It’s official: Luke Jones and Nestor are worried about Orioles pitching over the long haul.
Luke Jones and Nestor are worr…es pitching over the long haul
Fri, Aug 09, 2024 8:06AM • 50:15
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
orioles, bullpen, pitching, weeks, year, talk, games, win, kramer, rodriguez, team, grayson, lose, give, starter, pitchers, baseball, ravens, dean, runs
SPEAKERS
Luke Jones, Nestor J. Aparicio
Nestor J. Aparicio 00:00
Uh, welcome home. We are W, N, S, T, townsell, Baltimore and Baltimore positive. We are positively onto a weekend where the birds are away and they shall return home next week, Luke Jones will be there. He is covering all things ravens and pre season tilts and all this foul weather going the other direction. Boy, the birds went up to Toronto, and, you know, I said to my wife’s I said out loud while we were watching the game, because we quote you around my place, as well as Ben McDonald and Kevin Brown when they’re doing their Abbott and Costello. Laurel and Hardy. It’s more like Laurel and Hardy, I think, than anything else. Um, I said, Luke thinks if Grayson doesn’t come back, they’re gonna have a hard time winning the World Series. And then I said, You know what, I think they’re kind of in trouble. You know what I mean, like, and then you go out night after night, you don’t know what you’re gonna get from your starters. And that’s a team that’s sort of they’re a little troubled right now for the trading deadline and the pieces that they’ve acquired, the Rodriguez thing, the web thing in the bullpen. Um, yeah, I mean, and if they’re not hitting the ball, they’re not going to win. That’s that is their profile. 60 days out on playoff games that matter, they’re going to have to hit the ball,
Luke Jones 01:22
man, yeah, as I wrote it, Baltimore positive.com, I mean, other than the knights, where Corbin burns pitches, or maybe Zach Eflin, but even Zach Eflin, it’s not like he has a sub two and a half era or something like that. He’s a good pitcher, but he’s not a great pitcher as it pertains to starters anyway, they’re not really built to win two one games at this point. And let’s be clear, there aren’t many teams out there that are built to win two to one. And I want to continue to say this because it’s the truth. There’s really no one that’s standing out. I mean, the Phillies have come back to life a little bit on the West Coast after a three week struggle. But Nestor, there’s one team, as we’re going into the weekend, there’s one team in baseball playing 600 ball. It’s the Phillies. Cleveland’s coming off of a five game losing streak. The Yankees just lost two out of three to the angels who stink so and the Orioles, of course, lose two out of three to Toronto. I mean, you’re just kind of looking at this, and you’re saying about the saving grace for the Orioles, for how they’ve played really since the final week of June, is that all the other teams that we kind of fancy ourselves thinking are the really good teams that are vying for a number one seed or a number two seed in their respective leagues, they’ve scuffled as well. So beyond saying that this is a team that I think if you just look at it, and this was trending this way anyway, with the pitching injuries they’ve had over the course of the 2024 season, but they’ve got to swing the bats, because that’s what they do best. I mean, even with the lousy July that they had, they’re still a top five team in terms of runs per game. They’ve got a profile like that more often than not, or they’re going to really struggle to win games. And I think Thursday night was a perfect example of that. Now they score four runs in the night the ninth inning, after many people like myself had turned it off, and I turned it on, just as a Santander flies out to to end the game. But they’ve got to score runs. And I mean, Kevin Gosman, give him credit, it hasn’t been a good year for him, especially pitching at Rogers Center, but he pitched well on Thursday night. But if the Orioles aren’t going to score runs and they’re not going to swing the bats at a high level, then yeah, more often than not, they’re going to really struggle to win games. Because, I mean, we saw it. Dean Kramer as it stands right now, optimism for Grayson Rodriguez not being out too long aside, he’s their number three starter right now. I mean, there, there is no one else. I mean, okay, Kade povidge is in the minors. Cole Irvin’s back at triple A after being outrighted. Chase McDermott’s out. I mean, who do you Who else is there? I mean, this, this reminds me a little bit of the Ravens a few years ago, when you lose so many guys in the secondary and suddenly just say, like, what do you really expect is going to happen? So I don’t say that to be flippant, or that the season’s over, or even to your point of of you know how you started our conversation where you know if they’re down to Corbin burns and Zach Eflin as your only truly established starting pitchers that you have any level of real confidence in. You
Nestor J. Aparicio 04:27
have a bullpen that is questionable. Has been questionable from the beginning. It has never looked like a really good not even in June, when they’re winning a lot of games, right? Like it never looked like the bullpen was going to be a strength of this operation. And we talked about it for dude, 90 days, right? Really, six months, we talked about, what is the bullpen going to look like? And it’s August. That’s still, I don’t want to call it a dumpster fire, but it’s certainly a massive question mark that that. That is the biggest question mark on the team has been all year now, whether they can hit the ball or score four runs or piss you off, that you turn them off in the seventh inning or fall asleep and then wake up and find out that the bottom of the lineup scored some runs because, you know, I mean, Mayo’s going to hit too. I mean, you know, like, I don’t know it’s going to be this week, this month. We said that about holidays. 22 years old. He hits 30 home runs, a triple A stop. He’ll be okay. He’s got to figure it out. Holidays figured it out. Um, I don’t know where they are, with West Berg being available in October, any of the pitching that that is Webb and Rodriguez and you know, guys out. And then just what Soto is, and what Dominguez is good, what any of these guys are good? The new guys are going to be Rogers so far. Okay, I mean, I don’t the ceiling on these guys feels like Dean Kramer. And I’ll say this about Dean Kramer, because I probably beat him up more privately than I do on the radio or whatever. Because I do like his hair. I like his swagger. You know, I like Dean Kramer. I would party with Dean Kramer. I, you know, if I had a media credential, I would know Dean Kramer, because I don’t. I guess I could say whatever I want, but I texted you when he walked the second guy, and I didn’t even take the Twitter. I mean, I said to my wife, I’m like, this is their three starter. If this is a playoff game, and that’s not a playoff team. They’re playing. Let’s start with that. You know, all of the above, and I said, I don’t trust Dean Kramer, like he’s taking the ball tonight. I see him, I put the pre game on, and whoever’s you, I I missed the pre game. Actually, I came out even know it was Melanie. I guess Melanie, or I don’t even did it, but who? But Ben’s on and Kevin’s on. He’s walking in because it was 707 start. They don’t start the games like it’s 701 you get up at 657 and I had, can I plug a sponsor? New sponsor, yeah, Cooper’s. I had Cooper’s gumbo, uh, because I ate the black and tuna the day before. And we’re going to be doing the oyster tour. Uh, we’re going to be doing the show Cooper’s second, second Friday, like Friday, 13th, 14th, whatever that weekend is, they’re doing the oyster tour, oyster festival down at in Fells Point. So I’ll be doing the show down there. So I’m eating my gumbo, dude, I had like, the Guy Fieri gumbo, right? So I got my bowl. I’m up Kramer’s walking in from the bullpen, and I’m like, I don’t trust Dean Kramer. And then that’s I’m thinking to myself, that, and then two guys on nobody out. I’m texting you. I’m like, reminder, I don’t trust Dean Kramer. So these are the things I do. I don’t do this to be flipping on Twitter, but this is how I really like I’m viewing this. And we haven’t had a whole lot of pennant race baseball to talk about around here, but oh my god, they start to feel little. I thought something that will make Joe Enoch laugh. And I don’t know how old were you in like, 99 2000 you read the papers. You were smart kid, right? You were 217. Years old then, right? 18 years old. Do you remember? Well, Angelos used to do a lot of crazy ish, right, like, but my two good looking sons, you probably remember that quote, but this is, this was the best one when they started losing. And it wasn’t John Miller’s fault and it wasn’t Davy Johnson’s fault, and it was, it’s probably 2000 Oh, 123, he blamed it on. Must be that old black cat. Do you remember the old black cat?
Luke Jones 08:27
I do.
Nestor J. Aparicio 08:32
I knew I’d make you smile. So, dude. I mean, like, I thought when the Rodriguez thing happened, I’m like, I just gotten soaked off a yoga mat. My eyes are bleary. I got my it was kind of like that morning when the bridge went down. We were together. I’m like, just trying to read my phone. And I’m like, This must be the old black cat.
Luke Jones 08:54
I mean, you just get to a point where Kyle Bradish, John means Tyler wells Grayson Rodriguez questionable until we get a little more definitive timetable in terms of a return. I mean, the early indications that Brandon Hyde gave in Toronto a couple days ago seemed to lend itself to some optimism, and it not being as serious as it was last year. And then you go in the bullpen, and you know, knowing that Tyler wells whether he’s going to be in your rotation, or whether guys like me thought, you know, maybe he would be an interesting back end bullpen arm as the year goes on, you don’t have him, Danny coulam, who we haven’t mentioned, who is still on track to be ready at some point in September. But you know, is he going to be Danny coulomb, or is it going to be Danny coulomb trying to round in the form, where’s the Calvary
Nestor J. Aparicio 09:42
coming, and when the Calvary is all injured right now? And you’re like, he’ll be fine, he’ll be fine. He’ll be fine. I wouldn’t feel good about the Ravens having three guys out in December. And they’re like, he’ll be back for the playoffs. And I’m like, Yeah, okay. I mean, sure. You’ll be able to hit a 99 mile an hour fastball when he hasn’t seen one, and there’s no buoy to go to because it’s September 23 and, I mean, we played some of those games last year, right? Like means was going to be kind of available and wasn’t right? And all of these Dude, I don’t, I don’t want to be mean, but I call it fool’s gold. You know, there comes a point where it becomes fool’s gold, because, much like Bill Parcell said, You are what you are right now, and what they are right now is not what they were eight weeks ago, what they’ve been designed to be. They’re a they’re a hobbled horse right now. They really are, to your point, Yankees, guardians, all that. But you know, I don’t, I don’t love what’s going on right now. I mean, I don’t know how you could right and
Luke Jones 10:43
again, there’s a lot of season left, so that there’s that’s a dangerous proposition. When you think about it through the lens of you’re you’re kind of holding on for dear life with what you have, with your pitching as it is, let alone thinking about what could very well happen, which is having another pitching injury or two, because it’s just how this works. But there is also a lot of season left, and you do have other arms in the bullpen, as we talked about at the trade deadline. Now it hasn’t gone well for Gregory Soto, so Anthony Dominguez, for the most part, has been pretty good. So you have other guys in that bullpen, you always have an opportunity to change the narrative, right? And again, we’ll continue to go back to where the Arizona Diamondbacks were at this time last year, where the Texas Rangers were at this time last year. And I can give you any number of other examples. So for me, it’s still not at all about oh my gosh. Are they going to miss the playoffs or anything like that? No, they’re still in great position. I mean, they’re still right there for the best record in the Al. I mean, Cleveland, the Yankees and the Orioles have all had their struggles, right? And they’ve all had their times where, all right, maybe they’re getting back on track, and then they stub their toe again. So, so you have that, but as it stands, as they’re presently constructed. Where have they suffered more attrition? Where have they suffered more injuries? It’s absolutely on the pitching side. So that’s where I’ll continue to say that they need their bats to show up on a nightly basis. And again, on Thursday, it was a little too, little too late, they scored four times in the ninth inning. I appreciate the fact that they didn’t completely give up, but they also did not do much for eight innings in Thursday night’s game. And when Dean Kramer is pitching, when Trevor Rogers is pitching, when Albert Suarez, who’s going to start down at the trop this weekend and is back in the starting rotation, when he’s on the mound, they need their offense to come to play on those nights, because what are you realistically expecting now, Dean Kramer, Look, you can’t walk. You can’t walk. Dalton Varsha, who’s hitting right around the Mendoza line twice, in front of lad Guerrero Jr, who has just been absolutely on fire the last few weeks. So, I mean, that’s something that I won’t, you know, he’s not gonna get off the hook for
Nestor J. Aparicio 13:03
consulting Varsha. Do you think of Gary Varsha, or, like, every single time, or am I just old enough?
Luke Jones 13:11
I don’t. I mean, I just see a guy who plays a great center field and robs them of base hits and all that. But
Nestor J. Aparicio 13:16
it is stunning when I watch them how I, like, knew these kids, parents, baseball card, but it was kind of that way with Buddy bell. And my dad would say, I remember Gus Bell, you know what I mean, like, or whoever the lineage people, but baseball’s great, like that. I mean, it really is, especially when you get to be 55 and, you know, you see Boone’s running around. And my aunt lived down the street from Ray Boone in San Diego, right? So he had 1954 you know, so these families ripkens, right? I mean, ripkens, excuse me, iron splash, you make sure I get that right. Iron splash, I’ll have a letter for him next month too, on his anniversary. But the, yeah, the, the, this is the issue with Kramer. Like you pointed out, I don’t know what I’m getting dude, and it’s, and it’s rarely strike one in total command to knowing what he’s doing, and, and, and I’ll point this out. I don’t want to pile on him, because I really like him. I do, um, he’s, he’s a, he’s a remnant of Machado deal. I for me, I demonstrative behavior. I brought this up. I mean, I literally was doing yoga on the floor. I’m doing like a dead bug like, to get my back strong so I don’t look the way I look three years ago. And I’m saying to my wife, you know, I’m like, Dude, I’m, he’s gonna, he’s gonna melt down. You know what? I mean, well, once something goes wrong, when the ball gets booted, or whatever, and there’s been a long strain of that that I’ve witnessed around here, of Sidney ponsons, and I can just go through a whole bunch of pictures, Cabrera, I mean, I’ll give you names of guys that once the first thing got bad. You. And this was to Joe Flacco, and that’s what I was doing, dead bug. I said, you know Flacco, and I would sit in his locker, and he would over and over and over again talk about never showing up a teammate, never, you know, showing fire at anyone walking off, whether you threw a touchdown or interception. The same way he had that demeanor. His father taught in that. And there’s something about losing your cool that usually, for me, you wind up losing the game when you lose your cool. And whatever losing the cool is. And for me, Kramer is and Ben’s always, you know, oh, Dino, you know, he’s going to hold it together and and cheerleading section while this is going on. And I’m watching it, and I’m like, Oh no, please. And he kind of held it together a little bit first inning, right? I mean, like, what you don’t want is two and a third, but you didn’t get much better than that. Really, what you know, once the fifth, once the Home Run app, and it’s like, there’s the big one, and this is the one that’s going to chase him out before he even gets to the fifth inning. This is the one that’s going to put him behind. This is the one that’s going to tax the bullpen, and it’s like, all right, five days from now, is it going to be different? I don’t know. Dude, I don’t know. Dude, yeah. I mean, baseball, if our show is bad, I hate, hated interrupt you on that, but that’s what all I have with baseball, is old ish,
Luke Jones 16:13
well, I mean, I think you know, if you’ve looked at Kramer the last couple times out, I thought his final, final stat line didn’t look as as good as he had actually pitched in those outings, in part because their defense, you know, we’ve talked about the offense, the defense has also had some times where someone like Team Kramer is on the hill where, man, you better defend for him. Because, again, it’s not like Corbin burns where, okay, Corbin burns gets base runners, and I get it sometimes, you know he allows stolen bases and that whole weird thing that that he has with the pitch timer, but it’s cordon burns, and he still finds ways to get out of it way more often than not, right? Gene Kramer’s not gonna be able to do that. Dean Kramer, at his best, is a league average starting pitcher, which, by the way, still has value when he’s at his best. He you’ll take him as a number four, number five starter, but he’s now severely miscast because of the injuries that they have, and he’s not pitching particularly well. I mean, to your point, a little bit of tough luck in the first inning, walks. Varsha can’t do that in front of lad. I mean, you just can’t do that. Period gives up three runs. They’re down three nothing. You’re in a position, then where to your point is he going to get through two or three innings at that point put it together? Actually pitch pretty well. Second, third, fourth inning. Defense was shaky, and he was able to get out of that at one point as well. And then gets to the fifth inning, and you know, you’re out of the game. At that point, he’s out of the game. And you know his era now is 4.7 which, yeah, but
Nestor J. Aparicio 17:42
he gives up the big fly. Would it have mattered if he gave that up in the fifth or even the sixth? Right? Like, if he came five and a third and five, you know? Like, like, I don’t know. I
Luke Jones 17:53
mean, you’ll always take more. I mean, at this point, you’ll always take your starter, giving you more out. So, I mean, there’s not if there are more
Nestor J. Aparicio 17:59
outs that lead to the three the Earl Weaver, as they say, in the sixth inning. And he leaves with five or six runs at that point, because there’s going to be like, if he survives the first spill. You know, I’m with you. He can get to the fourth or fifth inning. I’m just, it’s all the above. It’s command, it’s strike one, it’s, um, it’s what happens after something bad. Happens with something bad. And defensively, you’re putting Kobe Mayo out of third base, you just, you know, there’s things and they haven’t, you know, Henderson’s been not so good, right? Like, they’ve just been off. And the one thing I wrote down to talk to you about today is we go into a weekend here where they’re going to measure themselves again, against Tampa, then Washington, the whole deal, we’re going to be having the cheatstros couple weeks from now. They’re they’re going to get a taste of some better teams as well. Um, I this the notion that, like, it was going to be easy, and they won 101 games last year, and they had a number one starter, and nothing was going to go wrong, dude. I’ll go back to some of our conversations in late May, and there’s still never been swept all you know. And you would laugh at that and make your you had two months to make that Arlington argument before they actually got swept. And I don’t know. Man, they’ve been a different team. I feel differently about them on a night by night basis, about ways they’re going to win, ways they’re going to lose, ways they’re going to stay in games. And to your point, these walk off miracle Taylor T garden, okay, maybe it’s Mateo on this team, or Urias, or whoever that fringe guys, even cows are. Back in April, was playing the hero role, right? They haven’t had a whole lot of hero moments lately and comebacks and all of that. And the bullpen. I mean, the bullpen is going to be involved seven nights a week. It just is, even with burns, the bullpen is going to be involved seven nights a week. How many nights is it going to be really good? And it’s going to have to be way better. Year, and how many nights are they going to score four runs in the ninth inning and still lose seven to six man?
Luke Jones 20:05
I mean, I agreed there’s still 20 games over 500 I mean, even, even over the last six weeks, where it’s felt as bad as it’s felt at times, their record over the last six weeks has not been a disaster. I mean, their high water mark was 24 games over 500 they’re 20 right now. So we keep looking at through that lens, and I get it, they’ve been mediocre for six weeks now. But win
Nestor J. Aparicio 20:31
one, lose one feels a lot different than what we were getting before.
Luke Jones 20:34
No question. Yeah, although at the same time, like everything you’re talking about in terms of feel and 100 plus win pace and all that. None of that matters. When you get to October, like all those feelings, or how dominant they are, or how many games they win the division by we learned that last October, none of that matters.
Nestor J. Aparicio 20:52
Anderson, it’s three home runs in the first game they’re going to win,
Luke Jones 20:57
right? So, so again. And I don’t say that to be flippant. I don’t say that to to act like I don’t have any concerns about this team. I do. But I’ll also point out and and this is not me spiking the ball, that I was right, because I would not have thought this back in June when they were finishing up that series in the Bronx, but, but Nestor going into the year, I picked them to win the division, but I picked them to also just win 94 games, you know, for what they did last year, and the amount of health that they had overall safer Batista at the very end of the season, and how young they were, and just how everything played out. They didn’t get swept. I mean, they had amazing record against the Al east, all those different things. It doesn’t it quite frequently, even for the best team, even for the team that wins it all, even for the team that’s last left standing in early November and celebrating at the pitchers mound and raising the what, what did Rob Manfred call it the hunk of metal right? The World Series trophy, you’ll find stories of injuries and trials and tribulations all field things can happen, just not playing well, all these different things that happen and it tests your mettle. I mean, I said this a few weeks ago, and I will still say this, and I’ll still say this even come November, when the season’s over, regardless of how it winds up, what the Orioles are going through right now, this young club as it’s presently constructed, and now that you’ve added holiday to the mix, you’ve added Mayo to the mix, Westbrook will be back in the mix. You know, the next wave of prospects, which isn’t going to be coming. It’s not imminent. But you know, beside in a year and a half, whatever it is, these guys are all going to be better in the long run for what they’re going through right now. And I know that sounds like a wishy washy kind of thing. You know, I’m not blowing smoke here and saying everything’s fine right now, but you’ve got to go through adversity. You’ve got to go through that. I mean, you may. We made the talking point just a couple days ago when we were talking about the Ravens with Joe Flacco and that 2012 team that I said to you, I don’t think they would have won in 2012 if Lee Evans and Billy Cundiff do what they were supposed to do in the AFC Championship Game the year before, and they won in 2011 I don’t think for one I don’t know if Ray Lewis comes back. I don’t know what happens with Ed Reed. I don’t know if Joe Flacco goes on the same I would have been
Nestor J. Aparicio 23:20
one hell of a party on Maryland, downtown Indianapolis, that night, brother,
Luke Jones 23:24
but, but you just, you don’t know, and everything when you’re doing
Nestor J. Aparicio 23:28
my I’ll write a fiction novel when I’m done with all this on what might have been, yeah.
Luke Jones 23:32
I mean, who knows. But the point is, with that, everything you go through when you win a championship, when you do something of real consequence in October or January or early February, or NBA or the NHL in June, you’ve gone through adversity at some point in time, and some in some cases, it’s earlier in your life, with individual players all that. But the point is, this is really difficult to do, and there’s a lot of failure baked in. And when you have young players as decorated as some of the Orioles young prospects have been, you have some of these guys
Nestor J. Aparicio 24:10
meteoric rise. They haven’t done anything but gone up, right? And that,
Luke Jones 24:13
you know, that was one thing I think that was appealing about Adley rutschman. If you go look at him at Oregon State when he first got there, remember, he struggled with the bat. He kind of rebuilt a swing. So there was kind of that evidence for him individually. Now current struggles aside, but him way back when, having that profile of a growth mindset, you know, someone that has gone through something and wants to get better. Now these young guys all have that in the sense of gunner Henderson was not a top five overall pick. Gunner Henderson was a high school kid who had kind of a weird swing and but they saw raw tools and raw talent, and he had the ability to want to go to work. I was just reading it again with Jackson holiday, some of the work that he put in, not just when he was sent back down, but when he was drafted. He was. At their minor league camp, and he was looking at video of gunner Henderson, and he told the, basically, the Orioles player development people, I want you to make me like him, you know, looking at gunner Henderson at that point in time, who had made, you know, was on the cusp of making his major league debut back in, you know, late 2022, so, you know, the point is this is a really difficult game. You’re going to go through struggles for every year that you might win 101 games, or you might blow through the postseason field and win the World Series, and it’s just your time. You’re also going to have times where you struggle, and you’re going to have times where it looks really difficult. The Orioles are absolutely going through that right now. They’re in that right now. And the injuries are the part of where you look at this and say, Boy, their margin for error is way smaller than it was six weeks ago, let alone talking about this on February 1, when we thought that their rotation was going to be Corbin burns, Kyle, Bradish, Grayson, Rodriguez, John means, and then maybe Dean Kramer in the number five spot, you know, long before F Lynn or Trevor Rogers or or that we even knew who Albert Suarez was, let alone that he’d be starting games for them in a pennant race. So things aren’t going to go to plan. And they’re really, you know, they’re, they’re metals being tested right now. And, you know, you can, we can debate how well they’re handling it? I think in some ways, they’ve handled it okay. In other ways, you say, Hey, you got to pick it up. That defense that they played over the first three months of the season, where’s that been? You know, the pitching. I mean, again, Dean Kramer needs to be better. We’ve seen Dean Kramer be better than what we’ve seen in 2024 no question, he’s got to pick it up. You know, Trevor Rogers has got to pick it up for them. You know, coming from Miami and you know, they need Zach Eflin to pitch more like he did last year than what he was for the first three and a half months with the rays, which was not bad, but not as good as he was last year. They need Adley rutschman To get back to being Adley rutschman. I mean, go down the list. They need the power bat to come back for gunner Henderson down the stretch. They need Jordan Westberg to come back healthy. You know, they need Jackson holiday to keep this up and but he’s a rookie, and he’s 20 years old, and you also know that, yep, pitchers are going to adjust again, and he’s going to have to adjust back. So I don’t say all those things to just say, Oh, it’s over, or oh, this team’s not going to be able to make a run, or anything like that. But boy, yeah, they do have a smaller margin for error. And you really hope that grace and Rodriguez can one come back, and two look like Grayson Rodriguez, because that would be huge for them. You really hope that Danny coulomb and hopefully Jacob Webb and again, Jacob Webb with elbow inflammation, sometimes that’s a really serious thing, and sometimes it’s he could be back in three weeks. But, you know, you’re hoping for the best. They have to stay healthy from here on out. I mean, at some point in time, the dam just breaks. And as I I said this so many times back in 2021 with the ravens, where some point in time, next man UPS a t shirt slogan and nothing more. I mean, no one has endless depth of guys that are going to come in and do, yeah, but I’ve
Nestor J. Aparicio 28:03
seen what McDermott and povidge and these guys look like, and I’ve seen what Irvin like. So we debate that all day long. I’ll just say this, and I wrote this down, um, they keep waiting for the the pitching to be a strength of the team, and it felt that way during that press conference in May when there were six starters and means and brat, right, like, and then we’re like, okay, so we need to make it a strength. We know we can hit the ball. We know we’re going to play defense. Obviously, thought we’re going to play defense. We got speed, we got this, we got bench. We got, you know, we got a manager knows what he’s doing. We, you know, we’re geniuses. We got leader in rochman, you know, we got all of the pieces. And, dude, I just looked up and saw the date and where we are in August, and thought, my God, we’re three weeks removed from the all star game, where we had the pitcher, we had the catcher, we had the home run, but we were first place. We’re the or, you know, like, we’re the defending jam, like, and now, of a sudden, it’s like, Oh, wow. And I am committed at this point that this, the pitching is not going to be a strength. And if, when they get bounced out at some point, you’ll look at it and say, the pitching cost them, and if they don’t get bounced out and win the World Series, you’ll say, Well, you know, Soto and Dominguez, these guys had a little more pedigree. Webb came back and, you know, they all because they’re not going to do it as comprised. I don’t you know what I mean, like, they’re going to need a couple of miracles, because what I’m seeing, you’re what they’re putting out there right now, I don’t think is going to get it done. And to your point, maybe other teams have attrition in other ways as well. And maybe we view it differently once you actually. Barry bloom wrote to me, he’s in Hawaii this week, so I sent him, told him to go to Leo this for some coconut cream pie, and he’ll come on next week. He said, You guys are better off being a wild card. That’s what he said. There’s your 60 years of wisdom. And I think to myself, I to your point. It’s throwing dark. In October, and they can score 14 runs in October, you know, like they’re capable of hitting the ball. There’s no doubt about that. That’s how it’s going to have to happen around here. They’re going to profile like that, Peyton Manning, team that couldn’t play defense, or, you know, I mean, they’re just going to, they’re going to be a lopsided team that has a chance. Yeah, and,
Luke Jones 30:20
I mean, that’s why, even before the Grayson Rodriguez injury, I mean, you know, I pointed out, you know, you look at what Arizona, how Arizona profiled last year. I mean, they had two starters that they felt really, really good about. Now, their bullpen really performed, you know, you look at them this year. Now, they’re, they’re, they played way better baseball of late, you know, meaning, like the last six weeks, compared to where they were. But you look at it, look how fleeting that was. They make it all the way to the World Series. They’re not the best team in the NL this year, you know. So the Indians had
Nestor J. Aparicio 30:52
the best bullpen in baseball two weeks ago, right? And and they would be them in the Phillies, and the trading deadline would be indicative of this. And God, we’re only a week out on the training deadline. Now, feels like, you know, everything’s weeks a month in this league, right? Because they play so much literally, but the Phillies and the Indians, or, excuse me, guardians, I don’t mean to do that. I just thought, you know, so it’s there. I’ve gotten, I’ve gotten the r out of Washington, but it feels to me like if it’s about bullpens and how they’ve performed during the season, and you think that you know you’re reading the racing form and you’re like your horses for courses. They were great in June. They were great in July. They’ll be great in October, if you believe that it’s going to be the guardians in the Phillies to that point, bullpen wise, if you just believe in bullpens, but that’s not the way it works either. But it’s the way it works when you do have five or six guys that can do it, and, you know, like, and I don’t know, look, dude, I made a huge case for canoe on Thursday, you know, Thursday morning with you, people can hear it. They can find it at Baltimore positive, I made this case that he could be their Savior. And you’re like, Ah, he doesn’t have no swing and miss. And I’m like, well, of all of these people, he’s the one I’ve seen over the last two years that looks like he’s at least had a flash that for a couple of weeks, he might do something spiritual, you know, like and in the way of Aldi did last year for the for the Rangers, or whatever, right? Oh,
Luke Jones 32:18
and that’s why, to me, there was some appeal to adding Sir Anthony Dominguez, who go looking at what he did for Philadelphia a couple years ago. Now, has he pitched at that level since then? No, but go look at what he did for them a couple years ago. I mean, he was a guy that, at times, was closing games, and certainly was pitching a lot of high leverage. I mean, Gregory Soto, who’s been a punchline for the Orioles so far. You know, pitched pitched better in his last time out in a low leverage situation, but this is a guy who was an all star caliber closer, albeit for a second division team a few years back. So I think when you add arms like that, you’re looking for an upside play, right? You’re looking for someone to get hot. Eloy Jimenez was the same thing offensively for the fact that the Orioles traded a bag of baseballs, right? I mean, that was the that kind of deal to get a lawyer Jimenez and see if he can get on a heater. In fact, Mike Elias basically used that term, you know, see if they can get you loyal hot down the stretch. So, I mean, that’s what you’re looking at here. I’m not saying that those are high Proposition bets. And obviously I’ve had my concerns about the bullpen. If there’s one critique I’ve had of Mike Elias for two years now, it’s not doing enough to the bullpen. And kind of sort of go on the approach of, well, let’s, let’s go for the upside guy, or let’s go for the guy that we can, quote, fix. And look, they’ve been able to fix some people. I mean, Jenny or Cano being what he’s been, Jacob Webb being what was a waiver claim, and turning him into a real reliever for you this year. Danny coulomb, who had had a solid career up until that point, but kind of unlocked a new level pitching for the Orioles the last couple years. So it’s not as though they haven’t had success stories doing that, but those are still, you know, though, they’re not high risk plays, but in many cases, those aren’t high reward plays either. I mean, for every guy that you might get that catch catches lightning in a bottle like Cano for half a season, and as an all star caliber pitcher, otherwise he’s been good. And I don’t say I’m not knocking yen your canoe, but consider where he was when the Orioles acquired him. You know, he’s not going to suddenly become this amazing guy that you could throw in the ninth inning and feel great about, right? He’s not going to just become Felix Batista. I mean, Felix Batista, another guy that they took to another level. So if there’s one criticism I have of Mike Elias is maybe not being a little more proactive and aggressive in addressing your bullpen because Nestor, you know, I’ve been consistent on this. I’ve talked about this in spring training. And that’s before losing coulomb or Jacob Webb, right? I mean, I said at that time I didn’t know if they had enough in their bullpen. Now, you can’t forecast. You can’t I don’t care how much anyone wants to talk about next man up mentality if you’re going to lose three or four starting pitchers in the same way that if you lose four or five guys in your secondary or whatever it might be, you know, you lose multiple injury. You know, you have multiple just
Nestor J. Aparicio 35:23
look at the Ravens in 21 and 22 beyond just guitars, right? You just were injuries. Yeah, yeah. You just get to a point where you just say, Ronnie, Stanley, Humphrey and Lamar were all out at various points, right? Their three best, highest paid player market, Mark Andrews in on that as well. Like, that’s one of the reasons the Ravens haven’t won a Super Bowl last year. A little different, but absolutely, yeah, absolutely.
Luke Jones 35:45
I mean, 21 the season was not over before it started, because you had Lamar Jackson. And look, they were, they were still before he got hurt in December, they were still in the mix for the number one seed. So again, franchise quarterback is a different animal than anything you see in baseball, you know, cordon Burns is the show you lose
Nestor J. Aparicio 36:02
a two, a three and a four. That’s a quarterback to me, yeah.
Luke Jones 36:07
I mean, that’s getting close, close to that territory, at least, no question. So, I mean, you just get to a point where I don’t, I don’t want to just say, you throw your hands up, but it’s kind of like, what do you expect their rotation to be the rest of the way. I mean, especially if Grayson Rodriguez doesn’t come back, if he does, and Grayson’s back pitching Labor Day and looks like Grayson and stacks a few good starts and looks like a healthy Grayson Rodriguez, then hey, that changes things a lot, because then you’re back to feeling pretty good about your top three in a projected postseason rotation, but yeah, the bullpen right now. I mean Brandon Hyde and Mike Elias and the coaching staff, it’s very much a case of what is this going to look like, trying to figure out the formula that’s going to work. And again, it might be all match up, dependent and by committee. And as I’ve said to you, I am not at all married to the idea that Craig Kimbrell must be the closer in the ninth inning. I mean, I’m just not. If there’s time, there are times where the matchups look like it might be a CNL Perez night or, you know, Sir Anthony Dominguez against right handers who struggle against, you know, with sliders, then, by all means, go in that direction, but they’ve got to find the formula that works. They’ve got to find get enough guys pitching well that you feel, hey, this is how we proceed. If we’re up one run in the sixth inning, how are we getting to the ninth inning? And this is kind of how we look at it. And obviously that’s going to vary a little bit, because every opponent that you face has a different line up in a different lineup construction, but, boy, they’ve got to figure that out. I mean, they’ve got pieces. It’s not as though they’re completely devoid of talent, but, I mean, it’s just, you lose, you know, you don’t have Danny coulomb, you don’t have Jacob Webb, you know, don’t have the three, you know, the four starters that they don’t have right now. Then, yeah, it’s just, it’s, it’s more difficult to navigate. That’s why, as I wrote at Baltimore positive.com on Thursday morning, that they’re not built to win two to one right now. I mean, they’re just not other than the nights that Corbin burns pitches, that’s when you have a shot to win two to one, really. Otherwise, you better swing the bats. And, no, I don’t mean that they have to score 10 runs every night, because these pitchers have to perform. You know Dean Kramer, that that was below the bar for what Dean Kramer can be when he’s at his best. So yeah, that that’s not going to play, right? But the best case scenario, if Albert Suarez gives you five or six innings and allows three runs, maybe even four runs, which that’s statistically not very good, but that’s going to give you a chance to win. So on those days, on those days when they get those kind of outings from Suarez, Rogers, Dean Kramer, Boy, you better score some runs, or, yeah, you’re probably going to end up losing, even if the bats come alive really late in the game, like they did on Thursday night. So, you know, always not lost. The season is not over. This is not doom and gloom, and they have no shot. Because, again, go through the list, Yankees just lost to the angels in a series all the talk about how the Red Sox played before the all star break, they haven’t played, you know, they’ve kind of maintained where they’ve been. It’s not like they’ve really surged Cleveland five game losing streak. Remember all the talk about the Astros and how they had surged and they had cut into the mariners lead and all that, the Astros have been a 500 team since then. They’re four games over 500 so it’s not like they continued, that they played great baseball to get back in this position, and then they’ve hovered the Royals, they’ve played better of late, and they’re an interesting young team, but they’re 12 games over 500 Minnesota, I think, is quietly a team that we don’t talk about a lot, that might have a profile, that maybe they can do a little bit, but they’ve got to be good teams, and they’ve had opportunities this year against. Good teams in the AO, and have it fared very well. So, you know,
Nestor J. Aparicio 40:03
if Clem Florio were here, he’d say, it’s not a six Furlong race, right? We’re going, we’re going to mile in three eights here. And so measuring a team at the six Furlong several where, you know, wherever, you would say that, like, You’re, like, Minnesota, sort of coming on a little bit, right? Like, you know, we’re seeing the Red Sox next week. We’ll see whether they’re coming on or not they think they are. And, you know, that looked like a hiccup in the schedule. Now it looks like it could be a bump, right? They also have the Astros and the Dodgers in the same week, like, you know, like, the same week, how they’re playing at that point. And we’ll be getting together. By the way, Luke Jones can be found in Baltimore, Luke, we’re gonna be doing the Maryland crab cake Tour presented by the Maryland lottery. I have the gold rush, seven doublers to give away on the 23rd when the cheatstros come to town, actually, four game series. They come in on the 22nd on Thursday that week, we get the nationals next week, all that you got football going on, I’ll give you a chance to rap. I mean, I, I would just say, my headline is, I’m worried about the Orioles. I’m just worried.
Luke Jones 41:04
That’s fine. That’s fair. I think that’s fair. I think I would, I would share that sentiment. But I would also say, is, what I would also say is every other team that somebody in the Al is worried about elements of their club and is worried about the fact that they’re not playing great either. And I don’t say that to be dismissive or to forgive away the things that aren’t good about the Orioles right now, but they’re right there. They’re right there, and they’re still really talented. I’ll still take the Orioles lineup most nights against just about any in baseball, and I know that at times are consistent, and we’ve seen that a little bit more be a little more maddening over the last five weeks or so. But I’ll still take that. I’ll still take cord and burns in terms of an ace going up against just about any other team’s ace, and you know, the rest of the pitching, that’s where I shrug and say, Boy, to your point, I don’t know if I’d call it a miracle, but they need a few guys in their pen, and they need a couple more rotation pieces right now to find the best versions of themselves. How about that? Because they do have guys that have done it at a really high level in the bullpen. You know, sir, Anthony Dominguez, Soto, obviously, Kimbrel yen, your canoe, if he can be more like the guy he was last year. And, you know, Cano has been pretty good of late. You know, I’m not trying to be too dismissive of of what you had said. But the point is, these guys aren’t going to suddenly Tran, you know, transform into, you know, Cy Young candidates in the rotation and in the bullpen. These guys aren’t going to suddenly just become Felix Bautista. So you have to hope, one, that everyone stays healthy from this point on, and you get a couple of these pictures back, and two that you can tweak and kind of make some adjustments with these guys to try to, you know, find a little more upside, find the best version of Sir Anthony Dominguez, which, by the way, is really good. You know, if they can get us Dominguez from 22 with the Phillies for just two months, you know, the last two months of the season, if they can get that, then that becomes a much more interesting bullpen. With that, if they can get Gregory, so that happens alone, you feel it was a good trade deadline for them feel better. You feel better. That doesn’t mean that they’re in the driver’s seat with that, but you feel better than you do right now. So Well,
Nestor J. Aparicio 43:26
tell me they address their most, you know, pressing need, as we saw it, the starting thing, dude. I mean, once Rodriguez gets hurt, like they brought these two guys in and F, I mean, I I’m not the one to do the the NFL draft report card on Monday morning and give him an A. Give him a b minus, but I think you gave him a b minus or whatever. I mean, if Dominguez works out it becomes an A on the face of it. Just if they, if they have a guy that can close a, I was going to say four, three game, alright, with their pitching, seven, six game. Can close the seven to six lead in the ninth inning, if they get a guy that can do that for the next eight weeks. Then it was a successful trading. It’s an A at the trading deadline. I don’t know how else to give it. And
Luke Jones 44:11
I’ll just, I’ll go back, and this will be my final point, because I know we’re rapping, but Kyle Bradish, John means, Tyler wells gave them a total of 15 starts this year. You knew Felix Batista wasn’t going to be in the bullpen. Danny coulombs miss is going to end up missing roughly half the season. Jacob Webb, even though back in March, no one would have Jacob Webb, we were wondering if he’s even going to be on the team, let alone become a real bullpen piece for them. But you go down the list of things that have happened, and specifically on the pitching side with the injuries that they’ve had, I’ll throw this out there. Jackson holiday will be called up in April and meet and struggle so badly that he sent down and basically doesn’t come back until August. If I had told you all those things back in March, I guarantee you would not be saying right now that the Orioles would be 20 games over 500 so. No, that doesn’t excuse anything moving forward. But the point is, they are still in good position, mathematically speaking, in terms of the division race, in terms of their chances to be one of the top two seeds. So they’re capable. There’s no guess how it plays out. So, but they need some of these guys, some of these pitchers, specifically, and obviously on the offensive side too. And, boy, they’ve got to defend better. I mean, that’s something that’s still creeping up too much during these games. Maybe it’s been a little better gunner Henderson’s defense seems to have normalized back to more gunner Henderson like, and not making as many errors as he was. He said a rookie next to him out there running. And I probably just takes them anyway, yeah, but, but the point is some of the guys that they do have, yeah, they they need the best version of Dean Kramer down the stretch, which still isn’t great, but it’s better than what it was on Thursday night. They need the best version of Trevor Rogers, which they’re hoping the Orioles can make a couple adjustments. They need the best version of Zach Eflin. And certainly they need Corbin burns to be Corbin burns on the bullpen side. Same thing. You know, they need some of these guys to step up, quite frankly. And if they can, then they’ve got a shot. And in the same way that I’ll continue to say, the postseason is so much more of a crapshoot than anyone wants to admit. I mean, the numbers just continue to support that, year after year after year, if, if there’s no better example that supports this, it’s when were the when were the Yankees in the World Series last? 15 years ago? Nine right? 15 years ago. And it’s not for any lack of spending money or high expectations or postseason appearances, or any of that. So that right there, it’s just a very simplistic example to remind you, it’s quite random once you get into that field. So they’re still in outstanding shape to get into that field. Now it’s a matter of over the next seven or eight weeks, they’ve got to find some answers. They’ve got to find some improvement from within with some of these individuals. And if they can do that with at least a few guys in their pen. And if they can do that with a couple of these starters on the back end just to stabilize things, then hey, they’ll be in and let’s go at that point, roll the dice, you know. But Buck Showalter talked about this, Billy Bean talked about this with Moneyball, years and years and years ago that you get to October, it’s just a crap shoot. And now with three wild cards, as opposed to 120 years ago, it’s even more of a crap shoot. So, yeah, who’s going to be Arizona this year? Who’s going to be the Texas Rangers this year? We’re still a long ways away from figuring that out, but, you know, the Orioles are in position. But yeah, they’ve got to get better. You know? They’ve got to find some answers as it pertains to their bullpen, in terms of these guys stepping up, and they certainly need more from Dean Kramer than what they got Thursday night, because, for better or worse, he’s their number three starter, number four starter right now, you know, unless you like Suarez better, which maybe you do, unless you like Rogers better, maybe you do. But point is, out of those three, they need at least one of those guys to really emerge. And that’s that’s still assuming that Grayson Rodriguez comes back at some point, which, you know, we’ll see. But that’s still not a not a known, that’s not an absolute at this point. So lot of maybe, let’s go
Nestor J. Aparicio 48:16
play baseball at an empty flip all weekend. Let’s go play some fake football this weekend, let’s, you know, let’s enjoy some sunshine. After three days of wind and rain, of like the Wizard of Oz, I thought Glenda was going to show up. We’re doing the Maryland crab cake tour. But more importantly, we’re doing the Maryland oyster tour beginning on September the fifth. That stay the Ravens kick off the season. If you haven’t heard against chiefs, we’re actually gonna be Cocos on the fourth. I have confirmation that the great Mark Viviano will be my co host with a K as well as rasig, stopping by and guard in laraville near gardenville, but laraville, so stop by that’ll be on the fourth of September. That’s Wednesday to kick off the season. And then we’re doing 26 oysters in 26 days, 26 ways. I found this place in Ocean City that’s doing this Chipotle honey lime chimichurri baked thing that makes me want to, by the way, I’m going Ocean City next weekend. We’re going to be at Mako next Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Confirmation from Senator Van Hollen. He’s going to be stopping by. I had a bunch of different confirmations from different people. We’re going to have a lot of political people on we’re gonna talk about the election, talk about the country, talk about the business of Maryland, talk about the bridge, talk about important stuff around here. And when we get together into our crap cake tour, Luke and I will be together on the 23rd for the cheatstros game two of a four game series The Maryland lottery, as well as liberty, pure solutions, keeping our water crystal clear, as well as Jiffy Lube, multi care, firing Luke up for one more week training camp at no one’s mills. Birds come back next week against the Nationals, as well as the the Red Sox next weekend. So Birdland alive, Birdland concerned, and all eyes watching a base. All this weekend and fake football. He’s Luke. You can find him at Baltimore, Luke. I’m Nestor. You can find me anywhere the internet goes. We are W, N, S, T, AM, 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We never stop talking Baltimore. Positive. You.
