering “what if McKenna had caught that fly ball?”  At the same time, it’s definitely up there among the most memorable losses ever, for a number of reasons.   

[emmett16]

11 hours ago, Baltimorecuse said:

I could hardly breathe.  Grayson put on his big boy pants tonight.  We need some fan turnout. 

If they are still rolling they should get a nice bump when kids get out of school in a month + but don’t think we will see serious attendance until late August (assuming they are still playing well). 

[deward]

2 minutes ago, Frobby said:

The way I see it, if we miss the playoffs by one game, we’re really not a championship level team.  If we do make the playoffs, whatever happened in Game 2 of the season won’t affect the outcome.  So, I don’t expect to spend the rest of my life wondering “what if McKenna had caught that fly ball?”  At the same time, it’s definitely up there among the most memorable losses ever, for a number of reasons.   

I save that kind of angst for wondering why Armando Benitez threw Tony Fernandez a slider.  Hopefully they'll run away and hide with one of the wild card spots and render this whole discussion academic.

[emmett16]

2 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

I’m still trying to figure out if they are going to recover from that “awful loss” when McKenna dropped the ball.

That won’t come into play until game 162.  

[spiritof66]

9 minutes ago, Frobby said:

His wOBA is .351 while his xwOBA is .262, so you could conclude he’s had a bit of good luck lately, too.   

Conversely, James McCann has a wOBA of .262 and xwOBA of .366.   The other outlier is Mountcastle at .320/.390.   Everyone else is +/- .035, which would be a pretty insignificant variation at this time of year.   
 

As I understand it, xwOBA rewards exit velocity and launch angle: if you hit balls as hard as you do, and get them in the air as much as you do, what should your wOBA be? That makes sense for a guy like Mountcastle, who is usually trying to hit the ball as hard as he can and to get it up in the air.

But does it work for a guy who's more of a slap hitter, who's not trying to do as often what Mountcastle is usually trying to do? (I would put McKenna in that category though he's not an extreme case.) More often than a lot of hitters, and I would guess more often than most hitters,  he's trying to lob a ball over the infield or place it between the infielders or down a foul line. It seems to me that kind of hitter could be productive, and have a high wOBA (as well as a high BA and OBP, but with a modest SLG), even if his exit velocity (which apparently, at least for the Orioles, is spelled and pronounced "velo") and launch angles don't justify that wOBA. 

[deward]

1 minute ago, emmett16 said:

If they are still rolling they should get a nice bump when kids get out of school in a month + but don’t think we will see serious attendance until late August (assuming they are still playing well). 

It'd be a real shame if they continue to struggle to draw fans to watch a fun team that's in contention. Hopefully more wins like last night will spark some buzz.

[emmett16]

1 minute ago, spiritof66 said:

As I understand it, xwOBA rewards exit velocity and launch angle: if you hit balls as hard as you do, and get them in the air as much as you do, what should your wOBA be? That makes sense for a guy like Mountcastle, who is usually trying to hit the ball as hard as he can and to get it up in the air.

But does it work for a guy who's more of a slap hitter, who's not trying to do as often what Mountcastle is usually trying to do? (I would put McKenna in that category though he's not an extreme case.) More often than a lot of hitters, and I would guess more often than most hitters,  he's trying to lob a ball over the infield or place it between the infielders or down a foul line. It seems to me that kind of hitter could be productive, and have a high wOBA (as well as a high BA and OBP, but with a modest SLG), even if his exit velocity (which apparently, at least for the Orioles, is spelled and pronounced "velo") and launch angles don't justify that wOBA. 

All hitters are trying to drive the ball in the air as hard As they can.  Some players are just better than the other ones.  

[LA2]

6 minutes ago, spiritof66 said:

As I understand it, xwOBA rewards exit velocity and launch angle: if you hit balls as hard as you do, and get them in the air as much as you do, what should your wOBA be? That makes sense for a guy like Mountcastle, who is usually trying to hit the ball as hard as he can and to get it up in the air.

But does it work for a guy who's more of a slap hitter, who's not trying to do as often what Mountcastle is usually trying to do? (I would put McKenna in that category though he's not an extreme case.) More often than a lot of hitters, and I would guess more often than most hitters,  he's trying to lob a ball over the infield or place it between the infielders or down a foul line. It seems to me that kind of hitter could be productive, and have a high wOBA (as well as a high BA and OBP, but with a modest SLG), even if his exit velocity (which apparently, at least for the Orioles, is spelled and pronounced "velo") and launch angles don't justify that wOBA. 

Interesting point. Tried to apply it to Adam Frazier....

[sportsfan8703]

16 minutes ago, deward said:

It'd be a real shame if they continue to struggle to draw fans to watch a fun team that's in contention. Hopefully more wins like last night will spark some buzz.

40k might just be a thing of the past.  A lot of teams are electing to remodel their upper decks to incorporate more recreational/drinking areas.  

[waroriole]

This was a big win. Take 2 of 3 from the team we’re chasing. Gotta do that if you have designs on winning the division. 

[Sanity Check]

Three games, combined score of 6-6.....and we take two out of three.  

 

Three and Three after six games against the Rays and Braves.  Would anyone have been disappointed with that before the Braves series??

 

Sure, I wanted better, but I'm realistic.  And the most impressive part - for the most part, WE did not hit well at all and still managed to win half the games.  Pitchers mostly did their jobs.

And what about that Frazier guy knocking in a run tonight......hate him or not (I don't, by the way), the guys seems to put the ball in play when we need something to happen.  We've been striking out way too much lately with guys on third, one thing Frazier does very infrequently.

 

[emmett16]

8 hours ago, sportsfan8703 said:

40k might just be a thing of the past.  A lot of teams are electing to remodel their upper decks to incorporate more recreational/drinking areas.  

Las Vegas is planning for a 30k seat stadium