What a difference a couple players make

[HowAboutThat]

Westburg, Urias, Mountcastle…

Good defense, even when there’s bad defense. Westburg missed a ball that went for a hit, but I didn’t feel any foreboding, no,”here we go again” because I felt sure that that one play wouldn’t ruin the game. And it didn’t.

Good pitching, even when there’s bad pitching. Eflin had never in his whole career walked 5 guys, but I wasn’t worried, for some reason. Even when Bowman had his worst outing as an oriole, I wasn’t worried, no,”here we go again” because I felt sure we’d win. And we did.

Good hitting, good base running, even when Santander REALLY wanted that triple… and didn’t get it. 

The fundamental baseball smarts seem to have returned, so a mistake is just a mistake.

I feel really good about this team now, even though they haven’t been perfect. I really feel they’ll cover for each other, and we will enter the playoffs strong.

I feel most comfortable about facing the Yankees again; they just don’t seem like a strong team, and I’m not the least bit worried about facing them again.

[Filmstudy]

You can add Culoumbe and Webb to this list.  All 5 are between useful and star members of the roster, but there is also a big addition-by-subtraction gain in getting rid of the 5 guys they replaced.

[Roy Firestone]

47 minutes ago, Filmstudy said:

You can add Culoumbe and Webb to this list.  All 5 are between useful and star members of the roster, but there is also a big addition-by-subtraction gain in getting rid of the 5 guys they replaced.

And an "underrated" add from a guy who missed time...Heston Kjerstad could be a clutch bat from the left side as a DH..He's come up pretty big for us lately..

[Roll Tide]

So ..Are we getting hot or just seem to have the Yankees number?

[Jagwar]

13 minutes ago, Roll Tide said:

So ..Are we getting hot or just seem to have the Yankees number?

Posted a similar reply to you in the other thread. The O's may be getting hot, but they are also healthy. Getting Webb, Coulombe, Westburg, Urias, Mountcastle and Kjerstad back is huge. Like a mini trade deadline where we had to give up the schmoes they replaced. 

[tntoriole]

43 minutes ago, Jagwar said:

Posted a similar reply to you in the other thread. The O's may be getting hot, but they are also healthy. Getting Webb, Coulombe, Westburg, Urias, Mountcastle and Kjerstad back is huge. Like a mini trade deadline where we had to give up the schmoes they replaced. 

And they are all well rested 

[Sports Guy]

Who would have thunk that when healthy, the Os are a much better team?

[sportsfan8703]

We’re coming together. 

Burnes, Eflin, Suarez, Kremer(game 4)

Our bullpen minus Bautista and Grayson

Our 1-9 minus Mateo 

Our weaknesses are the MOO spots of the lineup and if they can produce, and back of the pen. 

[Too Tall]

13 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Who would have thunk that when healthy, the Os are a much better team?

And Hyde a much better manager?

[Moose Milligan]

I’ve been told that the injuries shouldn’t have been an excuse for poor performance. That some of these guys were still playing when the poor performance started. That Elias should have been able to replace them no matter what. 
 

 

[waroriole]

15 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Who would have thunk that when healthy, the Os are a much better team?

All these guys, plus Grayson, were healthy in July when the funk started. 

[dzorange]

O’s finally have their depth back. 1-9 you have league average or better hitters. They can now platoon the likes of O’Hearn, Kjerstad, Holliday. Defense is much more athletic. 

This is going to be a 90 win team. Going into the season, the over/under was right around 90 wins if I recall.

No Bradish, Means, Wells, Bautista. Rodriguez out for the playoffs. Lengthy injuries to Westburg, Urias, Mateo, Mountcastle. Underperforming Adley and zero production out of any of their hyped up young prospects.

We might not get the long playoff run that we are hoping for, but this is still solidly a playoff team while others like the Rangers are not and the Braves may not be.

The one last thing I’d like to see here is Adley getting a whole lot of rest this week.

Edited September 26 by dzorange

[Sports Guy]

1 hour ago, waroriole said:

All these guys, plus Grayson, were healthy in July when the funk started. 

You aren’t going to be great all the time.  They were 1 game under 500 in July.  Last year’s team didn’t have a sub 500 month but they were 13-11 one month and that was way off compared to most months. That’s obviously better than 12-13 but it’s not that much different. 
 

But the idiotic comments on this board the last few months were so over the top and the ignoring and dismissal of the massive amount of injuries was astoundingly dumb.

The impact of those injuries also went beyond just the injured players themselves. It was the guys replacing them and how bad they were. The Os were routinely putting out several sub 650 OPs guys everyday. Lots of automatic outs.

Edited September 26 by Sports Guy

[Moose Milligan]

37 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

 But the idiotic comments on this board the last few months were so over the top and the ignoring and dismissal of the massive amount of injuries was astoundingly dumb.

The impact of those injuries also went beyond just the injured players themselves. It was the guys replacing them and how bad they were. The Os were routinely putting out several sub 650 OPs guys everyday. Lots of automatic outs.

It's like they kept asking why and didn't want to understand the answers.  

[Sports Guy]

29 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

It's like they kept asking why and didn't want to understand the answers.  

People don’t want to hear excuses..they just want to complain.

The bottom line is the Os had a lot of injuries and a lot of bad luck outside of those injuries. 
 

This whole situation reminds me of Colton Cowser earlier this year.  Lots of people were saying he wasn’t good, send him down, etc…and then you would show them the statcast numbers, show why he’s been unlucky and show why the defense is so valuable and all they wanted to do was stick their fingers in their ears, yell lalallala can’t hear you and say, show me results.

The inability for people to see the forest through the trees, despite the mountains of evidence put in front of them, is really mind boggling to me.

Edited September 26 by Sports Guy