We're going to be okay.

[OriolesMagic83]

23 minutes ago, survivedc said:

Boy, were you right! Doesn’t that feel nice?

Not really, feels sort of depressing.  The offense is a one trick pony but somehow it worked last season until the playoffs. 

[gtman55]

On the optimistic front, hopefully we get in the playoffs and Westburg, Eflin, Rodriguez, Coloumbe and Webb are all back and healthy. Adley is back to being Adley. Mountcastle isn't swinging at balls in the dirt. Holliday gets hot again...

We might just win some playoff games. 

[Matt Bennett]

2 hours ago, sevastras said:

We just need a couple of guys(Adley and Gunner mainly) to start getting hot and some of the other guys will follow. 

Gunnar has a .895 OPS in August. How hot do you want him to get? 

The disappointment, regression, and slumps have been elsewhere. 

[sevastras]

1 hour ago, Matt Bennett said:

Gunnar has a .895 OPS in August. How hot do you want him to get? 

The disappointment, regression, and slumps have been elsewhere. 

1.150, is that too much to ask?

[LookitsPuck]

1 hour ago, Matt Bennett said:

Gunnar has a .895 OPS in August. How hot do you want him to get? 

The disappointment, regression, and slumps have been elsewhere. 

August was the tale of two Gunnars.

The first half he had 1 dinger and 4 RBI. Yeah, he batted ~300, but had an OPS under 800. That's good, but that's not what this club needs from him.

Since 8/14, things have been better with 4 dingers and 9 RBI and an OPS over 1.000. That's more like it. 

But these last 4 games has been extremely poor. 1 RBI, 3 hits, OPS of 639. 

If you read between the lines, he had a 5 game period where he was on fire, but the rest of the month he's been incredibly lackluster. 

[ledzepp8]

5 hours ago, terpoh said:

Why are they not a .500 team? Theyve been that longer than they were a powerhouse. They were 18 games above .500 on June 1 through essentially 2 months of play. They are 19 games above .500 today over 3 months later (and will probably be worse than 19 games above by next week at this time).

The injury excuse is a valid one, I think we would be running away with the division as the best team in baseball at full strength. But the roster, as currently constructed with all the injuries sure seems to be a .500 or slightly worse team.

They were 24 games over 500 on July 7th. They’re 17-21 since then. I’m not saying they haven’t struggled, but it’s disingenuous to start at some random date in June rather than their over 500 high point, in order to make a point. 

[survivedc]

1 minute ago, LookitsPuck said:

August was the tale of two Gunnars.

The first half he had 1 dinger and 4 RBI. Yeah, he batted ~300, but had an OPS under 800. That's good, but that's not what this club needs from him.

Since 8/14, things have been better with 4 dingers and 9 RBI and an OPS over 1.000. That's more like it. 

But these last 4 games has been extremely poor. 1 RBI, 3 hits, OPS of 639. 

If you read between the lines, he had a 5 game period where he was on fire, but the rest of the month he's been incredibly lackluster. 

I’m hopeful that he won’t strike out looking as much for the rest of his career. Seemed like when he was really rolling to start the seas

[survivedc]

…to start the season he was aggressive and hitting those pitches on the edge of the zone. Feeling a little more passive in the second half.

[ledzepp8]

3 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

The offense is fine!  Tell 'em, @Frobby! How many runs per game are we averaging?  

To be fair, they were 24 games over 500 on July 7. A high point for the season. Since then they’ve scored 4 runs or more in 23 out of 39 games, 59% of the time. I don’t know how good that is but it would seem to be a pretty high percentage of the time. 

Meanwhile the pitching has given up 4 or more runs in 30 of 39 games, 77% of the time. 
We can break it down to 5 or more runs scored vs given up as well.  Offense scored 5 or more in 16/39 games, 41% of the time.  Pitching has given up 5 or more in 23/39 games, 59% of the time.

People can complain about the offense all they want, but they seem to be doing their job at a decent rate. It’s quite obvious to me that the struggles are on the pitching. 
 

 

[Just Regular]

This is kind of like the moment in Bull Durham when we need a rainout, except the rainout is a White Sox series.    I'd like to say a trip to Coors Field too but Colorado there is actually decent.

Next 6 may be rough - unlike the Guardians or Red Sox, the Astros and Dodgers are as strong as the better versions of ourselves, and few in those fanbases are wondering if the roster core knows how to win.

[Matt Bennett]

52 minutes ago, LookitsPuck said:

August was the tale of two Gunnars.

The first half he had 1 dinger and 4 RBI. Yeah, he batted ~300, but had an OPS under 800. That's good, but that's not what this club needs from him.

Since 8/14, things have been better with 4 dingers and 9 RBI and an OPS over 1.000. That's more like it. 

But these last 4 games has been extremely poor. 1 RBI, 3 hits, OPS of 639. 

If you read between the lines, he had a 5 game period where he was on fire, but the rest of the month he's been incredibly lackluster. 

What are you talking about? How have you managed to complain about Gunnar's offensive production? 

He entered August with a .934 OPS. It has dropped ALL THE WAY down to .928. 

In his first 10 games of August he had an .874 OPS. He his 2nd 10 games of August he had a .920 OPS.

The 4 game OPS is laughable. Last 3 games: .748, last 5 games: .778, last 6 games: .951. Give me a break. Purposely selecting a slightly unfavorable sample size much?

Place your blame somewhere else.

We are a talking about a recently turned 23 year old player with over 300 games at the big league level that has NEVER had a bad month at the plate in his career! The worst wRC+ you'll find is a 96, which is BARELY below league average. Generational. 

[LookitsPuck]

7 minutes ago, Matt Bennett said:

What are you talking about? How have you managed to complain about Gunnar's offensive production? 

He entered August with a .934 OPS. It has dropped ALL THE WAY down to .928. 

In his first 10 games of August he had an .874 OPS. He his 2nd 10 games of August he had a .920 OPS.

The 4 game OPS is laughable. Last 3 games: .748, last 5 games: .778, last 6 games: .951. Give me a break. Purposely selecting a slightly unfavorable sample size much?

Place your blame somewhere else.

We are a talking about a recently turned 23 year old player with over 300 games at the big league level that has NEVER had a bad month at the plate in his career! The worst wRC+ you'll find is a 96, which is BARELY below league average. Generational. 

Good lord, way to completely distort what I'm saying.

Gunnar is far from a problem on this club. But my point I'm saying is it looks exponentially worse when the rest of the team isn't hitting. You look to the premium guys to carry the club. The Yankees have Soto and Judge, the Orioles have who? Gunnar had 7 RBI in July, he has 13 in August most of which came over a very short period. The point I'm saying is we aren't getting production. Gunnar carried this club in April, May, and June. 

Edited August 23 by LookitsPuck

[terpoh]

1 hour ago, ledzepp8 said:

They were 24 games over 500 on July 7th. They’re 17-21 since then. I’m not saying they haven’t struggled, but it’s disingenuous to start at some random date in June rather than their over 500 high point, in order to make a point. 

I wasn’t trying to pick a random date, I didn’t realize they got back to 24 games over later. My mistake. But regardless the point I was trying to make stands in that we are a 500 or below 500 team for a pretty extended amount of time.

[ledzepp8]

1 minute ago, terpoh said:

I wasn’t trying to pick a random date, I didn’t realize they got back to 24 games over later. My mistake. But regardless the point I was trying to make stands in that we are a 500 or below 500 team for a pretty extended amount of time.

For 39 out of 129 games. 

[Matt Bennett]

10 minutes ago, LookitsPuck said:

Good lord, way to completely distort what I'm saying.

Gunnar is far from a problem on this club. But my point I'm saying is it looks exponentially worse when the rest of the team isn't hitting. You look to the premium guys to carry the club. The Yankees have Soto and Judge, the Orioles have who? 

You didn't say any of that in your post? How was I supposed to gather that? The only thing you attempted to do was subjectively carve up a very good month of production for your negative narrative.

Gunnar is doing his thing! He has actually raised his OPS over his last 22 games, with a .931! I guess that's not carrying the club for you? You will want to look at others to place the cause of any offensive slide. 

Yes, the Yankees have Soto and Judge. You'll be looking a long time for hitters of that calibre. Judge is basically putting up the best offensive season in baseball history outside of Bonds? Gunnar is among the handful within eyesight of those numbers, definitely the youngest in the group, and only ever has "slumps" relative to his own production.