TT: This is who the Orioles are right now (23-27 in last 50 games)

[HowAboutThat]

30 minutes ago, glenn__davis said:

I actually like that the "clutch" numbers are down a bit.  That should turn around.

I can certainly put a positive spin on this.  Outside of Santander I'd say no one has been particularly "good" in this stretch, at least not compared to expectations.  Even Burnes has had his lulls.  We've had injuries, we've some lacking performances, we have guys like Mounty and O'Hearn who I think have 2 HRs combined in the past month or so.

They're really not playing very well, and what does that look like?  Around a .500 team.  This roster playing "poorly" is around a .500 team.  They're not in freefall as some of the resident Chicken Littles might have you believe, they're not in any serious danger of missing the playoffs (could it happen?  Sure but not likely).  It's mid-August and they're a good Skubal performance away from being tied for 1st again.

I agree this team hasn't been humming for a while, but if not humming is around a .500 club, it could be a lot worse.  Let's just hope they've got a good stretch coming up in about a month and a half.

Define “around .500”? In the last 50 games, the Os are four games under .500. If that is “around,” then fine. But “around” isn’t going to be enough. If the Yankees lose today, we’re tied, but if they win, we’re still a game behind.

[glenn__davis]

12 minutes ago, HowAboutThat said:

And yet, despite those guys, the Os have been under .500 in the last 50 games, and it hasn’t been close. I think that validates @LookitsPuck’s point.

The Os are a good team playing dreadfully badly. They were playing badly before all the losses, and now they are playing worse.

The tend is downward. We can only hope they figure out the problem and improve the basic quality of play.

3 games under 500 "isn't close"?  We have different definitions then.  You act like they've been 10 games under. 

[Frobby]

3 minutes ago, HowAboutThat said:

And yet, despite those guys, the Os have been under .500 in the last 50 games, and it hasn’t been close. I think that validates @LookitsPuck’s point.

The Os are a good team playing dreadfully badly. They were playing badly before all the losses, and now they are playing worse.

The tend is downward. We can only hope they figure out the problem and improve the basic quality of play.

They’ve basically been treading water.  The best they’ve been is +24 over .500.  The worst they’ve been since then is +19.  Right now they’re +21, in between the high and recent low.  I don’t think there’s really a trend right now, other than two steps forward, two steps back or vice versa.   

I see a couple of positives in the last week or two.  First, we’ve now had 7 really good starts in the last 9.  Second, Gunnar has returned to playing plus defense after that weird stretch where he made 7 errors in 7 games and a couple of other miscues.  He’s also heating up with the bat.  I think if those two trends continue some more consistently winning baseball could result.   We still need some other things to fall into place.  
 

[Say O!]

I am confident this will be a much better team in latter part of Sept with Coulombe, Westy, GRod (and maybe Kjerstad too).

Very tough upcoming 10 game stretch with NYM, HOU, LAD before 6 game reprieve of COL and CWS.

[eddie83]

It’s been an odd year for the top teams. It’s like all the division leaders have been treading water the last 2 months. 

[HowAboutThat]

11 minutes ago, glenn__davis said:

3 games under 500 "isn't close"?  We have different definitions then.  You act like they've been 10 games under. 

No, I was just clarifying what you meant by “around.” .500. Your definition allows them to be “under.”
It is unacceptable for a team this good to be playing under 500 ball.

I was quite surprised to find that in the last 50 games the Yankees have also been four games under.

If the Orioles hadn’t been playing completely shitty baseball, they’d be so far up in the standings, New York fans would be jumping off skyscrapers.

In their last 50 games, the Royals have been 28-22. The Twins have been 29-21. Heck, the A’s have been 27-23, in THEIR last 50.

That’s what we should expect from the Os.

Not “around .500,” especially when that means four games under.

[HowAboutThat]

38 minutes ago, Frobby said:

They’ve basically been treading water.  The best they’ve been is +24 over .500.  The worst they’ve been since then is +19.  Right now they’re +21, in between the high and recent low.  I don’t think there’s really a trend right now, other than two steps forward, two steps back or vice versa.   

I see a couple of positives in the last week or two.  First, we’ve now had 7 really good starts in the last 9.  Second, Gunnar has returned to playing plus defense after that weird stretch where he made 7 errors in 7 games and a couple of other miscues.  He’s also heating up with the bat.  I think if those two trends continue some more consistently winning baseball could result.   We still need some other things to fall into place.  
 

Suarez has been excellent, Eflin has been Excellent, Kremer had a good start, but he’s too inconsistent to expect anything, but continued inconsistency, so we don’t know what the next starts going to be like .

The weak spot is the bullpen personnel and how they are used.

For some reason, there isn’t any real effort to hold runners on anymore either, so stolen bases are an issue. I’m not sure how many runs. They are costing us yet, but there will be more as other teams realize a little emphasis the Os put on monitoring runners.

Kevin Brown said that Urias had been playing poor defense because he wasn’t playing consistently. I don’t know whether that’s legitimate or just one of those excuses, but his defense does seem to be better.

Holiday had another wild throw today that almost sailed over Mountcastle’s head. 
If the defense improves, I think we will be throwing away fewer games and we might be able to put together a streak.

but the bullpen remains a severe weak spot.

Edited August 19 by HowAboutThat

[glenn__davis]

39 minutes ago, HowAboutThat said:

 

In their last 50 games, the Royals have been 28-22. The Twins have been 29-21. Heck, the A’s have been 27-23, in THEIR last 50.

 

OK.  Cleveland and Philadelphia are both 24-26 in their last 50.  1 game better than the O's.  Would you say they are good teams?

You can take just about any team in history and find a segment of games where they played poorly.  The '23 Orioles were a bit of an exception there.  You and some others act like this team is just playing horrendous baseball.  And for them they probably are, but if horrendous is baseball is around .500 ball, that's livable.  No question they need to start picking it up and playing more like they're capable of.

[Sports Guy]

The Twins are a very dangerous team…all of those ALC teams are.

In fact, if I had to bet money right now, I would bet on a team in the ALC representing the AL in the WS.

[OriolesMagic83]

3 minutes ago, glenn__davis said:

OK.  Cleveland and Philadelphia are both 24-26 in their last 50.  1 game better than the O's.  Would you say they are good teams?

You can take just about any team in history and find a segment of games where they played poorly.  The '23 Orioles were a bit of an exception there.  You and some others act like this team is just playing horrendous baseball.  And for them they probably are, but if horrendous is baseball is around .500 ball, that's livable.  No question they need to start picking it up and playing more like they're capable of.

Usually a team that going to make noise in the postseason has to start playing better about this time of year.  I know the Rangers last year were sort of an exception in that they played poorly thru much of September.

[glenn__davis]

1 minute ago, OriolesMagic83 said:

Usually a team that going to make noise in the postseason has to start playing better about this time of year.  I know the Rangers last year were sort of an exception in that they played poorly thru much of September.

That's one of those things that sounds correct but isn't really true.  I'll never be able to find the thread but someone did some research some time ago looking at teams September records vs. the postseason success and there was basically no correlation.  

[HowAboutThat]

6 minutes ago, glenn__davis said:

OK.  Cleveland and Philadelphia are both 24-26 in their last 50.  1 game better than the O's.  Would you say they are good teams?

You can take just about any team in history and find a segment of games where they played poorly.  The '23 Orioles were a bit of an exception there.  You and some others act like this team is just playing horrendous baseball.  And for them they probably are, but if horrendous is baseball is around .500 ball, that's livable.  No question they need to start picking it up and playing more like they're capable of.

I understand what you’re saying, but we’re not talking about any team in history.

We’re talking about the 2024 O’s, who have been four games under 500 in their last 50. And recent performance is more important, so the most recent 50 is more important than the previous 50. That goes without saying. And we’ve been terrible. And we have not been playing to expectations.

I don’t particularly care about the Indians or the Royals or Astros, but all three of those teams have been playing above expectations.

And I’m not being contentious. We were on pace to win over 100 games, now we’re on a pace to win under 90 unless we play .500 the rest of the way, if we continue playing four games under 500 we will win about 85 games maybe 87.

It is clear the Os are declining. They aren’t as good as they were. And there’s no indication that they will suddenly improve.
That is just undeniable. They may improve but there’s no indication that they will.

[glenn__davis]

2 minutes ago, HowAboutThat said:

I understand what you’re saying, but we’re not talking about any team in history.

We’re talking about the 2024 O’s, who have been four games under 500 in their last 50. And recent performance is more important, so the most recent 50 is more important than the previous 50. That goes without saying. And we’ve been terrible. And we have not been playing to expectations.

I don’t particularly care about the Indians or the Royals or Astros, but all three of those teams have been playing above expectations.

And I’m not being contentious. We were on pace to win over 100 games, now we’re on a pace to win under 90 unless we play .500 the rest of the way, if we continue playing four games under 500 we will win about 85 games maybe 87.

It is clear the Os are declining. They aren’t as good as they were. And there’s no indication that they will suddenly improve.
That is just undeniable. They may improve but there’s no indication that they will.

Frankly I think there are so many incorrect things in this post that it's hard to know where to start, but I can see we're not going to get anywhere with this.

They need to start playing better.  We can agree on that.

[bpilktree67]

1 hour ago, HowAboutThat said:

Define “around .500”? In the last 50 games, the Os are four games under .500. If that is “around,” then fine. But “around” isn’t going to be enough. If the Yankees lose today, we’re tied, but if they win, we’re still a game behind.

We are 28-28 if you go to last 56 games or the day Bradish got hurt.  If you go to last 45 we are 23-22.   Which are both .500 or better it just depends when you want to start looking at it.  

[survivedc]

1 hour ago, HowAboutThat said:

And yet, despite those guys, the Os have been under .500 in the last 50 games, and it hasn’t been close. I think that validates @LookitsPuck’s point.

The Os are a good team playing dreadfully badly. They were playing badly before all the losses, and now they are playing worse.

The tend is downward. We can only hope they figure out the problem and improve the basic quality of play.

It literally does the opposite of validates his point. It shows that even when our really good guys are only mediocre the Redsox can’t catch what they did when they were actually really good. Which, again, to spell it out for you two, shows that the upside is higher.