“Is Charlie Morton washed up?” and other Orioles questions and grave concerns

High expectations, young bats and “veteran” starting pitching have been a toxic early-season mix for the Baltimore Orioles, who are scuffling to hit the baseball. Luke Jones and Nestor discuss the listless state of Birdland after Tuesday’s loss to the Cleveland Guardians.

Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discussed the Baltimore Orioles’ dismal performance, highlighting their 6-10 start and the struggles of their pitching and offense. They criticized the team’s young core, particularly the offense, for underperforming despite high expectations. Charlie Morton’s poor performance, with an ERA over 8, was a major concern, especially the decline in his once-elite curveball. They also noted the lack of consistency from other pitchers like Dean Kremer and the need for better offensive production from players like Gunnar Henderson and Cedric Mullins. The conversation emphasized the urgency for the team to improve to avoid a losing season.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Orioles, pitching issues, Charlie Morton, offense struggles, young core, Brandon Hyde, Dean Kremer, Gunnar Henderson, Cedric Mullins, team performance, fan disappointment, injury impact, baseball season, team expectations, ownership changes.

SPEAKERS

Nestor Aparicio, Luke Jones

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Nestor Aparicio  00:01

Welcome home. We are W, N, S T, am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive. We are positively taking the Maryland crab cake tour back out on the road. Really looking forward to getting over to Beaumont. On Thursday. We’re going to be in Catonsville in the 21228, feeling great. I am I have like five magic eight ball tickets left, but have no fear, I’m picking up some back to the futures be before the future of the the podcast and the show we’re going to do. You know, I would give away who the guests are, and I, I’m this close to wanting to invite Luke over to Beaumont on Thursday, but he’s busy. He’s still burping up whatever happened at the liar’s luncheon. We had the Orioles game on Tuesday night. We’ve got Easter this week. We had masters drama. We had all sorts of things. But you know, if you’re, if you’re an Oriole fan, if you’re a baseball fan, and I, you know, for our audience, I’m just assuming you are. It’s probably one of the reasons you found us or will be listening to us in April. This is very, disconcerting, and it’s in a different way for old people like you and me, who know baseball a little bit and having watched seasons where there was no hope, tax day didn’t mean anything. Greekness Memorial Day, how they might be doing in June or July. I mean, this is a franchise that’s been dead on arrival 85% of your lifetime. Maybe more than that. I haven’t done the math on that, but you’re the math guy around here. When you start to get five and six and eight games under 500 and you’ve fallen, you can’t get up, and your pitching is not going to save you, and you start to say, how are we going to win six in a row, or eight out of 10, or 10 out of 12 with what they have, dude, I don’t I’ll give you the floor. And I sat and watched it in real time. And I’m not out on Elon Musk’s, you know, white power site at x, doing things and talking every minute about baseball, but I sit here and watch it, and for the fans who are disappointed, and when I put up open ended things, it’s all about, did they think about the pitching in the off season? Was that? Was this their best plan? And on a day by day basis, you criticized it. I almost defended it to some degree, to say, well, this is the best they can do with their $20 million in arm. But this isn’t good dude. This isn’t good at all.

Luke Jones  02:26

What is good about it right now? I mean, look, we’ll get into Charlie Morton, and I agree with you, but there’d be no hit until the fifth inning. I mean, at some point in time, we need to stop giving the young core a pass and stop giving this offense a pass, and they’ve got to pick it up. They’re supposed to be what’s elite, and they’re average at best right now. And it’s average because they’re kind of being bullied by the few good performances they have had offensively. It’s not good right now. It’s not good enough. It’s not nearly good enough. And I’m not really sure what you can point two to say, Oh, well, that’s okay. Cedric Mullins playing great, right? I mean,

Nestor Aparicio  03:04

guys do that might be dropped the money after that. I’ll throw

Luke Jones  03:10

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him in there, right? And I’m being a little facetious. Of course, there’s some individuals who are off to perfectly find good starts, but as a whole, collectively speaking, it’s not good enough. And yeah, the pitching is absolutely the headliner. And we had questions about it even before Zach Eflin went on the Il. We had questions about it before Grayson Rodriguez went on the Il. So I mean that part of it, as I’ve said to you, as I’ve interacted with people on social medias. I’ve talked to people in real life about the club, there is a certain sentiment about maybe they can’t do much better than tread water at the moment, but they’re not even doing that. They’re taking on water. I mean, six and 10 translate translates out to 60 and 100 right? I mean, they’re on 100 lost pace right now. And it’s 16 games for 10% and

Nestor Aparicio  04:05

six and level it out. I mean, how can

Luke Jones  04:08

happen? They hit Nestor, it’s not, it’s not that complicated. They have to hit. I mean, they have to hit, they have to hit. They have to hit because, I mean, Charlie Morton, it’s, I heard his post game comments. I, as you know, I had a family thing, you know, fun family thing that had already been planned. So, you know, excuse myself for being at the ballpark Tuesday night after being at the liar’s luncheon earlier in the day, but I went back and watched his start. And it’s a, it’s beyond just saying he’s bad, and it’s an eight plus era. Like, look at, anyone who just looks at the box score, can say that, but if you actually watch it, it’s kind of odd, because you look at a couple of his secondary pitches, and they don’t look bad. But here’s the thing, 41 years old or not, and you know, I’m not diminishing that part of it. We talked about that from the I

Nestor Aparicio  04:58

mean, that is the lead that we. Nobody. There’s 1% of 1% ever in the history of baseball that can throw a baseball at 41 years old and get get young men out like I can name them. I mean, I’ve sat here for 50 years and watch baseball. There aren’t many, and some of them took steroids in a big way. Roger Clements, so I would say that if your quarterbacks 41 Aaron Rodgers, Joe Flacco, even Tom Brady in Tampa, if your hockey player is 41 see whatever the capitals are going to do that. I mean, dude, it is. It’s a young man’s game. And the whole notion that he may be losing it to some degree is like saying, you know, an 85 year old person may be getting dementia. I mean, maybe, you know, maybe I don’t know, but I don’t know that. I that I’m going to bet my season on Charlie Morton and on a Japanese guy that’s never gotten anybody out. He’s 35 years old and all, you know. And then we’re waiting on Kyle Gibson to be like a Savior, and at best, he’s going to be a fifth starter, you know? I I mean, it

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Luke Jones  06:02

might be better than that, just because they have a rotation full of fifth starters right now. That’s

Nestor Aparicio  06:06

the point. I mean, I’m talking about on a level playing field what a fifth starter would represent, which is maybe get you to three or four innings, maybe with three or four runs. That’s kind of what a fit starter is to me.

Luke Jones  06:16

But to dig down on this a little more beyond just the age beyond just saying he’s been bad. If you go back and look at what Charlie Morton has been over, really, the last 10 years, it was really when he got to Houston, circa 2017 but, you know, we’ve talked about this. I mean, this was a guy who, you know, in Pittsburgh, he was part of the whole two seam fastball craze with, you know, infield shifting and all that. I mean, the pirates, when they were good for a minute back in 2013 1415, that was what they you know, that was something they leaned into. But when he got to Houston, the big thing that they tapped into with him and saying, dude, your curveball is elite. Your curveballs really, really good. Throw it more, and what we’ve seen over the last decade with him, even as he’s gotten older, even if as he’s pitched to age 38 3940 and now in his age 41 season, he’s had not just a good curveball. He’s had an elite curveball over the last decade. It’s why he’s been a fringe All Star caliber, getting some Cy Young Award votes

Nestor Aparicio  07:23

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through their 11, went to the Hall of Fame, and he’s almost the same pitcher, but

Luke Jones  07:30

that curveball hasn’t been there this year. You’re talking about not just a good curveball, a guy who had an elite curveball, one of the if you would, ask someone over the last 10 years to rank the best curveballs in baseball. Charlie Morton would be on that list somewhere. I’m not saying the very best, but it was way up there, and that’s a below average offering for him right now, if you look at some of his other numbers, and I’m looking at stat casting, and we’re talking four starts, it’s still a small sample relative to, you know, trying to evaluate someone’s body of work and repertoire, over a 30 start season, but,

Nestor Aparicio  08:05

or over a 20 year career, because what was yesterday isn’t what he is, what he is right now, right? But, but what’s,

Luke Jones  08:10

what’s fascinating about it? And I don’t say fascinating in a good way, because the results are, have been poor, is some of his other pitches are actually playing up a little bit in terms of quality of stuff, but when you’re talking about someone who’s bread and butter, whose livelihood has been based on how great that curveball has been, and it’s now, it has been a poor offering, if you kind of look at it, it’s become his worst pitch so far this year, where he just doesn’t have the feel for it. He’s not locating it. When he does locate it in the strike zone, he’s not missing any bats with it. And you just think about that for a pitcher who you know, any pitcher who has a premier pitch and suddenly it’s just not there for him whatsoever. And look, you’re going to have individual, isolated starts where that happens, right? But when it consistently just it hasn’t been there, well, the difference between

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Nestor Aparicio  09:04

you can’t hit it, you can’t touch it, or if you do, you’re going to get soft wood in the other direction on it, right? Versus it’s going to center up and it’s going to be a meatball. It’s going to be batting practice that, if it’s your best pitch, goes from your out pitch to a next strain. That’s a real problem. And that’s probably that would be the case for any pitcher talk to Ben McDonald, Jim Palmer, any pitcher who pitched past the point, other than Kofax, who pitched past the point where they were good anymore, you know what I mean, right? Wherever that point is, where they went from elite to old or, you know, that’s pretty much what happens, right? Like, the thing that they could that was elite isn’t anymore, and that’s the end. I mean, that’s the that’s athletics though, right? I mean, really it is at the session with an art form like pitching, right? At the same time, we’re not talking about someone who’s lost 10 miles. Per hour on his fastball, either, right? Oh, and McDonald’s talking spin rate, spin rate, spin rate. It’s one of the greatest of all time and all that I don’t know. The era is nine man and it’s April, I right.

Luke Jones  10:09

But again, if we’re trying to drill down into this to really see what’s going on, and look, he might just be washed up. It might at the end of the day. That might be what it is, but, but if he could figure his curveball out, that’s the and that’s where you look at it and say, Okay, a couple of the other secondary offerings actually have, haven’t been that bad. When you look at, you know, you look at some of the fan graphs, has different, you know, run value they assign to different pitches. Stack has does the same thing. And you look at it, his foreseen fastball is actually, you know, stuff wise, maybe been a little bit better than it’s been in recent years. But when you take away what’s made someone successful for as long as Charlie Morton’s been successful, and not only is it not elite anymore, last year, it wasn’t elite, but it was still very good. It’s gone from elite to last year being very good, and now it’s he doesn’t have any feel for it. And I’m smiling a little bit because

Nestor Aparicio  11:05

I’m thinking at some point when Lamar loses a step, that’s the thing that makes him special, right? Like, you know, just that, just from an athlete, I just go back to my athletic point and say that, like, lose a little bit, and 41 dude, but this is a lot. I mean, it is curb, like I

Luke Jones  11:23

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said over over. Re watching his outing on Tuesday night, and I’m trying to figure out that I don’t have this the stat cast data in front of me, but out of the again, I can’t remember how many curveballs he threw. I can only remember a couple that actually look like Charlie Morton’s curveball. And when I say that, I mean Charlie Morton of 567, years ago, you know, most of them were, you know, out of the strike zone kind of look flat. I mean, he’s not getting swing and miss with it. And that’s not to say that’s the only pitch that’s being hit, but, and that’s not to say his other secondary stuff has been elite. Let me be very clear about that. My point is just that when you’re talking about someone who’s had an elite pitch, and that suddenly goes from being elite or really good to his worst pitch. I mean, anyone’s going to be searching, trying to figure out like and you can kind of tell if you watched his post game in the clubhouse on Madison’s post game, he’s kind of at a loss, right? Because it seems like he does feel pretty decent about his other pitches, but the curveball just hasn’t been there. And again, this isn’t run of the mill average, okay? Curveball, Charlie Morton’s had an elite curveball over the course of the back half, you

Nestor Aparicio  12:41

see, washed up it, you know, the velocity still there too, the spin rates, you know. So

Luke Jones  12:45

that’s the thing, and that’s where, I think, you know when, when we use the term washed up. And obviously that’s something we use across the board. And,

Nestor Aparicio  12:51

I mean, that’s a silly, yeah. I mean, it’s very relative,

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Luke Jones  12:55

right? Because when some when we say someone’s washed up, if we if they could be as we could say they’re as washed up as we want, but if we stepped into the box against them that we’d still

Nestor Aparicio  13:04

Joe’s washed up. He will throw for 25 this year, even if they win six games, because he’s really good. And you know what I mean, like, and we make fun of it and whatever, but he knows more about it than anybody. And that’s where Morton is. That’s where all the veterans would like to be, which is like to say, kg, you know, work a little harder, study a little harder, a little bit more and but that’s where the self evaluation for a guy like Morton comes in and says, What am I still capable of doing that I couldn’t do before? And what can I be better at? And this is maybe where Marvin Lewis once said to me, you know, we don’t get dumber as coaches. We really get smarter as we get older, all of us, and that includes John Harbaugh and Mike Tomlin and, you know, all these guys that have been doing it a long time, pitchers get smarter, but they don’t get better. I mean, they really don’t. They. They have to figure out that diminishment in order to survive at 35 let alone at 41 man,

Luke Jones  13:59

you know, yeah, and that, and that’s where you look at this thing. And, I mean, that’s, there’s no silver lining, let me be very clear. But the only thing you’re kind of leaning on right now when it comes to Charlie Morton, beyond the fact that, like, who else is coming in to start? Well, he’s gonna take the ball right now. I mean, and you’re not pulling the plug after three or four starts with anyone that has a track record and is making $15 million I mean, we know that’s that’s also still your

Nestor Aparicio  14:25

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best chance to win.

Luke Jones  14:27

I think you’re really at this point, if you’re drew French, if you’re the Orioles analytics department, looking at all the different things they’re trying and looking at grip release point, all the different arm slot, all of those different things you’re you’re trying to lean on all the institutional knowledge that Charlie Morton has as a 41 year old pitcher who’s been doing this for a really long time and has gone through ups and downs. Now, this is a very extreme one. This is a very extreme down. But you’re trying to to lean on him to say, all right, man, you’ve thrown this curveball at a very high elite. Level for a really long time. It’s not there right now. What do we need to do? What do you need to do to try to get this thing going? Because you know, your other offerings haven’t been that bad, but when you subtract, what makes someone special? What allows someone to pitch to 41 years of age, which, as you pointed out, is so rare, I mean, you’re not going to succeed if you can’t find some semblance of a curve ball again that you feel good about. You know that maybe isn’t going to be as a lead as it was three, four or five years ago, but it has to be better than it is right now, because it just makes for a far too incomplete repertoire that other teams are hitting. I mean, he didn’t. And,

Nestor Aparicio  15:42

you know, we can go on and on, and I’ll let you finish that up. But that then that leads you to, then, what are you going to get out of Dean Kramer? What are you going to get out of Kate povid? What are you getting out of these other guys? And we’ve just done 15 minutes on Charlie Morton, and he only pitches every fifth day. You’re still pissed about the bats?

Luke Jones  15:58

Yeah, they’re not hidden. And I know people were ticked off at Brandon Hyde because Mateo and Ramon liriano are in the lineup. And look, I’m at the point now where I think I mostly agree with that sentiment. The reality is, if you’re going up against the left hander, fine, but you don’t have Delman young and Steve Pierce coming off the bench batting, you know, starting against left handed pitchers, right? I mean, this isn’t you can talk about the platoon advantage all you want, but it’s Jorge Mateo and Ramon Laureano, who had a really good second half last year for Atlanta, but is very much in the November of his career, right? So at the same time, we’re people were ticked because Jackson holiday and Heston kerstet didn’t start. They both have sub 600 ops. Is right now. I mean, at some point in time, we have to look at these young guys collectively, and we can keep saying, Oh, these guys are so talented. These guys are so talented. Well, then they have

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Nestor Aparicio  16:55

to perform well. And yeah, left hander, it wasn’t Randy Johnson out there, right? Frustrating, yeah, you know, maybe they get a couple of hits. Maybe they figure, I don’t know. But then you get them to the point where they have no confidence to go after left handed pitching, yeah, you know, and right?

Luke Jones  17:13

And that’s, and that’s a philosophical thing that I’ve struggled with, with how they approach things, because you do get to a point where you say, Okay, I get it with a young guy, you’re trying to ease his ease his way in, you know? And we saw this not not so much with Rutger or gunner Anderson, because they even gunner when he struggled early in 2023 he wasn’t sitting that. You know, it’s not like they were sitting him against every lefty starter, but westburg is a great example of this. You know, when westburg was recalled, you know, called up in midway through 2023 they still had Adam Frazier, and so they were at a point where Westberg was starting against lefties, and he was starting against some righties, but they were keeping Frazier in the mix. But it gets to a point where a guy graduates, and then he becomes an everyday player. However, you also do look at it and say, Look, Jackson holiday is a one, one, you know, first overall, and he’s 21 and let me be clear, when I’m picking on him by saying he has a sub 600 ops. My point is, we shouldn’t have all of our angst pointed towards Brandon Hyde over that at some point in time, you know, we do this thing on this in social media as sports fans in 2025 and it’s not just Baltimore. I see it with every fan base. You know, when I see a sampling on social media, we do this. Players get all the credit when things are going well and when things are going poorly. We just bang on the head coach or bang on the manager. They’re the idiots. They’re the ones doing everything wrong. We can’t blame the players, because we love the players and we wear their jerseys and we buy their bobble heads, although, you know, although the owner’s having a bobble head this weekend. So that’s another conversation. But at the same time, other than Jackson holiday right now, because he is 21 and I still, believe me, not down on him in a big picture sense, but we can’t keep just saying these guys are young. These guys are this is a team that won 101 games lat of two years ago. This is a team that going back to that Yankee series, you know, where you and I were at Costas in watching the Orioles score, what 17 runs, or whatever it was in the in the finale of that series, where they took two out of three in the Bronx, and they were 24 games over 500 including the postseason, you know, the sweep to Kansas City, and now, including the six and 10 start this year, since that Yankee series, they’re 10 games under 500 I mean that that’s a big sampling of not just mediocrity, not not being 110, lost, bad, let’s be clear, but that’s that’s quite a big sample of not being a good baseball team. And look, it’s over two years, and the club’s different, and they’ve had some injuries, absolutely, and the injuries are absolutely a part of this, right? I’m. Not, not going to dismiss that part of it, when you have as many pitchers on the aisle as the Orioles do right now, and they

Nestor Aparicio  20:05

weren’t, but, you know, and the other part about their pitching is, I’m a believer that Grayson Rodriguez can do this when healthy. I’m a believer that radish was on the cusp of being very good, right, like, you know, and and good for a couple of years, maybe Chris Tillman kind of good, right? Like, I’m a believer in all of that, and so they have a built in crutch, you know, again, you know, this is, this is the off season for all these guys when it doesn’t work out. But we’re in April, this owner’s giving out freaking bobble heads. We didn’t, we had a seat with our name on it in the press box, and I wasn’t allowed to sit in it on Jackie Robinson night of all things, inclusion, equality, equity, all of that. So like, they don’t walk their talk in a general business sense, I was in Toronto two weeks ago. Can’t even get their game right. The game’s not on the way they run it all and the amount of attention baseball wants for you once it starts. And I feel this in my life. I have two calendars, Luke, one with the Oriole game in it, one without, because when you put the Oriole game in it, my week fills up pretty quickly. And if they gave me a press pass back and I was there Tuesday night, would have been nine hours, 10 hours down at the ballpark for me. And I’ll tell you what that level of avidity that they’re looking for, for people who aren’t shut in, people who have other lives, who interested in lacrosse or go to the beach or do other things, or have a family or have an Easter event with their nieces on a Tuesday night when it’s cold out, I looked up tickets, tickets for 30 bucks to get in again the other night, Like I don’t they’re trying to get people into the soap opera. And right now, the soap opera is not very good. And part of it is there was a lot of promise about how good this season was going to be, you know. And I don’t mean season baseball season. I mean because these people are more like, it’s more like real housewives this season, this television season of Oriole baseball, like what I’m going to get when I make a platter for by the way, why was the game at seven o’clock instead of 635 because it was a TBS game, you know where it

Luke Jones  22:11

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simulcast. It’s still on locally. Obviously it was still on mass. Well, we

Nestor Aparicio  22:15

got traps because it’s 615 we were going to go grab some food and run out. And I’m like, my wife said, Well, I can take it on the iPad. I know make Luke happy up in Pennsylvania, that I could take the game anywhere, right? And, um, and she went to put it on, she’s like, it doesn’t start till seven o’clock. And I’m like, okay, you know? I mean, I don’t even know when the hell the Game Stop, right? So this is part of the issue of you have to know when they start, where they are at the end of the bird land. This coupon that we’re gonna come down, we’re gonna do all that great, great. That’s good when you win 93 games or 98 games, or when there’s promise for that dude, when you’re 15 and 24 like you’ve been every year for the last 30 years. And I know better, because I’ve lived it all. Nobody cares. Luke cares. Nestor cares. We’re here. It’s our job. Well, it’s your job. It’s a hobby for me, over 35 years, according to Katie Griggs, who’s going to get her letter, but the frustration level of how they behave in the off season, how they market the team, all of that, how they how this new regime has come in and changed very little other than Johnny Bravo in the owner and have him throw hats and paying Cal Ripken to sit behind home plate. I don’t what’s on the field right now is not good enough. And for people that have come back to this, that really have suffered through I don’t need to tell you you went out to the ballpark, you had the privilege of being out there in 17, 1819, through, all of the mess. And this isn’t, this isn’t representative, and it’s sort of code red to me. At this point, they’re in the middle of this home stand where it’s cold, and they better not be losing to the guardians and the reds this week and finding themselves six, seven under come next week, when they got to go back on the road the Yankees in week and a half, right? So I don’t know what to say, but I don’t see signs of life here. And I am concerned across the board, because loriano and Mateo and you read, they’re not going to hit this team out of this we’re waiting on home runs from Henderson at this point. Rushman, I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know. You think Westberg might be dinged a little bit, I mean, and I think it’s wonderful that Mullins has found this summer of his career. And the contract, your

Luke Jones  24:36

contract, he seems like one

Nestor Aparicio  24:38

of the really good humans that I would like to know if I were, you know, were real professional like you, and I have more to say about all of this if I had more more access information that they want me to have or don’t want me to have, you say they wouldn’t give me any information anyway. And I hear that so but we are witnessing something here in the beginning. Where the ravens are in scandal. They don’t play again until September. The Terps are done, done, done. You and I aren’t lacrosse people. They need to keep people’s attention in a much better way, and I that includes marketing, that includes how they’re treating people. That just includes all the whole package of what the Oriole experience under non Angelo’s ownership, right? I’ve been waiting 30 years to judge this. Thumbs down, Katie, for all of you, Mark fine, thumbs down, thumbs down, just all the way around in a lot of ways. But I thought the team would be good. And I do think, I still think of Elias and my Dallas geniuses. I think Brandon hide is, I mean, I think a gunner Henderson is a future Hall of Fame, right? I’ll buy into all of that, but I see this pitching, and I know it’s not good enough.

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Luke Jones  25:52

I agree, but the offense hasn’t been good enough, and the offense is actually supposed to be really good again at some point in time you have to look at expectations and also say, I get it. Charlie Morton’s been poor. I’m not going to sit here and defend an eight plus era at the end of the day. I mean, I I can talk all I want, or he can talk all he wants about, oh, if he can just get his curveball back on track, he probably has the makings of still being something resembling a league average starter, right? I’m not saying it better than that, but maybe there’s a pathway there, if he can get the feel for the score ball back. But Jordan Westbrook is hitting 196 Adley rutschman. Go look at his numbers since his big opening day. I’m not saying it’s horrible, but it’s not anything to anything special. Tyler O’Neill has hit. It was nice to see him show a little more energy defensively on Tuesday night. I like that Clemente throw. That was nice, yeah, I mean, that was good to see. I mean, he’s, he’s mostly performed. I mean, you look at him, he’s slugging 490 right? I mean, that’s bait, other than Mullins. I think that’s tops on the team. You know, among the guys that play regularly, you know, Gunner Henderson had two hits on Tuesday night. I gunner, the home run power hasn’t come yet, but he’s hitting the ball hard. I think gunner is going to be fine. But, you know, Mount Castle was nice to see him hit a home run the other day, but he’s slugging 385 you know, he’s the first baseman. It’s funny for you

Nestor Aparicio  27:16

to say about Henderson, um, that you’re not worried about him or whatever, and I’m not either. I just feel like, over the body of work, he’s going to hit 34 home runs and drive in 111 run. Like, that’s fine. They can lose 92 games with him doing that. You know what I mean? Like, he’s going to be fine. All the rest of them box of chocolates. No way Mullins is having this kind of year. No way Mullins is hitting 26 home runs. Like I’m not buying that, but I’m buying that. I He’s one of my favorites. He really is.

Luke Jones  27:47

And the other thing with that, I mean, and you just said it, that’s not to say the rest of these guys are going to continue to hit at this poor of a level, but at some point in time, and this is where, to me, you kind of pull back the curtain a little bit, and you do kind of question, where is this team’s headspace? You know, where are they confidence wise, where are they in terms of just expectations going out there? Look, these guys had a lot of success very quickly. We’ve talked about this a lot, you know, I’ve said it tongue in cheek, but there’s probably something to the idea of, you know, there’s a certain amount of being a victim of your own success. When, with some of these guys, you know, their first full year in the majors, they win 101 games. You know, they go 101 and 61 you know, the best years

Nestor Aparicio  28:41

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out there shoveling, man, for years, they really did. But let’s not, let’s also not act like they were the 1992 Atlanta Braves either, though I agree with you, but, but if you’re in that clubhouse, talking more last year before Angelo’s died, and you’re a member of the team and Rubenstein’s buying the team. Corbin Burns is in your clubhouse. You report to spring training last Valentine’s Day with sugar plums. You won 101 games. Yeah, he didn’t do so much in Texas and whatnot. Um, but you’re a member of the team and you’re mount castle. Any of these guys, Mullins even go back to Austin. Hay still being there at that point. And before you and I went down to Sarasota last year, you’re like, you know, Angela’s dies. Three weeks later, they announced the new ownership on opening day, all of that. Bradish is coming back. Means has got half an arm. Rodriguez is coming. He’s going to be Jim Palmer. Corbin Burns is out there shoveling every night, right? Like, whoo, ain’t seen any of that, you know. Like, that’s a different level of what I look down and say, the guardians and the reds are in this weekend. Bradish, eight and two, with the two seven eras going Friday. Night Burns is 10 and two with a three one going Saturday and Sunday. That’s our down day. Grayson’s going to pitch on Sunday. He’s only seven and three with a three six this year. You know, like, that’s more. Jimmy key, Ben McDonald, Mike Messina, David, you know, like, I’ve seen what it needs to look like to win 95 or 100 games, and it looked like that. I remember talking to you last year at Costa sin, remember saying to my wife, this is, might be the best Oriel team I’ve ever seen in my life, in May of last year, as I look at it right now, and it’s not because I’m down on gunner or down on West Bergen 196 or down on rushman. It’s there’s no pitching here, and when Brian Baker is the bright light on April 16, and that’s what we’re talking about, dude, boy, oh, boy, oh, boy. I don’t know where their help is coming from, because I just I don’t see Dean Kramer as elite. I don’t see their defense as elite. I don’t see their ability for the offense to get on base as elite, and especially against left hand to pitching, as witnessed on Tuesday night. You know that wasn’t Cofax out there. That was a young guy, crafty, whatever, but he was throwing a no hitter through five innings

Luke Jones  31:09

Well, and that’s what I keep coming back to. I mean, every you keep go, you keep defaulting to the pitching, the pitching, the pitching, the pitching. And if that’s if that’s the rest of the club’s mindset, then they are done. They are done then, because the offense isn’t doing its job. The offense is supposed to be what’s leading the way for this team. The offense is what they focused on in drafting and developing their young core of players. And as they wake up on going into Wednesday’s action, they’re exactly league average and runs scored per game, and they’re worse in it, worse in plenty category, plenty of categories, as you mentioned, like talking about on base percentage or walk rate. They’re not slugging. I mean, everyone talked last year, bang on them. Oh, this team relies on the home run too much. They’re not hitting home runs at all now. I mean, so, I mean, they’re obviously hitting a few, but certainly not at a prolific rate like the Yankees are for they moved the fence

Nestor Aparicio  32:07

in, the wind was blowing the right field.

Luke Jones  32:12

Tough night. Oh,

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Nestor Aparicio  32:13

my god, yeah,

Luke Jones  32:16

say what you want about him as as a hitter. But you know, you see Ramon Laureano, who’s a very capable outfielder, struggling the way he did, to catch a couple fly balls. You could got to see but, but everything you just mentioned about the pitching, and let me be clear, I’m not excusing the pitching. The pitching is absolutely I mean, when you’re last in starter era,

Nestor Aparicio  32:37

beat him up about the pitching for four months. And you know, I mean, go back, roll the tape in December, January, February, March. I mean, you know, you and China were down on their pitching three weeks. I mean, like so all of it these, there were, there were orange lights on the Dashboard right before opening day before we went to Toronto for the but it’s almost

Luke Jones  32:55

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like if you have two students, one who you have no expectations for and just isn’t. And obviously this is kind of a rough top of my head stream of consciousness example, but you have someone that you expected to be a D student, and, okay, maybe they’ve been a d minus or an F student, right? I mean, the pitching has been awful, but you have someone else that you expect to be an honor student, and they have a C minus right now, dude, they had D pitching,

Nestor Aparicio  33:27

maybe c minus pitching, as they entered opening day, and they were trying to buff it up and think that they could turn it into B plus. And that’s not really. What they really had, is c minus d plus pitching that’s taken on injuries, that’s now an F Sure. But like I said,

Luke Jones  33:45

What about the honor student who has a c minus average right now? Or maybe a D plus, oh, that couple short Westberg you’re talking about. That would be the offense, right? Yeah, that’d be the offense. So look, if they’re going to take their way out of this, they have to hit we can talk about where they’re going to find a little more consistency, pitching wise. And if Charlie Morton can figure this out, if Dean Kramer can start looking like Dean Kramer again, which I know is nothing special, but has at least been a league average starter over the last three years, which they take that gladly right now, you know, get the best version of what Dean Kramer has been over the last three years. They’ll take that,

Nestor Aparicio  34:22

but he’s their number one, looking like a number three.

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Luke Jones  34:26

They’ve got to hit. And these young guys can’t just keep, you know, and no one is pointing the finger publicly. I’m asking what’s inside the headspace right now? Because if they’re the ones that are, you know, feeling sorry for themselves because of the state of their pitching. Well, you’re not doing your job in the process either. So they’ve got to hit Like it’s, it’s, I can’t be more direct than that. I can’t be, I can’t be any more blunt than that. They have to hit because that’s what’s supposed to be great about this team, and it’s not anything close. Great right now.

Nestor Aparicio  35:01

Alright. Well, Luke Jones is here. He’s Baltimore, Luke, we’re going to get to football and the liars luncheon. Luke and I did a full briefing on the Ravens roster and draft day next week. Luke and I have gone through hitting and pitching and Elias. I’m going to get after Katie Griggs this week about why I didn’t have a press credential on Tuesday night on Jackie Robinson night, not to mention why Clemente his number was taken off the wall. You know, I’ve discussed democracy at length this week with Bernard McKinney in Cleveland, Ohio, talking about the Guardians, talking about the browns. Michael Reg, I joined me at length to talk some baseball and talk about state of Ohio and the browns and their stadium situation out there. So I’m getting around a little bit this week. The reds are in town this week, we’re going to be at the Beaumont on Thursday, and I’m going to talk football, I’m going to talk rock and roll. I’m going to talk about money, democracy, tariffs, and also college basketball on the agenda at the Beaumont. So, you know, I give this away, so Luke, I’m I’m over at our sponsor at the Beaumont. My wife was with her family over the weekend, and I flew down, did the airport to get her, and she flew into the airport. I drove to the airport, and we went over to Beaumont, walking to Beaumont, get a little dinner, and look up, look up. There’s Larry Stewart, head coach of COVID state. And I said, Well, he played six years in the NBA. That guy played 15 year 15. So Stu is coming as I’ll give that away. Larry Stewart, COVID state, our cop state partnership. He’s will come out, talks in basketball with me, and n i L and other things. Probably discuss the chicken fried lobster as well, and the lamb chops at the Beaumont. So we’ll see at the Beaumont on Thursday. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland lottery. Luke and I go talk some liars luncheon. I’m trying to think of what else I got going on around here. Mark was seen, and I had an unbelievable chat about pitching. Oh, and speaking of college basketball, be no ransom. The only young man I ever coached who was great is is talking some basketball and his boys playing over at Mount Saint Joe. So an exciting time there had him out. Also honored the Acosta’s family on the loss of of the PA poop, and we did that on Friday at Costas. We had some great food. We’re going to be this week at Beaumont. Next Wednesday, we are at Cooper’s north in Timonium. Also some great guests out there. I’m hoping to have a very decorated Olympian. And also on the 30th of the month, will be a Cocos pub, and that’s going to be in lauraville. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland lottery as well as Raskin global, our friends at curio wellness who are opening a new location in Pikesville. I’m going to be there on Thursday with Wendy in the group Michael and everybody the bronfen family. So congratulations on getting that. I used to go over there and get coffee and and bagels with with with Marvin Lewis, and now it’s turned into a dispensary. Who knew meisterstown Road. I’m Nestor. We are W, N, S, D. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore, and we never stop talking Baltimore positive. I.