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Tigers Series I


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2 hours ago, Yossarian said:

I don't know what the feeling is in,  and around, Baltimore.  From my living room 3,000 miles away,  I just don't feel excited about the club right now.  

Folks around town still seem excited about the Orioles.  People have flags in their yards, and I see more caps, t-shirts, etc than I've seen in a long time.  They are coming to the games and cheering the team.

It's us diehards with our inflated expectations and assumed abilities to read tea leaves who are in the doldrums.

It's baseball!  Anything can still happen.

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1 hour ago, SteveA said:

Nah, I'm not going to accept anything.   I'm going to keep rooting for them and hope they turn it around.   They have talent.   And if they don't I'll be disappointed.

If I rooted for the team in 1998-2011, and late-2017 thru 2021... why would I give up now?   Yeah, 34-39 over 73 games SUCKS.   But you know what?   They went several years without having a stretch that GOOD and I kept rooting for them.   Not going to quit now.

I don't think anyone said quit rooting for them.  

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8 hours ago, Yossarian said:

I don't know what the feeling is in,  and around, Baltimore.  From my living room 3,000 miles away,  I just don't feel excited about the club right now.   We are just a handful of games away from the end of the season,  have an almost guaranteed  post season berth, and are in a tight race for another division title - and yet,  this is a very unexciting team that I expect to lose in the first round of the playoffs.   The injuries and mediocre play over the last two months have taken the wind out of my sails.  I would not be surprised at all to see us get swept by the Tigers.

If we get swept , that “almost guaranteed playoff spot” will certainly be in more jeopardy with 3 more games against them as well.

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It's sad when you almost get no hit by a bunch of no name Detroit pitchers.  If it was Skubal shutting out the O's, I could at least make the excuse that sometimes a pitcher is just great.  Hoping that Westburg has some kind of special sauce, because when Westburg went down, that's when the offense went south.

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34 minutes ago, Three Run Homer said:

If they call up Kjerstad, they could at least sit O'Hearn.  That would still leave Adley, Cowser, Holliday and Jimenez in the regular lineup, but four automatic outs is better than five.  

Not only that but when we were healthy Hyde had some actual bench guys that could pinch hit.  Urias was on the bench when Mateo and Westburg were starting.  O’Hearn was a possibility sometimes or Austin Hayes, or Kjerstadt or Norby.  Now we have to pinch hit with Soto, Slater, Mayo, Maton.  The injuries and trades have hurt the depth of the team.  

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I'm not terribly worried about Rutschman, but we're forced to trot out guys like Emmanuel Rivera, and we're forced to let Holliday learn on the job despite the fact that he's struggling horribly right now.  Going from Westburg/Mateo/Mountcastle/Urias to Holliday/Livan Soto/Emmanuel Rivera/Nick Maton is such a huge blow.  And Eloy Jimenez and O'Hearn are being exposed in full time duty due to all the injuries.  We only have like 5/9 of the lineup actually capable of producing on a consistent basis.  So it's no wonder we can't score a run to save our lives.

 

And I think it's good that Holliday's getting MLB plate appearances, but he should have been getting them with guys like Urias able to spell him against tough lefties.  Instead we're stuck with him and teams bring in a lefty reliever to pitch to him in tough spots and he flails like a blind squirrel up there because he's 20 and doesn't know how to deal with elite lefty specialists.

Edited by Hallas
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Look, I'm not about to anoint Livan Soto as some kind of a savior but he did more tonight than Jackson Holliday has done in two weeks combined.

I'm as big of a Holliday believer on this board as anyone else is, but my goodness he's not ready right now and it shows.  Soto needs to be the starting 2nd baseman from here on out until he shows he's as bad as Holliday is right now.

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