This series was a wakeup call

[Safelykept]

23 minutes ago, Surhoffan17 said:

 I meant that the losing stretch started with blowouts, but I was wrong about that. Wasn't comparing the talent of the two teams. Only legit pitcher was Bedard as far as talent as some overachievement early on (I think) from the guys you mentioned. 

fair enough it was a good correct. A Lot of posters wont do that. Bedard was good that year but not 2007 good. I could be wrong but I think the Kool aid started with lopez and Cabrera getting off to Hot starts.

[Sanity Check]

22 minutes ago, The Goob said:

This part in red is just insane to me.  Lucky to be a wild card team???  Just a little perspective:

• Orioles are 57-36 half a game behind the Cleveland team for best record in the AL
• 8 games up on the Royals who are the first team out of the playoffs, The Dodgers by comparison have a 7 game lead for the last wild card sport - anyone think they won't make the playoffs
• Have scored 466 runs, second most in the AL to the Yankee$' 473 in two less games, 5.01 runs per game versus 4.98 for NY
• Run differential of +87 equal to Cleveland, only the Yankee$ better at +99, the other two current wild card teams are +52 and +43
• Fangraphs has the Orioles at 96.9% to make the playoffs, Baseball Reference at 98.7%, sportbooks have them as the favorites to be the AL #1 seed

I hate losing as much as anyone, agree the pitching staff needs at least one upgrade and Mayo and eventually Holliday need to be up and playing but to think that this team is somehow going to miss the playoffs seems to be the sediment of many posters and it is just idiocy.

This team with zero upgrades from outside the organization will easily make the playoffs and more than likely win the division.  I just don't get all the doom and gloom after every small blip in a long season.

....but we don't live in the past.  It's clear to me the league has figured out several of our hitters, and if we don't make adjustments back, I don't expect the 2nd half to be nearly as good as the first half..

I also think the Yankees will have their way with us this weekend, that's how bad we look right now.  I guess we'll see.  I saw the Cubs fiasco coming, and mentioned it in the ongoing lineup thread, and not many folks agreed.

[Sanity Check]

Also, bringing Mayo up doesn't guarantee anything.  How quickly folks forget Cowser last year, Henderson's early struggles and Holliday this year.  I don't expect Mayo to come in and just start raking against much higher level pitching without some kind of adjustment period.  Heck, he wouldn't have made a difference against the Cubs in terms of us winning or losing.

[The Goob]

6 minutes ago, Sanity Check said:

....but we don't live in the past.  It's clear to me the league has figured out several of our hitters, and if we don't make adjustments back, I don't expect the 2nd half to be nearly as good as the first half..

I also think the Yankees will have their way with us this weekend, that's how bad we look right now.  I guess we'll see.  I saw the Cubs fiasco coming, and mentioned it in the ongoing lineup thread, and not many folks agreed.

No we don't live in the past.  I don't think the second half needs to be better than the first half to win the division.  

The Yankees current rotation is Cole - who I think is hurt and feels a lot like Bradish was for us this year, Gil - a rookie who may have hit a wall having given up 17 ER in his last 4 starts, Rodon who has a 4.63 ERA and has not been much more than average since getting to NY, and Cortes and Stroman who are solid starters but not anything I would want to rely on in a big playoff spot. 

The bottom 5 in their order yesterday was Torres, Wells, Volpe, Grisham and Cabrera who all have an OPS under 700.  Verdugo was leading off with a .687 OPS and Rice the rookie 1B hasn't has to adjust yet.  They are one injury to Judge or Soto away from a non-competitive lineup.  

The Orioles have issue but they also have options to trade prospects or give some of their top prospect a chance to improve the current team.  The Yankees do not.

[Moose Milligan]

I'll decide how I feel about this series after the Yankees series ends this weekend.

It sucks to get swept no matter what but once again, the chicken littles are coming out of the woodwork.

What really matters is how we rebound from this and how we take on the team we're battling for an AL East title.  If we take 2/3 this weekend or if we sweep the Yankees, this Cubs series quickly becomes a distant memory and a small bump in the road.

The Yanks are scuffling along, so are we.  They can't afford to get right against us this weekend, the Orioles better snap out of it and I think they will.

[HelenaEngineer]

13 hours ago, Aristotelian said:

I don't really have an issue with McCann playing. As long as we're ahead in the division, keeping Adley fresh is a very important priority. 

Yes to everything else. Hopefully the trade deadline fixes a lot the pitching. We need to find a way to get Mayo's bat in the lineup against lefties at least. If you want to keep Cowser, you could also option Mountcastle or Hays.

 

Edited July 12 by HelenaEngineer
accidental double post

[HelenaEngineer]

13 hours ago, Aristotelian said:

I don't really have an issue with McCann playing. As long as we're ahead in the division, keeping Adley fresh is a very important priority. 

Yes to everything else. Hopefully the trade deadline fixes a lot the pitching. We need to find a way to get Mayo's bat in the lineup against lefties at least. If you want to keep Cowser, you could also option Mountcastle or Hays.

I agree that keeping Adley fresh and keeping the long-haul in mind makes sense, and to do that, requires playing McCann more than you would prefer from a day-to-day lineup perspective.

I don't see any way that optioning Hays or Mountcastle makes a bit of sense when this team is already overloaded with lefthanded hitting and short of right-handed pop. Who plays LF vs lefties when Hays, who is hitting well over .300 vs LHP, is optioned?

[bpilktree67]

We lost 3 in a row can you imagine if we lost 18 of 25 games like some other team has this last month.  

[Just Regular]

49 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

If we take 2/3 this weekend

A simple 2/3 would be four in the loss column, and effectively a 5-game head start in the 2nd Half as the Orioles would cross the finish line in the head to head race to 7 wins for divisional tiebreaker.

Wimbledon week, Gerrit Cole had better hold serve against Cade Povich tonight.

[Aristotelian]

16 minutes ago, HelenaEngineer said:

I don't see any way that optioning Hays or Mountcastle makes a bit of sense when this team is already overloaded with lefthanded hitting and short of right-handed pop. Who plays LF vs lefties when Hays, who is hitting well over .300 vs LHP, is optioned?

I'm kind of assuming a scenario where Mayo is deemed unplayable at 3B, so he has to play either 1B or OF. The idea is not to alter the R/L balance but that he would be better than RMC or Hays due to his bat. My sense is that long term Mayo may be RMC's long term replacement at 1B, so why not just accelerate that process?  Mayo is definitely more of a stretch to replace Hays, but depending on how Hays is playing it may be worth it. Basically, there are reasons to keep all the guys currently on the roster: we need Mateo and Urias for infield versatility, Cowser to back up center, Mountcastle and Hays to hit lefties... Something has to give for Mayo to crack the lineup.

 

[SouthRider]

Assuming KC plays at their current .543 clip they finish the season with 88 wins.    The O's have 69 games left.  For them to finish with 87 wins would take a 30-39 record in the second half.  Doesn't anyone seriously expect the O's to play that poorly in the second half?  So, after a year and a half of having the best record in baseball they just collapse like its 2005?  Not happening. 

[Matt Bennett]

2 hours ago, Sanity Check said:

Also, bringing Mayo up doesn't guarantee anything.  How quickly folks forget Cowser last year, Henderson's early struggles and Holliday this year.  I don't expect Mayo to come in and just start raking against much higher level pitching without some kind of adjustment period.  Heck, he wouldn't have made a difference against the Cubs in terms of us winning or losing.

I sure hope Mayo struggles to a 128 wRC+ in his first month as Henderson did. Or a 115 wRC+ through his first two months. Or a 111 wRC+ through his first three months. Or a 123 wRC+ through his first four months. Sign me up 

[mrbig1]

15 hours ago, Roy Firestone said:

This team simply cant get into hitters counts...far too many first pitch swinging...tonight we had two consecutive 9 pitch innings...we dont work counts...we're too anxious cant move runners and certainly have failed with RISP...Mullins shouldn't be playing...he's a fine defender but he's hitting about .200 in the last 7 games...and has very little power...what did Kjerstad do to not get plate appearances? I mean he's hitting .319...which with enough at bats would lead the team...he's selective and has immense power...Mateo and Urias have done very little, and even Gunnar is off...especially early in the game...he strikes out a ton right off the bat...You know what I've said about Mayo....he may struggle, he's not a great defender, he is serviceable...DH/ maybe... but at least he gives us a potential power RH bat...give him a shot...our bullpen is pretty awful...and save for Burnes and Grod our starters are far too undependable..we better get some pitching at the deadline or this team will be lucky to be a wild card team...

In the series with the Cubs. We got out scored 21-2 in 3 games. Our lineup is just dead right now. As brother Roy said we do not work the count. I've seen pitchers have a nine pitch 1-2-3 inning against us. We got shut out the other night with only 5 hits. It was against a rookie who got bomb his last two outings. Pitching is a problem no doubt. But our dead lineup worries me more.

[spiritof66]

4 hours ago, The Goob said:

No we don't live in the past.  I don't think the second half needs to be better than the first half to win the division.  

The Yankees current rotation is Cole - who I think is hurt and feels a lot like Bradish was for us this year, Gil - a rookie who may have hit a wall having given up 17 ER in his last 4 starts, Rodon who has a 4.63 ERA and has not been much more than average since getting to NY, and Cortes and Stroman who are solid starters but not anything I would want to rely on in a big playoff spot. 

The bottom 5 in their order yesterday was Torres, Wells, Volpe, Grisham and Cabrera who all have an OPS under 700.  Verdugo was leading off with a .687 OPS and Rice the rookie 1B hasn't has to adjust yet.  They are one injury to Judge or Soto away from a non-competitive lineup.  

The Orioles have issue but they also have options to trade prospects or give some of their top prospect a chance to improve the current team.  The Yankees do not.

I see parts of a lot of NYY games, and they have looked bad. I agree with the above, except that Rice has been hitting -- .855 OPS with 5 HRs in 21 games. Their lineup other than him and the two big guys consists of terrible hitters and guys who are having bad seasons (like LeMahieu, OPSing .525 for his $15 million). Their defense has been bad, and their relief pitching has been OK.