The struggles of the Baltimore Orioles’ starting staff have been well documented but on Sunday it was the bullpen that became arsonists in a three-run ballgame. Luke Jones and Nestor discuss the Birds’ ugly loss with a focus on the stresses of the relief corps when the top-end of the rotation doesn’t go deep into games.
Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discussed the Orioles’ recent performance, highlighting their disappointing 3-2 loss to the Blue Jays. They praised the offense for scoring six runs but criticized the bullpen, particularly Gregory Soto and Keegan Akin, for failing to hold a three-run lead in the eighth inning. They noted the team’s struggles with starting pitching, with key players like Grayson Rodriguez and Kyle Gibson injured. Despite the positive aspects of the team, such as improved defense and a strong offense, the conversation emphasized the critical need for better pitching to sustain success.
Luke Jones and Nestor discuss …y Sunday loss and bullpen woes
Mon, Apr 14, 2025 6:56AM • 42:18
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Orioles loss, bullpen woes, Blue Jays, Felix Batista, Adley Rutschman, Brian Baker, Gregory Soto, Kyle Gibson, Grayson Rodriguez, starting pitching, offense, injuries, wild card, Mike Elias, David Robertson.
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Luke Jones
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S T, am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We call it Baltimore positive. We are taking the Maryland crab cake tour back out on the road. Had a really good time on Friday at Costas. Feels like about a month ago in baseball and sports terms over the weekend, but my dude be no ransom, hung out with me for the first time, like, really ever, like hanging out all afternoon, and we caught up on basketball and life, the Terps and the n, i L, you’ll check all that out here at W, N, S, T, I have a few magic eight balls left. I have some monopolies. And there’s a word that I’m going to get these back to the Futures On Thursday, when we are at the Beaumont in Catonsville. We will also be on the 23rd at Cooper’s pub. Cooper’s north, I should say, in Timonium, got some great guests set up for there, and some old friends as well. That’s the 23rd then the 30th. We will be at Coco’s pub. This guy will join me at some point down at fayley’s When he’s not running between the raindrops with the Orioles and off days and cold days and weird weather and sunshine, bad pitching, sub 500 and here comes the whole state of Ohio to play baseball this week. Luke, I’m just opening up for you. I mean you, and I’ll get after it. I’m sure you’ll monolog and I’ll monolog, and I meant to write some notes down for everything I could talk about, but just everything you sort of fear for what can go wrong went wrong on Sunday. And I’m not just talking about the Blue Jays, because they weren’t very good either.
Luke Jones 01:30
Yeah. I mean, I don’t care about the Blue Jays, but at the very least about the most positive thing you can talk about right now as it pertains to the Orioles is the rest of the division, and the fact that no one in the Al East, including the Yankees, who, if you go look at starting pitcher era in the majors, you’ll see the Yankees kind of right there with the Orioles, in terms of it being a major problem. But I think what makes the weekend so disappointing for me is not that okay. They failed to win back to back games again. They failed to win a series again. They settle for a split. You know, Friday, of course, was postponed due to rain, but I think it’s because of how good Saturday’s game felt. They fall behind early in that game. The bats awaken. They get a big home run from Heston kerstad. They get what I think was a cathartic home run from Adley rutschman. When you saw his reaction, you saw the benches reaction. They get Felix Batista a save for the first time since coming back from Tommy John surgery. The bullpen was really good. And to a man, you talk to different individuals, whether it was Brandon Hyde or Cedric Mullins who had the go ahead two run double in that game. It really had a 2023 kind of feel to that game, where they came back, they won a close game, they played great defense, they turned five double plays in that game. And you’re thinking, Alright, it’s mid April. We all understand that, but as mid April games go it felt a little more important. It felt a little more meaningful. Only to go out there Sunday and have a lead the offense carried over some of the early momentum. They score a run in each of the first four games, or four first four innings, excuse me, but then the bullpen, which had been really good until Sunday. It falters on Sunday, so just when the offense kind of sort of awakens, and we can get into it, look, they also had opportunities to add on in that game, and they didn’t.
Nestor Aparicio 03:32
But, well, the judges kicked the balls around like the bad news bears and made decisions that they gifted them, right? Yeah, yeah. It gifted them, outs, all, you know, all sorts of opportunities to be better in the game. And I, I mean, Brian Baker, is there bright light? If you would have told me that on February the 10th, I would have said, what? But I just keep going back to where you were with the momentum on Saturday and Sunday, they’re never going to get pitching good enough where it’s going to, like, rev up, you know, this is never going to look like the Braves in their prime. It’s just not, oh sure. And no matter how good last night was, tomorrow’s three to five innings start with three to five runs given up, you know, and eight hits and base runners and having to make plays and make defense and turn double plays, which is great. I mean, get double plays better to turn them than to hit into them. Yeah, and look,
8Luke Jones 04:27
their defense looked way better over this series. I mean, especially on Saturday, they made some their infield defense was excellent on Saturday. I mean, way better than what we’ve seen. So, so you get some positive signs there the offense look over 13 with runners in scoring position. Could they have gotten a big hit at some point that really would have gone a long way to to secure that win. Absolutely at the same time, they scored six runs, right and and this is where, as I’ve said to you, when they only score one or two or three runs, I mean, that’s not gonna be good. Enough because of what you said with the pitching, but Sunday was maybe the first time where it felt like, okay, the offense, yeah, they could have done more, and certainly Toronto gave them a hand with those final two runs in the sixth inning. But six runs should be enough to win games. You know, it’s much more up for debate when you score three or four, right? But six should be good enough, and it wasn’t. And it’s frustrating. I mean, I and I saw some second guessing on social media, and that was fine, because they could have tried to squeeze a little more out of cade Povich if they wanted to at the same time. It’s not like he was dominant. It’s not like he was mowing down the Jays. I mean, he wasn’t missing bats. You know, he was missing a lot arm side when he got ahead in the count, and that’s
Nestor Aparicio 05:47
gonna miss a lot of bats, dude, he’s gonna, you know, you gotta play
Luke Jones 05:51
his strike, his strikeout turtles aren’t bad. But I think when you look at the lineup that he faced on Sunday, I mean, Toronto, I think, you know, accounting for switch hitters like Santander, think they had one lefty in the lineup against him. He needs to be able to land that change up a little more than he did. He missed it a lot. Arm side when he was, you know, had two strikes and he talked about that. If he’s not going to be able to do that, then, yeah, he’s not going to miss very many bats. So wasn’t awful, like he wasn’t a disaster or anything like that, but when you have starting pitching that’s consistently struggling to get through five innings, let alone six, that’s just the long chain to go through with your bullpen. Now, I’ll say this, they do have a nine man bullpen right now until they need a fifth starter so they have the arms. They had two days off Wednesday, you know, Thursday and Friday, with the rain out so, and then they have the day off on Monday, so Brandon Haida and the coaching staff, and of course, Hyde was ejected for balls and strikes, arguing balls and strikes early in the game. But they had a fresh bullpen other than Batista, right? And that’s where you kind of look at Sunday and you say, okay, you don’t have Felix Batista for the time being. He’s not doing back to backs. We understand that, and I think that’s a prudent, responsible decision, trying to keep him healthy. But where do you go with your bullpen from there? And that’s where you look at it, and you just say, very plainly, yeah, they could have left Cape COVID in a little bit longer and seen how that would have gone. They certainly could have gone with Brian Baker to open the sixth after he only threw five pitches to strike out Springer. But at the same time, when you look at the current makeup of this pitching staff, and more specifically, the makeup of this rotation, they’re going to need the bulk of their bullpen guys to get meaningful outs at some point in time. And the reality is, on Sunday, Keegan Aiken, and especially Gregory Soto, didn’t get the job done. They didn’t do their job, right? I mean, they even everything that happens up until the eighth inning. Soto comes in in a three run with a three run lead, and he couldn’t get three outs, and it’s a tie ball game then, so you know that. Well, then there’s
Nestor Aparicio 08:03
the point where you identify Hoffman and say, you know, they could have had a player, and they could have player,
Luke Jones 08:10
and brands also deemed them, deemed his arm unworthy, Matic. So
Nestor Aparicio 08:15
it wasn’t just the Orioles, but the effort just, I’m not even being snide. I mean, I’m not like they chased him and they offered him a contract and then sort of reneged. So that’s where they are. He’s pitching like a guy that you’d need to be pitching. That’s all I’m saying. Whoever he is, his arm falls off in six weeks, and it cost him 50 million. Whatever it is that’s right now, he looks a guy that come What’s that I said? Right now he looks. He looked pretty good on Sunday. Yeah, he did. That’s the guy sure that. That’s the way your bullpen needs to look. If Chicano Morton and you know, the next Kyle Gibson are going to be your guys, you know, well, right? And
Luke Jones 08:54
that’s where I said at the beginning of the season. That’s why you heard me talking so much about the bullpen and David Robertson, who still hasn’t signed with anyone. I don’t know what. I don’t know if he’s going to pitch. Who knows, but you can survive this kind of starting rotation that the Orioles have. And I said this more so before the effluent injury. Now it’s now it’s much more trying to hold on, right? You’re trying to get effluent back. You know, you’ll see. You know, Gibson shouldn’t be too much longer. You hope grace and Rodriguez are still throwing bullpens, but still a lot of questions there. Of course, Suarez isn’t coming back. And Suarez is not, you know, he Suarez is going to be gone until deep into the summer at best. I mean, that’s, you know, it’s a rotator cuff issue, but you just look at it and, you know, I used Cleveland was a perfect example that I cited over the off season and specifically during spring training. And we’re going to see the Guardians here this week. But you look at their rotation last year and they had injuries, it wasn’t very good. They were, you know, whether you were talking about injuries, era starter, win, wins above replacement, they were near the bottom, but they. They They overcame that with what was a pretty historic bullpen performance, right? Not just their closer, but they had five or six arms that you felt really good about throwing in just about every situation. Kind of that bullpen that I’ve told you that you need to have to navigate October now. I mean, it’s just the truth, because even even aces, generally speaking, aren’t going seven or eight innings in playoff games at this point in time, so you need that kind of bullpen. But my point with that is you can get by with mediocre to bad rotation. If you have a great bullpen, you might be able to get by with not a bad bullpen, but a mediocre bullpen. If you have a great rotation, but if you have mediocre or bad for both, I don’t care how good your offense is, it’s going to be extremely difficult. And I think Sunday, what we saw there was just a reminder of just how small their margin for error is at this point in time where they score six runs. And again, it wasn’t their offense could have done a little more. I’m not going to completely let them off the
Nestor Aparicio 11:04
hook, but they still scored six runs. They’re going to score six runs and lose games this year a lot, and they’re but yeah, that’s going to happen a dozen times.
Luke Jones 11:13
The question is, if it’s a dozen, or if it’s way more than that, and if it’s way more than that, then yeah, they won’t have any shot, because you’re not going to score 10 runs a game. I mean, I’m not going to be, not going to sit here in sit here and be any night you said
Nestor Aparicio 11:23
earlier, any night they score one, two or three, they’re going to lose. They’re not going to win three to two games. I
Luke Jones 11:27
mean, it’s going to be rare, right? It’s going to be very rare. And that’s why it was disappointing these first couple weeks where they did have a couple games where you only gave up three, or you give up four, and you just say, okay, wasn’t historic pitching, but it’s good enough, and that’s where you say, Hello, offense. You need to win that game. Problem
Nestor Aparicio 11:45
with the pitching, it’s not good. I mean, like it’s not going to get better. That’s the problem. Like, I think about the bullpen and what you’re getting out of Baker, what you think of Soto and Dominguez and Batista on their best days, whatever their best day is that you wanted to, you know, pay them and think that they’re 8 million or $12 million relievers, or whatever you think of Robertson as a savior or a helper, or a guy that can get them from the sixth to the seventh to the seventh to the eighth, or wherever they are, whatever you think of Hoffman And and, you know, going back to Xavier Hernandez 25 years ago, and Peter and failing physicals, and whether you want the guy or whether you don’t want the guy or not, they went that through that with ball four, right? They, you know, they’ve had other guys that this has happened. And all I know is, you need that productivity. You need Batista from two years ago. You need Britain from 10 years ago. You need two or three of that in order to be what you thought the Indians were last year, that they held up on what you thought the Phillies were for most of the summer, so much so that they gave two of their relievers away to this outfit at the trading deadline last year and said, we’ll still going to go win the World Series. And I, I don’t know, you know, you’re already spending Mr. Rubenstein’s money, and I’ve got a letter coming to Katie Griggs this week about, you know, press credentials, tickets, empty seats the city, you know, things like that, that the President of the team would want to know about if she actually took my phone calls. And fans are concerned about the pitching. Fans are concerned about all sorts of things in regard to them winning. But I’ll say this, man, and I’ll say this to Katie as well. I’ve been at this 34 years, man, you’re like an old fart like me at this point, and even you were pissed last week saying It’s been 42 years. And like all that, all that fan angst. But more than that, the losing that we have endured, the Katie Griggs did not David Rubenstein with his bobble head this week, which is just on the face of it, bizarre. If you would have told me, the person buying the team would have their own bobble head in April of 2025, last opening day, I would say we’re probably headed toward a disaster, but, but all that aside, all the ego aside, and why in the world he has a bobble head i Okay, and, and why he’s got stick and an outfit and hats, and whatever they’re trying, whatever Chris Yuman is trying to whistle up here, and What’s on the field is the most important thing. Maybe not to the soccer mom club bringing their kids down to run the bases on Sunday and hanging out for an extra inning game on a pretty decent day in April, but like the notion that somehow you and I got cocky, that you and I just thought there’s going to be a season. They’re going to be in it over unders 90 on wins, they’re fine. They can bring in Free Battle Ax pitchers and just rubber band and paper clip it all together. I don’t know, dude, I mean, it’s really hard to do. I was hanging out with Mark Messina. Night shaking our tails with Tommy Caldwell. We were just, I mean, he did an hour of baseball with me. You’ll hear that here. You’ll find that at Baltimore positive, but like, he’s one of the most astute baseball people I know. Like, I mean, of people that I would hang out with on an island and talk baseball with you. Messina, count them on a couple of hands. Rob NYers coming on this week. So, I mean, I’m trying to bring in some people that have seen more than Katie Griggs has seen in baseball. More than David Rubenstein, who doesn’t know anything about baseball, has seen. And I’ll tell you what, man, this winning thing’s a bitch. It’s hard, really hard. Hard to sustain. It hard to win three years in a row, even when they expand the wild card into the bush. That’s why the Yankees haven’t had any parades in recent times. I was hanging out with Messina, his brother, that was pointed out to him as well. So I would just say, it’s really hard to do, yeah, and we just thought like, Oh, we’re going to roll the ball out, and there’s going to be a season here, and we’re all, you know, we’re going to be a playoff team. And it’s not that easy. If it was that easy, Angelo’s would have figured out at some point, stumbling over himself for 30 years. This is hard to do, even when you have Adley rutschman and gunner Henderson and Jordan westburg and Colton cows are and a genius manager, and you know the profile GM, and you have all these young stars COVID Mayo’s got the big bad and, okay, I mean, it’s really hard to do, and the Yankees are trying, and the Red Sox are trying, and everybody else is trying to, I hope he enjoys the bobblehead on Saturday night. But the real question is here, how you going to run the
Luke Jones 16:37
team? Yeah, sure. I mean, I, you know, the bobblehead things, what it is I, you know, I’m not outraged about it or anything like that, not outraged about that. I mean, it’s, it’s odd. I mean, it is, but whatever. I mean, you know, it’s him tossing hats, and that was his thing last year. But that’s,
Nestor Aparicio 16:56
but, no, no, that’s not, even though I don’t care. No, I understand that I was just, I was just acknowledging it’s really going to be and that’s going to fall to his desk. Well,
Luke Jones 17:04
it doesn’t fall to his desk. It falls to Mike Elias desk. I mean, ultimately, if, if we’re taking everything that we’ve seen over the last year at face value, Rubenstein trusts Mike Elias, there clearly has been an increase in payroll. Now we can all debate how it’s been spent, how much more they can spend, what the ceiling is going to be over the next three, four years, all that,
Nestor Aparicio 17:24
and whether it’s a difference, right? Well, spending another 30 million this year is going to wind up meaning three playoff games in October, where they have to hit the ball.
Luke Jones 17:35
And this is also where we have to acknowledge, you know, it’s not even the elephant in the room, because it’s, you know, they have eight pictures on the injured list right now, including your opening day starter, the guy that was going to be either, either your opening day or your number two starter, your ace from two years ago, and again, Bradish and Tyler wells they already knew. So I don’t want to give them a complete pass. That’s not something that just popped up in spring training. But the guy that they signed instead of Jeff Hoffman is on the IL although he’s looks like he’s ahead of schedules throwing bullpens. I think, I think kittridge, the way it’s looking now, is going to be back earlier than we might have thought three or four weeks ago. So that’s good to see. But again, he was your key acquisition for this bullpen, where we’re looking at it and saying, Is there enough high leverage capability there? And, I mean, you go down the list, Albert Suarez, who we thought might be an interesting piece in that bullpen, or he’d be in the rotation. He’s gone so, so I don’t want to make the that’s a lot of innings. He was taking the innings out, I’m sorry. Like, look how much the Yankees have spent on their starting rotation in comparison to the Orioles. Go look at what the Yankee starter era is. There’s one team in baseball waking up Monday morning with a worse starter era than the Baltimore Orioles. You know who it is? It’s the New York Yankees. And you consider how much they have that’s sitting on the aisle and Garrett Cole or Luis heel, who was, you know, Rookie of the Year caliber last year. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 19:00
that’s where the journalist says, Do you have bad training or bad luck? And you can say yes, it can be, because across the board, this is what pitching is in baseball. This is an industry issue for all of them
Luke Jones 19:13
well, and that’s why, for me, I’ve gone back to and philosophically, I’ve said, have you done enough from a draft and development standpoint with the pitching, because you need numbers right. And that’s not to say that I wouldn’t have drafted any college hitters the way that they did. I’m not saying that approach was 100% wrong, but you look at it and you say, over time, are you taking enough swing? It’s just like how I would talk about the Ravens for years not drafting wide receivers until the fifth round, right where I’d say, get what you pay for here at some point in time, you need to be a little more measured, a little more calculated, in saying we need to get better at this position. So we need to invest a little more as far as our resources, our meaningful resource. Horses and doing that night, that’s where I kind of look at the Orioles and say, Okay, you’re not going to sign pitchers to lucrative long term deals, although I think they gave a very, made a very fair, reasonable offer to Corbin burns. You know, they went for a higher AAV than the length of the deal. He prioritized length, and really, he prioritized pitching on the West Coast and Arizona, where he has a home so but when you look at it across the board, if you’re not going to sign pictures to long term deals and look, there’s plenty of legitimacy to that philosophy when you consider the rate at which pitchers are injured. But then you got to see, what are you doing on the flip side, are you doing more drafting and developing, or are you trying to harvest more arms? Then? Are you trying to have more of a crop of guys in your farm system that are viable starting pitchers and viable relievers? And you know, you look at what it’s been so far. I mean, who have they drafted and developed that’s made it to the majors and made an impact? I mean, that list is no one they’ve, you know, Kyle Bradish, they developed I want to get, I don’t want to, you know, short them on write it for him, I mean, but this is
Nestor Aparicio 21:10
what they didn’t used to write. They identify players, right? I mean, they identify what they want. They consume themselves with taking the sure thing. Because everything they do is based on math. The sure thing is, arms fall apart. Bats don’t bats. We can stock up on trade Coby mayo and Connor Norby, maybe even holiday and cows are, at one point, along the line to acquire what they need to acquire. But they’re not going to trade holiday or cows, or they’re going to get those guys to the big leagues and get them get their clocks running and get them playing. And I if Mike, but I’ll say this sitting here, and if he actually talked to me, I would say, I look at the guys on your IL and I say you clearly can identify. You know what a good pitcher looks like. You know what you want. You know how to get it on the field. I would say this for Eric, the cost and John our ball, if Lamar had gotten broken in half two more times than he has the last seven or eight years and gotten squared up and really the Wake Flacco got squared up by KIKO Alonzo, if that had happened a couple of more times and Lamar couldn’t play, or was more unavailable to play like Joe burrow, let’s say, you know you would have to look at that and say where we have to have a quarterback, but does he need to run into linebackers, which was a very fair question for me to ask seven years ago. You’re saying they don’t even think to develop pitchers because they’re afraid of their arms falling off and out of the gate. That’s just bad math at the casino, at the on the casino floor, play the game with the better odds. The better odds are college hitters,
Luke Jones 22:48
well, then I’ll say this, then their offense needs to be better, fair enough, because, because that’s that, and that’s why you’ve heard me talk about that so much over the first two and a half weeks. Because go, look at where they stand in runs per game. If they going into Sunday, they were right around at league average, you know, right around the middle of the pack, you know, as they woke up, you know, after the split with the Blue Jays, they were, I believe, you know, the league average is 4.28 runs per game. They’re at 4.4 so that’s where, that’s where I have been harder on their offense, because that’s where everything you just said is valid, right? I’m not saying you’re wrong, and that might clearly that’s been their mindset, but if you’re not going to draft pitchers early, you’re not going to sign them to long term deals. So that means you’re kind of looking at, you know, you make trades, you go for diamonds in the rough and look, they’ve done that. Albert Suarez was a great example of that last year. Albert Suarez was arguably their second best starting pitcher last season, and at least until Elaine arrived and was a great success story, they’ve done things like that. Danny cool on when they acquired him, I was what a waiver claim two days before opening day, and he was their second or third best for lever the last couple years, you know, before they decided to not to pick up his option, which is looking questionable when you look at how disastrous CNL Perez has been this year. But the point is, they’ve done some of that, but if you’re only doing that, and you’re only relying on one year deals and flyers and things of that nature, and that that is just, that’s really tough to navigate with the pitching staff that’s made up of that so. And then, you know, when the top pitching prospect that you did inherit grace and Rodriguez can’t stay healthy, so it’s tough, and that’s where I said, they’ve got to score runs. You know, you see how the Yankees hit, right? And the Yankees, their bats have cooled off a little bit from when they hit what felt like 50 home runs against the Brewers a couple of weekends ago, but they’re scoring over six runs per game. You know, the Cubs right now are scoring over six runs per game. I’m not saying they’re going to continue to do that for one. 62 but they’re going to score over five, and that’s the kind of offense the Orioles are absolutely going to need to have if they’re going to make anything of this season. And and I would have told you that even before effing got hurt, I would have said that even before Grayson Rodriguez had the issues in spring training. I mean, this team is constructed because of the philosophy that you’ve cited and is correct and might even have not might does have plenty of merit to it, but then it needs to be that great offensively. It needs to be what is carrying you. It needs to be a top three, top four, and when you
Nestor Aparicio 25:35
get to the blackjack table with Corbin burns, you need to win. I mean, that was unwinnable in the same way that saying, Let’s sign gunner, I don’t know Scott Boris. I don’t know. I don’t know. I mean, I you know that’s going to be about that kid and whether he wants to be here. And sure what you know you’re as as a media member or a fan or a long suffering local business owner or, like, whatever my opinions of all of this would be, I just know they need to figure out a way to win, and they just need to figure out a way to win, and that’s been involved better pitching than what they have right now, because the other guy for 30 years, I sat here, and I’m going to point this out to miss Griggs this week. They didn’t even try for long stretches here. There were years and years and years where it was just a given that they weren’t going to win. They couldn’t win. The they didn’t have enough money to win. They didn’t have enough Moxie to win. The owner didn’t care enough to win. They were too busy fighting with the Nationals, fighting with me, fighting with everybody like I hope all of that’s over with as they give out these bobbleheads on Friday or Saturday night with the owner, but like, at some point the owner is only going to be popular if the team wins. Oh,
Luke Jones 26:46
no question, no question. And And look you what you just mentioned. I would even say it’s not even, wasn’t even like an apathy, as much as they had plenty of years where they spent money but not enough to make a difference. And they lost, but they didn’t lose enough to be picking one one, right? I mean, think about where they were from, you know, 9899 they were still kind of sort of trying to win. I mean, they signed Albert bell in 99 but I told
Nestor Aparicio 27:17
you, I hung out with Mark Messina all night on Saturday, the day that Mike Messina left was over, in retrospect, as you sure it was over. Well, you lost Corbin burns. You lost an ace in his prime, right? And you’re not getting those innings now. Corbin burns, his arm might fall off. There was no thought of that with Messina at the time. You know, even though Ben McDonald was teeter. You know, some guys had had arm problems. But after Strasburg, and in the modern era, where we sit here with Garret Cole, we talk about all of these guys, you know, a problem in that era was Matt young giving, giving him too much money, and he wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t that Jimmy Key’s arm was going to fall off, or Pedro Martinez or Kurt Schilling or Randy. Those guys were just they went out and pitched. They took the ball. 232, 6280, whatever it was you knew what you were buying. We’re not in that market anymore. We’re in the hurricane climate change market, where anything can happen anytime, and, you know, in Asheville, North Carolina, like so I don’t know what to say about that from a value perspective, but this franchise fell apart when it lost its number one starter, and it never figured it out, because, you know what, you give Sidney ponson a bag of liquor and a bag of money, and it’s not going to make him a better picture. It’s not going to make any of these guys better than they are. What you saw last year was the real deal, you know, as identified by Jim Palmer and Ben McDonald. And you know, that doesn’t grow on trees. And now in the modern era, when you think you have one in Grayson Rodriguez, or you think you have one in Kyle Bradish, you don’t. And it’s like grabbing its sand in the surf, you know what I’m saying, like, so the the level of expectations of the fans in regard to how good the hitters are and how good we think this is, you know, like the Tigers of the 90s, where they’re just going to hit home runs every night and but they’re not going to win, you know. And the pitching is that cumbersome at this point for me, you know, like, as I look at the ball panel, I like, there’s nothing about it that smells like excellence to me, like that, this can be a really good team.
Luke Jones 29:23
I mean, it’s hard to argue otherwise, until we start seeing better. I mean, I’ve said it, and look, we saw it Saturday, when Batista is available and you have everyone available in your bullpen, I think there’s the makings of it being good enough, like, whatever that means, right? I mean, good enough, but is it so good that it’s going to overcome what the starting pitching is? I mean, that’s where I have major doubts. And especially then, when you get into a case like Sunday where Batista was down. Now, even if Batista didn’t have wasn’t coming back from Tommy John surgery, you know, he can’t pitch every single night. Canoe can’t pitch every single day. Uh, so that’s where I say, Yes, you need five or six guys, even if you have, okay, you have an eight man bullpen. I’ll, I’ll hear, you know, a typical bullpen for even a playoff contender. You know, many teams are gonna have a long man out there, and you’ll have another guy that at some point, and this will rotate. You’ll have someone that’s like, right now at CNL, Perez, they don’t trust Perez to put them into a close game right now. That doesn’t mean they won’t in three weeks, but right now, starting out, you know, coming out of the gate, he’s been awful, so, but he might be fine in three weeks, and then someone else will be struggling, or someone else gets hurt or whatever. But that’s why I keep saying with the rotation being where it is, questions even before the injuries, and now with the injuries, if the bullpen is not going to be really, really good behind it, then, yeah, it is. It’s a Herculean task looking up at the box score, you know, up on the scoreboard, and saying, are we going to navigate 27 outs today,
Nestor Aparicio 31:01
get your way out of it, you know? I mean, in the history of base, you can sometimes consistently. I mean, I talked about this last week with offense in the NFL, with the greatest offenses and run and shoot this and all that, like Hayden Manning didn’t win until his team played a little bit of defense. You know what I mean? Like those kinds of those machines that can do it one way, but not it. You know, it’s a game of balance. I mean, all, how do you play us about the starts? You know, baseball
Luke Jones 31:27
is a different baseball is a different sport. Football, you can. I mean, you can overcome it. Maybe you don’t win a Super Bowl, but you can still win 13 games. Let’s say, right? But baseball being the game that it is, day to day, high variance, right? You have outcomes. I mean, that’s why we talk about it’s why everyone loves baseball. Everyone’s going to win 50 games. Everyone’s going to lose 50 games. It’s what happens, you know, kind of that middle section, right, as far as every team. But when you have a pitching staff that is hurt. The rotation wasn’t, didn’t look great on paper to begin with, and now it’s injured. And now you look at the bullpen, and you know, Batista got to save on Saturday, it was great to see, you know, pitched out of a jam. You know, you’d rather them not walk two guys, but that’s going to happen some. But Saturday, that’s why I felt so good. It’s like, okay, this didn’t feel like something that was impossible to do. But then on Sunday, when you have a three run lead in the eighth inning, and Gregory Soto, who you know, isn’t your eighth inning guy normally, but because canoe was going to close the game, you needed someone to pitch the eighth inning. He’s the kind of guy that has to get outs for you. You know, he’s not. Fans might say he’s a scrub. They might say stinks. But as as you try to look at,
Nestor Aparicio 32:48
oh, he had that month that we’re all wowed by, and it’s been a couple, it’s been two years.
Luke Jones 32:52
I mean, so but then he had two all star I mean, he made two all star games. Now it was with the Tigers. I mean, they were bad at the time, but, like, that’s the kind of pitcher he can be at his best. But when you look at it and you say, okay, that might work pitching for a team that’s not very good and doesn’t have expectations. We saw this in Philly the last two years. I mean, the the Phillies were excited to acquire him, and then you saw what happened. They they got rid of them at the trade deadline last year because they didn’t trust them. But, and I’m not, you know, I’m picking on him just because he was the primary culprit on Sunday. But the point goes on that even if you have Batista from two years ago, even if you have Cano from two years ago, it can’t just be those two guys, especially when you have a rotation that if you get a quality start, that’s a win, that you’re ready to throw a parade for that, right?
Nestor Aparicio 33:50
How often are they going to get six innings and three runs? And this is but this is where I’ll even point out they’re not even trying. In most these 35 year old guys aren’t even trying to get to six. They’re trying to get through the fourth but, but,
Luke Jones 34:02
but this is where I look at what happened over the weekend. Look, we, and we haven’t even mentioned him by name. You know, Sagano. You know he made it four and two thirds innings, fortunate. I mean, his command wasn’t very good. I mean, he, he, that’s what he is, right? And that’s where I look at him and look, it’s been three starts. I mean, I’m not, I’m not drawing a sweeping conclusion about him just yet. Let’s, let’s be clear. However, he doesn’t wow you. He doesn’t throw 98 he doesn’t have insane secondary stuff. He has an assortment of five or six pitches that are just different enough that if he commands and he can move the ball around the strike zone and navigate. I think he can be a solid back half of the rotation kind of starter, but if his command, and when I say command, I don’t mean he walks six guys, I mean you have to hit your spot right. You can’t be throwing strikes, but you’re wild within the strike zone, that’s when a guy like him is really going to run into trouble. And I think what. You saw on Saturday from him was, you know, he walked two and four and two thirds inning. It’s not so much about that. It’s just how sharp was he? I don’t think he was terribly sharp, and you saw what happened. I mean, he scatters eight hits, he walks two. He but at the end of the day, with a rested bullpen and a bullpen that has to do the job. He gave up three runs in four and two thirds innings. It wasn’t disastrous to the point where they didn’t have a chance to win. That’s about the best they can expect from these guys right now. And well, you always feel like trailers composure is going to fall apart. And part of the Gibsons and these older guys, you feel like they’re at least not going to lose their ish out on the mound. Charlie Morton’s older than that, but I just don’t know if he can do it right. Then, you know that, then there’s just, are you too old to do it? Kyle Gibson’s doing three innings of minor league and the manager’s like, he’s not ready yet. Well, I mean, I mean he’s going to need, I think when he says that he’s going to have at least one more start there, I think it’s going to be two more starts there. And then I think once his pitch count is up to, say 80, then I think you because, I mean, you look at this, how many pitches are these guys throwing, as it is, so you kind of look at it and say, if he’s up to where he you feel comfortable that he can throw 8085, pitches in an outing. I think you’ll see him then. So I don’t think,
Nestor Aparicio 36:17
I think him coming here, throwing spring, spring training BP wouldn’t be much worse than what they have, especially if you were working out of the bullpen in some controlled environment where this weekend, he’s in the big leagues and getting getting you through the sixth inning. So I don’t know. I’m just saying like they’re falling down the mountain here a little bit. And I am concerned that you should be concerned. I am too. I don’t know they’ve hit their rough patch yet, because they’re going to be injuries. I mean,
Luke Jones 36:46
there are at the same time, at the same time. Let’s also look at this and say, as much as you may not be high on Charlie Morton, and you may not be high on Dean, Dean Kramer, and I have my concerns too. I also don’t know if it’s going to truly be there eight, eight, era, bad all year, right? I mean, that’s been pretty extreme. At on the flip side, you know, kadepovic, look at his you actually look at his era. You look at Sagan is era. And it’s, you know, three, six. It’s 386, I mean, that’s, you know, but, but it’s also that’s because they’re going four and two thirds, or they’re going five innings, dude,
Nestor Aparicio 37:23
we’re two weeks out, two weeks I guess draft will be over to Yankees will be in town. You think Gibson’s in the rotation by two weeks from now?
Luke Jones 37:31
Yeah, I think at this point, yeah, if you said a week from now, I’d say not quite, but two weeks from now, probably okay. But the fact that we’re talking about Kyle Gibson in those terms, and I say that with no disrespect to Kyle Gibson, who tip of the cap, he’s had a long career. He’s had a solid career for what he’s been asked to do for the most part. But the fact that we’re speaking about him in those terms, boy, that says everything about the state of this rotation right now. I mean, it just does.
Nestor Aparicio 37:59
We’re waiting for a number five to return. So look, I work very clear two innings of whatever.
Luke Jones 38:04
I want to be very clear, even with the pitching being where it is right now, I’m not going to sit here and say that I think this is a 90 or 95 loss win team, either. I want to be very clear about that. However, when you look at the Mojo, you look at the vibes. You look at how good Saturday felt, and then how equally deflating Sunday felt. You do have to wonder even the good things, even the good stuff. You do have to wonder if this all starts to take a toll. And that’s where, you know, that’s where you do start to talk about, you know, where are they with the manager and the coaching staff? Where are they with their young players. Where are they with their clubhouse leadership? It takes a toll, especially if you’re at a point where you’re not getting consistent starting pitching. And you hope Sunday was more of a blip, because, as I’ve said, their bullpen had been quite good going into Sunday’s game. At the same time, you look at how the makeup of the first 15 games have gone. They didn’t necessarily have a ton of high leverage spots. The games they won, they won fairly convincingly. And a lot of the games they lost, they, you know, lost by at least a couple, you know, 234, runs. So they haven’t necessarily played a ton of close games. They had two close games over the weekend, and Saturday went well, Sunday did not. So, you know,
Nestor Aparicio 39:23
they played themselves into a tight game.
Luke Jones 39:26
Sunday, yeah, yeah. Oh, sure, no question. And look, I mean, if the bullpen, yeah, the bullpen has to do the job. You’ve got to slam the door with a three run lead in the eighth. I mean, I don’t care who’s out there. That’s why I said you can pick this apart and say, Oh, they could have left povidge out there try to see if he could get a few more outs. You could have left Baker in for the six, but at some point, someone like Gregory Soto was going to have to get some outs for them, and he didn’t get the job. No, get didn’t get the job done, and they lost as a result. And as I said, they could have squeezed out another hit at some point in time when you’re over. 13 with runners in scoring position, they didn’t, and as a result, they ended up losing. But certainly the pitching was the, the big culprit on Sunday. And you just look at this, and I think, you know, effluent will be back at some point. We we think, we hope, Grayson Rodriguez will be back at some point, Kyle Gibson will be in the rotation sooner rather than later. But even with those names, you know, even talking about a potential trade in June or July, is this ever going to be something that is truly good enough, man, they better blend in the last wild card. You got prayer. You know what? I mean, that’s why they’re going to look at it. So now and this year, more than ever, might be, hey, you see what the Arizona Diamondbacks did two years ago. They played, you know, they kind of snuck their way into a wild card spot, and three and a half weeks later, they’re in the World Series. So the
Nestor Aparicio 40:55
question is, for the guy with the bobble head on Saturday night with the money falling out of his pocket, is, you know, you know, how many Robertsons, how much money? Where’s the acquisitions? What would the value of all that be in July, if the team’s three games under 500 then I don’t know. I will break we’re going to come back. We’ll talk some oral baseball. We’re going to talk some Ravens. Luke and I are after it. The Orioles hosting the Cleveland guardians all week. This week, Luke will be at the ballpark. I am writing a letter to Katie Griggs about why he has a press pass and I don’t. And Peter Angelo is dead. And then we got ravens draft coming up next week too. So lots of things on the sports agenda. I have also mixed in a whole bunch of stuff. We’ve done the Maryland crab cake tour. We’re going to be at at the Beaumont this week, on Thursday, next Wednesday, we moved to Coopers north, and then the 30th will be a Cocos pub. I also had been a ransom on Friday, had a great, great chat with him about n, i L and money, and my pal Greg spaniac came by to talk about Little League Baseball, which began with Mark Viviano two weeks ago. So we’re talking little league baseball here. I don’t know that I’m going to get a Little League Lacrosse in because I’m not much of a not much of a lacrosse guy. You all know that, but if your kids are playing, have at it. I’m trying to fix the baseball team. I’m Nestor. We are W N, S T am 1570 Towson, Baltimore, and we never stop talking Baltimore. Positive. You.
