Can the Baltimore Orioles still make a playoff run? Well, sure, when you’re only a few games back of the final (and lowly) AL Wild Card slot but as Luke Jones and Nestor witness these defensive flaws and swiss cheese bats, they wonder aloud about the real destiny of Gunnar Henderson now that Adley Rutschman has been dispatched to Boston.

The discussion focused on why the Orioles remain in the wild-card race despite poor defense and inconsistent offense, and what that means for late-season and roster decisions.

Team Form

Performance

• Nestor said the defense has become the team’s most visible flaw, citing repeated routine misplays, sloppy fundamentals, and a throwing error by Brandon Young that he viewed as game-changing.
• Luke agreed the fielding has been poor but argued the bigger long-term failure is the offense, which disappeared after the comeback win against Philadelphia and has too often looked mediocre even against weak opponents such as the Angels.
• Specific examples included Gunnar Henderson going hitless in the Texas series and Colton Cowser recording only his second RBI since June 22.

Race Math

Standings

• Luke emphasized that the Orioles are still only 2 games out of a wild-card spot and have stayed between 2 and 9 games below .500 since May 1, which keeps them in contention despite playing poorly.
• He described the broader AL wild-card field as weak, with Texas leading, Boston currently in a spot, and Detroit looking like a possible third wild-card team.
• Open question: can the Orioles get through a difficult stretch with 19 of 25 games on the road and still be in playoff position by Labor Day?

Roster Outlook

Core players

• Pete Alonso was identified as one of the few major investments that has worked. Luke cited his production since May 1: .271 average, .511 slugging, .361 on-base percentage, 21 home runs, and 62 RBIs.
• Tyler O’Neill and Kobe Mayo were mentioned as recent positives, while the catching position, Adley Rutschman‘s absence, and Basayo not yet returning were described as major offensive limitations.
• Both hosts treated a future Gunnar Henderson trade as increasingly likely. Luke said a rebound would either help the Orioles win now or improve his trade value.
• Luke also said he has little confidence in the current front-office vision and believes a new general manager and development approach may be needed, while Shane Boz was discussed as a dependable starter whose 4-11 record understates his season because of weak defense and poor run support.

Defensive problems

• Nestor centered the discussion on the Orioles’ poor defense and described visible frustration with routine mistakes and weak fundamentals.
• The hosts said even plays that are not scored as errors have hurt the team.
• They framed the defense as both a game-level problem and an organizational failure.

Offensive inconsistency

• Luke argued the offense is the larger reason the club sits below .500.
• He said production has been inconsistent since the Phillies series and too weak against poor opponents such as the Angels.
• Individual performance concerns included Gunnar Henderson, the catching position, and Colton Cowser‘s lack of RBIs.

Wild-card picture

• The Orioles were described as still alive because they are only 2 games out of a wild-card spot.
• Luke noted they have stayed between 2 and 9 games below .500 since May 1.
• Other AL competitors discussed were Texas, Boston, and Detroit.
• The current road-heavy stretch was presented as a key test of whether they can stay in the race.

Player evaluation

• Pete Alonso was praised as one of the few acquisitions who has performed close to expectations.
• Tyler O’Neill and Kobe Mayo were cited as recent positives.
• Shane Boz was highlighted as a stable starting pitcher whose win-loss record does not reflect his overall effectiveness.

Strategic outlook

• The hosts discussed the likelihood that Gunnar Henderson could be traded in the future.
• Luke said a late-season surge from Gunnar would either improve playoff chances or increase return value in a deal.
• He also said the organization may need a new general manager and a different player-development vision to reset the roster.

8

Nestor Aparicio 0:01
Welcome home. We are WNST AM 1570 Tassel Baltimore. We are Baltimore Positive, freshly back from that Brian Adams concert. I got a great piece up at Baltimore Positive. I was inspired to write about Brian Adams and scored a front row seat. My former executive producer Ray Bachman was nice enough to videotape me most of the night, dancing in the front row, so I have fun footage that you’ll find out at social media. It’s going to be a good week here. We’re going to be in Ocean City, Maryland on Thursday, going down to the beach for Mako. All of it brought to you by our friends at the Maryland Lottery. I will have the Ravens scratch-offs to give away when we convene at Fisherman’s Daughter in Catonsville on the 19th. We’re back at Koco’s on the 26th in Laravel, all of it brought to you by GBMC. Of course, the neighborhood hospital. Keep that’s why I look so young and spry in those videos on the big screen at the. I still call it the Civic Center because the bank’s not paying me for it. Also, our friends at Farnin and Derm who are paying us, and they will take great care of you because it it was really hot walking around the city this weekend. I was hot at the ballpark on Thursday. I went down to Oriole Park at Camden Yards with Robbie Leonard and Greg Landry. I know Luke, you’re going to find this really hard to believe. John Allen went with me. That’s not hard to believe because it’s that’s my Kimasabi. But Allen McCallum and I went to an Oriole game together in the Curio Wellness Farm Daughter seats, and we sat there in the fourth row. And you didn’t go to the game Thursday. Our press box seat was empty. I went up and looked over Rockabacho’s shoulder and had everybody sneer at me. And the young kids who don’t know who I am say, “Who’s the homeless guy with all the hair staring into the press box, so nonetheless, Thursday I went to the game, and I got to tell you, dude, I had, I had a, I had a complete meltdown in my seat. Like I embarrassed those, not myself. I embarrassed those around me. I’ll be honest with you. What was your meltdown over? Brandon Young fielded a ball and threw it toward Cherry Hill. Maybe it was more Port Covington. I don’t know. It was in that direction. It was sort of southeast. I guess.

Luke Jones 2:12
I guess it was more so like, are we surprised at this? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Nestor Aparicio 2:16
Here’s what happened that day. I get offered Oriole tickets. I I have to offer them to 15 people to find three to go. I I in in the end I only found Greg Landry because he figured it out at like 1o’clock or oh that was about 1145. He figured it out. He sat down at 1o’clock or maybe 1245 for a 1215 first pitch. 1235. 1245. Yeah, whatever it was. Right. I mean we had to get down there. No time to get to Faithley’s. John was still half in the bag from the Rock and Roll. He opened for Van Halen’s kid the night before, up in Lancaster. So you know, I’m taking him. He’s half like I sang last night, hanging out with Van Halen. You know, so I’m at the game. It was so hot, and I sat down. I had my big bottle of water, and thank you, Katie. And it was just hot; like everything about it was hot. And we’re sitting there, and we’re just hot. And I’ve been watching this team make errors on my television. That’s right here, which is shrunk, by the way. My TV blew up last week. 15 years old to get out of a TV these days. Who knew? 2011. I had no. So now I got a teeny weeny screenie. I got like a little, you know, 29 and something, something, something like my dad would have been proud of it, but it’s kind of small for me. But watching the games, I get so frustrated. I sit here, ask my wife, and here, as you know, I’m kind of profane, Luke. You know, I’m not. You know, you’re the nice guy out of the two of us. I’m a little profane, so I tend to be profane in my profanity when they make four errors in six minutes on Sunday, right? But when they make four errors on six minutes and minutes and say, and not four errors, two errors, but they kick the ball around. They can’t field the ball. There’s nothing clean about the operation at all. Even when they’re not making errors, they’re not fielding the ball cleanly. I don’t even whatever else you want to say about that. I’ve been watching baseball my whole life. I get upset here and I yell at the TV, and my wife laughs at me, and she says the same thing you say. Like, they’ve been doing it all year. Why are you upset about it now? And I’m like, because Pete Alonso’s making $30 million, he ought to be able to execute a rundown, right? Like that. In addition to hitting five home runs on Sunday or whatever happened, right? So Brandon Young like fields them, and we’re all sitting still, dude. And it’s it’s awful. It’s it’s it’s empty. It’s hot. Like it, we’re there. I mean, I love baseball, but I’m there. It’s just hot, and I just want to like see something happen. I don’t even know. It’s just quiet. Nobody’s heckling. It’s just quiet. Y’all hears Clancy over first base behind Steve Jeppy, and Brandon Young feels the ball, and the ball goes sailing in a Cherry Hill, and. I just reacted like my old man. I was not profane. There were there was a little girl behind me and a boy. Like the minute I sat down, John Allen, who’s a father of two beautiful daughters that are now like grown up, I’ve seen him in bars. But he’s like, dude, there’s kids here. Be cool. I’m like, it’s 101 F and degrees, and this team stinks, and they’re about to kick the ball around and strike out 14 times. And I signed up for this. I’m using my afternoon because I love you, John. And then Alan showed up, which Alan and I haven’t been to a ball game this century. Going to say

Luke Jones 5:34
it’s probably been we haven’t been to

Nestor Aparicio 5:35
a game this century together, literally. Okay, so because he got sick of me, he didn’t want to sit with me after freeing the birds. Who the hell wanted to go to a ball game with me? Nobody, right? They listened to me on the radio. It’s bad enough. I’m telling you, I stood up, and I’m going to tell you, like, I’m going to do what I did. I it was instinctive, dude. I was like frozen in a moment. The place was quiet. Everybody was looking at me, Mike Trout was on the on deck circle, and turned and looked at me. The catcher, pozo, pozo, pozo,

Luke Jones 6:09
pozo, dude,

Nestor Aparicio 6:10
he stank eye me. Ball goes flying. Young goes up three runs in the inning. They lose the game really because of that that play. Really, I mean, it was like it was a pretty routine play, and I stood up, and I’m yelling at Brandon Young, all six foot six Texan of them, and I’m yelling from the fourth row right behind the dugout. There’s nobody in the seats. I mean, every fifth seat’s occupied maybe behind the plate, and I’m yelling like, it’s embarrassing. Field your position. Field it. Take infield. It’s embarrassing. And then I turned to Albernaz, who was staring at me in the dugout, listening to every word I said. The catcher has his hips. He’s looking at me like this. Mike Trout’s looking like do tell. Jim Palmer somewhere’s in the cosmos, thinking that’s exactly what I was thinking, and I yelled at Albernaz. I’m like, Albie, get him some more steel. What are you doing? You’re in a killing race. And I looked around, and I sat down, and I said sorry, and that was it. That’s exactly what I. Let me get some coffee. I’m sorry. Go ahead. Welcome to the show.

8

Luke Jones 7:31
Yeah,

Nestor Aparicio 7:32
it’s Monday. How are

Luke Jones 7:33
you? It’s funny. I said to someone over the weekend when you just look at the overall the the overall outlook of this AL wild card race, I said we should be. I thought back to Austin Powers and how the Doctor Evil always used the air quotes that every time we say race, it should be in air quotes, right? I said pen

Nestor Aparicio 7:54
and race as loud as I said embarrassment, and they’re both true.

Luke Jones 7:59
But I mean, you just look at it overall. I mean, I’ll tell you the team that I actually think might end up grabbing the third wild card at this point, and it’s wild to say because they just traded their two best pitchers, Detroit. Detroit’s actually playing really well right now. You know, they just won two over the weekend, and I mean, we’ll see. But it’s just, I mean, you just saw it. The the Rangers are leading the wild card race. Yes, they took two out of three from the Orioles. They looked awful on Sunday. However, the Orioles were fortunate to face Kumar Rocker and the pitching corpse of Jordan Montgomery. Right, first time Montgomery had pitched since 2024. But I mean, look, you know I’ve been down on the Orioles for months, but I look and I have the. You’re not

Nestor Aparicio 8:44
allowed to be the one down on the Orioles on this show. I’m down on the guy that’s down on the Orioles on this. I mean, it’s just but but I had a positive one for three years here. The real ones thinking that this thing was going to turn around and it’s just.

Luke Jones 8:56
But the reality of it is, Nestor. I I have the MLB TV package. I watch all these other teams too. They’re all sad. They’re not good. Do they feel as

8

Nestor Aparicio 9:06
bad as the Orioles?

Luke Jones 9:07
Some of them do at times. I know they strike

Nestor Aparicio 9:09
out as much. I mean, I know. I mean, I know the state of the game is what it is.

Luke Jones 9:12
But really, I mean, you look at this last week. Obviously, in the aftermath of the of the trade deadline, and and really going back to the Philadelphia series, right? I mean that that Friday night, Gunner hits the triple. They have the comeback win over the Phillies. Everyone’s feeling good, and their offense since then just completely disappeared. Right, I mean, okay, yes, they took two out of three from the Angels. The Angels are the worst team in baseball. Like, by the way,

Nestor Aparicio 9:36
about the fifth inning, Allen says to me, like there was a guy who couldn’t get a bunt down for the Angels.

Luke Jones 9:43
Yeah,

Nestor Aparicio 9:43
and Alan says to me, “You do know Brady Anderson’s their hitting coach? And I’m like, “He is. I said, “So where was I sitting, Luke? Where was I sitting?

8

Luke Jones 9:53
You were over on the first base side, right? I

Nestor Aparicio 9:55
was on the third base side.

Luke Jones 9:56
Oh, that’s. I’m sorry, I meant to say third base side. Yeah, you were over.” The Angels side. I was

Nestor Aparicio 10:01
above the Angels’ dugout, and I thought, “Well, if there’s Angels in the outfield, Brady Anderson has to be in the dugout, right? He’s their hitting coach.

Luke Jones 10:08
Yeah.

Nestor Aparicio 10:09
So I started in on him. I mean, the the next heckling about the fifth inning, right before I left, was when they couldn’t get a bunt down on no strike, one strike. Like they they had a bunt that the if the third, if CES didn’t have bricks in his back pockets, he would have fielded it in foul territory. I mean, it was, it should have been an out. I mean, the ball was up in the air in foul territory. I know nobody was watching. He took

Luke Jones 10:32
a bad. You were

8

Nestor Aparicio 10:33
watching the game, but

Luke Jones 10:34
well, I I didn’t see that. He took a bad step. Yeah, but he took a false step. I I remember them saying it on the. I was I think I might have been in the car at that point coming home from Owings Mills, and I didn’t heckle him. I

Nestor Aparicio 10:44
heckled Brady, so I started in on Brady like Brady, you’re a hitting coach. These guys can’t get a punch down. You working with these guys, Brady? Where are you? You know. So I was like, I was on him a little. Probably would have told

Luke Jones 10:56
you. I don’t know who half these guys are because we just sold off at the deadline. But

Nestor Aparicio 11:02
yeah, they did a good job, and they closed Acciacio too, so he didn’t even have his favorite restaurant, which stinks, you know, for him.

Luke Jones 11:08
But Mike Trout didn’t do anything in that series, but yeah, I mean, it’s look, I mean, we’re we’re talking about everything but kind of the big picture right now. I mean, well, because the big

Nestor Aparicio 11:19
picture’s like gloomy, and we talked about that last week, and the week before that, and the week before that. I don’t know what to say. I mean, what does Katie want me to say about the team? I mean, literally, like, what, what, how do we polish this up? I mean, we polish it

8

Luke Jones 11:32
up because everything else is gloomy with all these other teams too. I mean, they’re they’re two games out of a wild card spot. I mean, like seriously, there there is a race going on. I mean, it is, and guess what? It’s probably going to continue to be that way. I don’t know if they’re going to play so poorly, and if some other team in this group, like I said, Detroit’s the one that you kind of look at. It’s wild. They have a plus 87 run differential, and they’re two games under 500. That’s it’s kind of bonkers right there, and I get it. Scoubel’s gone, Mize is gone, but yeah, they still have Framber Valley. Dude, the

Nestor Aparicio 12:09
Orioles won after Eddie Murray here, right? I mean, things happen, right? Things can

Luke Jones 12:13
happen, but but I get my point that I’m trying to make is I don’t know if the Orioles are going to completely crash and burn and go two and 13 over the next three two and a half weeks, and in contrast, I’m not sure there’s another team. And like Boston already did it, right? Boston’s in the second wild card spot right now, and they’re they’re duking it out with the Yankees for the top wild card spot. But I don’t know if there’s another team making that kind of run. So my point is, when we’re talking about it from a math perspective, I think they’re going to continue to hover in this space. I mean, they’ve been in this space. Think about this: you go back to may 1 or may 2, whatever it was. They have been between two and nine games below 500. They’ve just been in. They’ve occupied that space for more than three months now, and they’re still right in the thick of this from a mathematical perspective. But you say the same thing about Texas, though. They

Nestor Aparicio 13:11
feel like they’re going to be 79 and 83,

Luke Jones 13:14
something like that. Yeah, right. That’s what it

Nestor Aparicio 13:15
feels like they’re going to be.

Luke Jones 13:17
Maybe you know 7983, 77 and 85. You know, if if they really struggle the last week, well, they do

8

Nestor Aparicio 13:25
pitch well enough. Yeah, starting pitching, they they pitch well enough to win, and they they have potential to hit, which we’ve been trying to get out of them for several years now. Although the potential of Adley Rutschman’s now gone, right? Yeah, that’s Boston’s Potential now, potential gets people fired, but they don’t feel like a diminished team without Adley Rutschman. If that actually reward, if that, if that, if those are your diminishments, you’re going to give those at bats to Tyler O’Neill, and twice a week he’s going to hit a home run that matters, they they might be okay. I mean, once by once Basio comes back, right? I mean that right

Luke Jones 14:00
now the catch the catching position offensively is just an absolute black hole. I mean, I saw someone.

Nestor Aparicio 14:08
Well, shortstop’s been a black hole if you consider Henderson’s numbers. Third base has been a black hole. I agree. Catcher sub sub pitcher. Yeah, pitch. Let the pitcher. Yeah, exactly. I mean,

Luke Jones 14:18
that’s how bad catcher’s been the last couple weeks, right? So, so, so from that perspective, and look, Rutschman was already on the IL, and you just mentioned it. I mean, Tyler O’Neill. Have you seen his numbers since july 1? I mean, he’s he’s like a real ball

Nestor Aparicio 14:32
player. He’s

Luke Jones 14:33
actually swung the bat really well since then. Now, they would love

Nestor Aparicio 14:36
to get those numbers out of Kerstat or Mayo or some of these other. Those were the numbers they were

8

Luke Jones 14:41
hoping to get out of Tyler O’Neill when they signed them, right? That he would mash left-handed pitching, and he has since july 1. But, but yeah, I mean, you just kind of look at it overall. I mean, Pete Alonz, look, and I know Pete has a hiccup every once in a while defensively. Overall, he’s been good defensively. I mean, he has been. He’s been one. Of the bright spots defensively, especially in contrast to what his reputation was, he’s a fine player. But I don’t, yeah, I’m not seeing 100. I’m not seeing aircraft care, whatever the hell you call them, battleship Galacticus. Really, never lived since may 1. I mean, I know he did. He did not have a good April. Dude, this would feel a lot differently if Adley Rutsch were hitting 272 with 16 bombs and playing every day, and Basio were blossoming as that other thing, and Gunder Henderson were hitting 282 with 24 home runs and 94 RBI. Like if the other parts

Nestor Aparicio 15:30
of this had worked, Alonso would have been a really, really nice, you know, what do they say? The Holy Trinity of a soup is the, you know, the celery, the the the carrots, and you know the garlic. Like he would have been one of that three, but there’s, he’s the only thing they got, really, right? I mean, really.

Luke Jones 15:48
Oh, I mean, I, I, the only thing they got. I mean, I don’t. He, he’s the one who’s produced the most consistently. He’s the only one

Nestor Aparicio 15:55
looks like a superstar. I mean, they got rid of their all star. Their only all stars not on the on the roster anymore. And I do look go up and down and say at the end of the year, if you look in the back of the bubble gum card, Pete Alonso is going to look like he earned his money, and I’ll and I’ll hear that. Pete

Luke Jones 16:08
Alonso since may 1, 271, 511 slug, 361 on base percentage. He has 21 home runs, 62 RBIs. That’s since may 1.

Nestor Aparicio 16:18
So we’re going to look at his. He’s had a bad April. That’s what we’re doing. He’s done

Luke Jones 16:21
everything they could have asked for, right? Pete Alonso. Look, we could, you know, we could nit nitpick here or there about a certain play here or there. He hasn’t been quite what I would hoped he would have been with runners in scoring position. Of early on, he really struggled big time with bases loaded. Like we can. But you can do that if you break it down at that micro level for any player. Dude, he’s getting 30 home runs, right? He’s been fine. He’s been exactly what he’s been as advertised, and like I said, his defense has been a little bit better-not a little bit-has been better than what we thought it was going to be. But yeah, you look at the rest of it, and okay, you can point to someone like Tyler O’Neill, who’s hit well since July. Well, what about the rest of the season, right? Jackson Holiday had an incredible July. What about the rest of the season, right? Now it was nice to see him come alive over the weekend because August had gotten off to a really bad start for him. But you kind of just you go down the list of guys. Well, you mentioned

8

Nestor Aparicio 17:21
they’re premium and premier players. If the next seven weeks are the best seven weeks of their season, it’ll look like the Red Sox did in June and July, right? Like that’s what Michael Island, and it doesn’t even look that good. To your point, I was going to say. I mean,

Luke Jones 17:33
that the Red Sox have been on a historic run. I mean, until they lost a couple to the A’s over the weekend, they were on a ’84 Tigers kind of run. I think they were 30 and five. All they need to do is put a 16

Nestor Aparicio 17:43
and 11 September together and have a little run here, where you know they win a few games, win seven and 10 or something. You know, I mean, we’ve been saving all

Luke Jones 17:52
season though. That’s the thing. You know what I mean? Like, but there’s,

Nestor Aparicio 17:54
but that’s why we’re still talking about them in the middle of August instead of talking about Jesse Minter or you know Zay Flowers contusion or whatever. We’ll talk about that. I

Luke Jones 18:02
think, but I think for me, and your point, you’re not wrong. I’m not disagreeing. I think everyone’s tired of it, though, right?

Nestor Aparicio 18:10
Oh, I was when I stood up and started screaming at Brandon Young. That’s how I started to see. See, there’s the I got out to the ballpark, and I I was there witnessing the horrificness that I the bad news bears that I watch every night, and I just stood up and lost my mind for a minute, and sat back down, and you know, going with the

8

Luke Jones 18:24
here’s the other side of it because Sunday, they swung the bats, right? They swung the bats well. Their defense wasn’t a glaring issue, right? I mean, okay, you know, Kate Povich didn’t pitch especially well. They had pretty quick hook, right? I mean, they went to the bullpen very quickly on on Sunday afternoon. They had the lead, and they weren’t going to let Kade Povich, you know, labor through another inning or so. They said, “Okay, that’s it. But I think it’s reached the point, at least with me. And you know, I mean, I’ve talked about this a lot. I don’t enjoy watching this team up. This is one of those years, and obviously the rebuild tanking years would fit into this category as well. Covering this team has felt like a job this year compared to most years where it doesn’t. I’m not even saying 101 wins, right? Which, by the way, they only need to win their last 44 games to to match the 2023 Orioles that were at that point. I I just happened to notice that in passing on Sunday afternoon, but but my point is, I as a baseball fan, as someone who loves the game, as someone who watches all these other teams when the Orioles aren’t playing, I don’t enjoy watching this team. So even a day like Sunday where things go really well and you win, and you are in a position where over the previous seven games you’d scored 11 runs combined, and then you scored 10 on Sunday. You know what my feeling is when I watch that? I just say, yeah, they they did it today, so. What’s the offense going to look like the next few days? Right, it’s just more of a why can’t you do that more often kind of feeling, rather than fun and satisfaction and say, hey, they want a baseball game. Hey, that’s a lot of fun. It’s it’s more oh, so so you do that there when you lost a couple winnable games earlier in the in the series, and if you just played it three or four runs, you have a chance to win. So it’s just it’s not an enjoyable team to to watch. It just isn’t, and it doesn’t mean there aren’t any positives. I mean, mentioned Tyler O’Neill. I’ll tell you another guy who swung the bat and is actually starting to hit right-handed pitching. Kobe Mayo, go look at his numbers over the last several weeks, he’s starting to swing the bat better, and that’s good to see. But it’s the same story with with all these guys. You can look at a month or six weeks or a couple months, really. Other than Alonzo, who April he had a bad April. Since then, he’s been everything you expected Pete Alonso to be at the plate for the most part, but you look and Blaze Alexander was a great story, of course, until you know he breaks his hand, you know, getting hit by the pitch. But you just kind of go down the list of of the rest of these guys. There’s, you know, whether it’s a health issue like Basayo, for example, or someone who just hasn’t performed, someone who’s been up and down. I mean, how about this? How about this factoid from Sunday? And this is another thing I mentioned. Colton hit an absolute rocket, dead center field. Right? What was it? 440 feet on Sunday afternoon. That was Colton Cowser’s second RBI since june 22. I mean, like think about that. Like that’s that’s one of those where it’s like you’re not even mad. You’re just your mind’s blown. Like you can’t comprehend that that someone who plays as regularly as him that was only his second RBI in what seven weeks. You know, like rapidly approaching two months. So you just hear something like that, and you just-I mean-you just shake your head. I mean, so that’s just where I am. Look, I love baseball in general. You know that. I’ve watched the Orioles my entire life, but this-this is just not a team that provides much enjoyment right now watching them. I mean, and like I said, to the degree that even when they win a game on Sunday. I still look at certain things, and I’m just like, why is Colton Kowser? Why is he capable of doing that or going on a stretch of?

Luke Jones 22:31
I don’t know. Maybe he’s going to go on a heater the next two weeks, right? We’ve seen that he did that back in late May into early June, and then just stopped hitting entirely once again, right? So you just see these short circuits, you see these flashes of something that actually looks the way it’s supposed to look, but boy, it’s just so fleeting. And again, this this weekend series in Arlington was frustrating. I mean, Boz. I know it was an Apple game, and a lot of people didn’t watch it. Although I will, I will mention it coincides with the new season of Ted Lasso coming out. So that was kind of a, you know, a a little perk if someone did did decide to subscribe to Apple over the weekend. But you know, Shane Boss tosses a complete game Friday night. You know, he goes eight innings. He goes the distance for them. You know, he went eight instead of nine because they were losing, of course. But you know, you you look at that, and you know there were there was a little a hiccup in that inning when he when he gives up the runs, you know, with the defense, it was him. But you look at that, you look at Saturday where it was another game where, I mean, Bradish commits an error himself, so I’m not letting him off the hook. But you look at how that defense just crumbled in that inning, where you know it’s two nothing, two to one. You know they had actually gotten an early run on the holiday homer, and you just it’s just it’s frustrating because to your point you made a couple minutes ago. I mean, for the most part, they’ve pitched and they’ve pitched really well, and even this bullpen that really, from a perception standpoint, doesn’t feel as good as it’s been. But statistically, it’s been pretty good. It’s held up. I mean, there have not been many games this year where you say, “Oh my gosh, the bullpen absolutely blew it for them. That has not happened very often. I mean, even with Rico Garcia not being the guy he was the first two months of the season, right? Even with Helsley being hurt, you’re going down the list. You know, even with Anthony Nunez not not being the high leverage guy that they were trying to make him to be early in the season. You know, it’s not as though their bullpen, that things have gone well for them. It far from it in terms of how it’s gone as far as who you expected to be there, but you know they traded Tyler Wells, right? Tyler Wells had blossomed into a shutdown reliever the last couple months, but that group is still they’ve cobbled it together that that group has been decent. Enough. I mean, it’s it’s their fielding and it’s their offense. I mean, those are the culprits, and and really for me, big time the offense, right? They were never constructed to be great defensively. As bad as as as awful as it is to watch, that part of it is less surprising because you and I were talking about that in March. That defense was a concern, right? The the idea of what the roster looked like, all of that. But I’ll continue to go back, and this is why, to me, it’s the most damning evidence against Michaelia’s keeping his job is what the what this foundation was supposed to be drafting all these hitters, and for their offense to be as at best, even on its best day, as painfully mediocre and at times worse than that, right? And especially you look at it of late, how much they’ve struggled to score runs. I mean, even that Anaheim series, you know, even that series against the Angels, it’s not like they were crushing the baseball. I mean, they they were doing just enough against a really bad team, but that’s the part where I just keep coming back to this. And and of course now, yes, you traded Taylor Ward. Ruchman isn’t coming through that door. Basayo, it still doesn’t feel like it’s imminent. Like you know, hopefully it’s in the next week or two, right?

Luke Jones 26:18
I mean, but it doesn’t feel like you know they had they didn’t he hasn’t gone on a rehab assignment yet of course but but you just look at it and man it’s just it begins with Gunnar Henderson right even on Sunday where they score all these runs Gunnar was an O for four he was O for the series right I mean it’s just it’s August you know, he’s supposed to be their best player, and you know, despite the fact that they keep running him out there in the leadoff spot or the number two spot or the third spot in the order, still playing every day, making defensive miscues, all all that. But it’s just you look at that; it’s just incredibly frustrating. And now, I mean the reality sets in also, and we we’ve touched we touched on this after the the trade deadline, but they’re trading Gunner Henderson. It’s a matter of when, right?

Nestor Aparicio 27:10
But but the one and what and what the one thing I’ll say about would be right.

Luke Jones 27:13
That’s my thing. You’d like to see him finish the season on a high note because I’m sorry. I kind of look at this thing, and you know, it almost to me feels like one of those scenarios where you’d like to rip the bandaid off sooner than later.

Nestor Aparicio 27:29
But at the same time, do you think that they put him out for offer last week? I mean, Rodgers as well, right? Like, if they were ripping the thing down with Henderson, you would say, “Well, we’ll get more for him in the off season, whatever. There ain’t gonna be no off season, so it’s kind of a weird, you know, the the the notion that you would cash in your chips and get younger players and say we’re gonna punt because next year might not happen, but 28 happens, we’re gonna have more mature players who are gonna play minor league baseball next year. I know we’ve talked about that. We started to talk more about it in every conversation. Alan and I did that. Evan Drellick and I did that. Buster Olney, Tim Kerchin, the guest I’ve had here, have been thinking along those lines because now that the Rutchman thing has happened, and you got Ironson, you know these these other pieces that aren’t helping you in August of 26, nor you know do you want or need help when you’re two games off the wild card right now, and everybody’s just sort of flopping around to be the last wild card? But it might be the last season for a little while too. So there, there’s a point for me where if I’m mr. Rubenstein, we’ll get to him in a minute too, because nobody asked him about Epstein, but I would. But he’s down in D.C. and acting like no one’s paying attention when he says he’s embarrassed by this outfit.

Luke Jones 28:43
Yeah, and hasn’t been

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Nestor Aparicio 28:44
around lately either. Real baseball fan, Dave. Well, I mean, to go back to Gunner,

Luke Jones 28:53
I mean, there will be an off season. It’s just going to be a matter of whether it’s, you know, I doubt it’s going to be December, right? There will be an off season now. It might be a truncated three weeks in late March or mid April, but it’s going to be

Nestor Aparicio 29:07
more like shotgun deals, not like you know, like the business in the industry is going to have upheaval in the off season. Nothing’s going to be normal. Fair enough, but that’s

Luke Jones 29:15
no different than the trade deadline anyway. At least in the context of if you’re going to trade Gunner Henderson, but I mean Gunner still has two more years left after this year, right? So even if you trade him a year from now, it’s a similar time frame to to Adley Ruchman, right? But regardless of that,

Nestor Aparicio 29:31
we’ll talk about getting something that’s better than Terek Skubel in return. Like you know what I mean? Yeah,

Luke Jones 29:35
of course. But part of that is also you’d like to see Gunner start playing better at some point, right? If and that and that was kind of my point. If you can get the arrow trending up again,

Nestor Aparicio 29:45
like they did with Tyler Wells over

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Luke Jones 29:46
the last, I mean, yeah, sure, sure. I mean, no, I mean they

Nestor Aparicio 29:50
sold kind of high on. They could use him. I mean, they got rid of him. They must have liked what they got, right?

Luke Jones 29:55
Oh, I mean, they they got the kids sold high on all of them. I mean, I guess Rutschman. Wasn’t you’re not you weren’t selling I through the lens of he was on the IL, but

Speaker 1 30:04
he did well in the deal. He had

Luke Jones 30:05
rebounded from where he was a year ago, right? You want to see that with Gunnar Henderson one way or the other, right? Because either a it’s going to help you win more games, or b it’s going to help you when you do trade him, whether it’s this winter pending the CBA situation or a year, you know, the trade deadline next year,

Nestor Aparicio 30:26
but yeah, he’s not Oriole for life. That’s for sure.

Luke Jones 30:29
Oh, I mean, we’re at that

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Nestor Aparicio 30:31
point where we were with Machado. We’re like, oh, yeah, he’s not staying. And

Luke Jones 30:34
especially when, and they were good

Nestor Aparicio 30:36
when we had to come to that conclusion with Machado, like they were, they were at

Luke Jones 30:39
the end of being good, I mean,

Nestor Aparicio 30:41
but they-you felt like they, you knew what it felt like for them to be good. And if you give him money, maybe you can still be good. There was, and they gave the money to Chris Davis. Obviously, they gave you know the old thing. But the writing

Luke Jones 30:52
really wasn’t on the wall. And I mean, I mean, Machado

Nestor Aparicio 30:54
wasn’t going to take their money anyway. I think you, I think,

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Luke Jones 30:57
right. I, I think you could have said that at the end of 16. But let’s face it; they weren’t good in 17. They they had a run in August that they looked like, hey, they they might have a shot at a wild card. Well, this is

Nestor Aparicio 31:06
why this tanking for greatness is bouja, because like in the end, you can’t keep the player anyway, and you the window small. And as we found out, their health, the timing, where they are, you know the consistency of the modern player doesn’t feel anywhere like it did in the 1970s when I looked in the back of Robin Meowt’s bubblegum card or Paul Molitor, and I could be pretty. You’re bringing up players

Luke Jones 31:33
though. I mean, right?

Nestor Aparicio 31:34
But but we thought Gunnar Henderson and Adley Rutschman. I don’t know. There’s on the hall of a lot of anemic

Luke Jones 31:40
offense in that era you’re talking about as well. There were a lot of 175 pound major league ball players that didn’t hit for power and all that. But I hear your point. I mean, it just it just comes down to when you’ve traded Ruchman. I mean, you know, it symbolized it’s everything that I said last week, right? For me, it was much more about the the idea of trading Adley Rutschman than trading Adley Rutschman himself. And Gunner Henderson’s trending in the same exact direction at this point, right? I mean, well, that’s why I’m pointing

Nestor Aparicio 32:10
out Machado and saying this has been going on for a while, you know. And Messina got out of here before that because it wasn’t good enough. At some point, this place needs to smell good to somebody other than Pete Alonso to take their money. Adam Jones took

Luke Jones 32:24
their money. Adam Jones stayed. Yeah, they kept Adam Jones. But now,

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Nestor Aparicio 32:28
now I’m talking about now too. Oh, you. Well, you just

Luke Jones 32:30
mentioned Mike Messina to me. If if you’re going to bring up Mike Messina, I can bring up Adam Jones. Sure, you can. More recent than Mike Messina, but you know, I mean, let’s just stick in. Radish took their

Nestor Aparicio 32:39
money, right? I mean, by the way, Boz seemed you know he he seemed very comfortable talking to Tom Glavine the other or John Smoltz. I like

Luke Jones 32:47
Boz. Yeah, look, Boz is. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not sitting here saying that he’s going to get Cy Young votes because he’s not in that that space. Shane Boss has kind of been exactly what you at least hoped his floor would be right. There’s still the question of will he reach the kind of ceiling that Mike Elias advertised about. Can he go ahead and do what he did Friday night again

Nestor Aparicio 33:11
and again? Right, but

Luke Jones 33:13
he’s done that a lot this year. I mean, go look at Shane Shane Boz in the modern day, understanding that even the best pitchers rarely are going seven and eight innings, right? You just don’t see that that often anymore. But you look at Shane Boz this year; he has gone at least five innings, or or let’s say has at least recorded an out in the sixth inning in all but let me look 123456. but six starts all year. He’s at least gotten outs in the sixth inning for them in modern baseball. I don’t want to like. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that’s like an unbelievable workhorse, but that’s a high floor. Well, he starts to feel

Nestor Aparicio 33:56
like the guy. If you look at next year, if everything gets normal, he’s a guy that can give you seven or eight proven right, and then when he takes the ball, you know you’re not going to get him two and two thirds and 74 pitches, and you’re losing five to one. Right,

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Luke Jones 34:09
he has not had many starts this year. Like I don’t know if he’s had a start all year where you would say he wasn’t even competitive. You know what I mean? Like whereas even someone like Dean Kramer, who was someone that I stuck up for a lot more than a lot of people watching him over the last four or five years. Dean Kramer had plenty of starts where it was non-competitive, right? You’d see that even in his best years, you would see starts like that over the course of the season. Whereas Bos, I mean, for the most part, you know, he’s given up five earned runs three times all year. Well, I remember that old

Nestor Aparicio 34:41
word composure about pitchers. Is composure? Composure is the issue with Dean Kramer, and it’s very timely you’re talking about him because we’ll be watching him talking about him in a different uniform. But the composure part of Boz that I liked was just watching him in the dugout, not having guys throwing seeds at him like.

Luke Jones 35:00
Yeah,

Nestor Aparicio 35:00
that act was so old. Even when they were winning, I told you that act was a bad act. But I, I feel like I got a little picture of him in those nine minutes in that half an inning where I’m like, I’d like to talk to him. And I don’t know that I’ve met many baseball players recently. Adley Rutschman being the exception, where I really wanted to talk to them, but it felt like Shane Boz was a grown-up, and they gave him a lot of money. And I don’t know anything about any of these guys. They don’t give me that opportunity. I have to ask you, Luke, what’s Cal Bradish really like? So you know, when I watch this and try to be a reporter, which is all I’ve done all my life, I I try to look at it and say they invested in this guy, they invested in Bradish, they invested in Alonzo, and you, you and I, sort of unwittingly here have spent most of this segment talking about where they spent their money, Alonzo O’Neill, right where they didn’t spend their money, Ruchman, where they rebated money, you know, where they got they have guys on the team that they want or don’t want. Henderson’s not expensive for them, and he’s going to be a nice investment piece for them to get rid of. He’s going to be like selling the the second house in Ocean City. You’re going to get something for him, right? But to your point, where you get the most for him, I guess the inflection point wasn’t a week ago for him. For him, and I agree with that. But for a lot of reasons, but getting the stock up on him is important. I would agree.

Luke Jones 36:23
Yeah, I mean, one way or the other, it’s either going to help you win more games for however much longer he is an Oriole, or it’s going to help you trade him, or combination of both. Right? I mean, it’s just so. But no, just to finish my thought on Boz, I mean, this is a guy who has gone at least six innings in 12 of his 23 starts, and has gone. He has gotten an out, at least an out in the seventh inning in eight of his 23 starts. In modern baseball, it’s pretty good. And by the way, I would pre-check it in

Nestor Aparicio 36:54
and say put a good defense behind them and some more opportunistic offense. He will be arm willing, God willing, you know all of that. If we’re having a real season, he’s a guy that in March of next year, I’m pretending that they’re not gonna that they’re gonna play. You and I would be talking about in pencil and mint, and I would feel good about him having watched the body of work this year. Now I couldn’t do that last year or for what they gave up for him, which was let’s say King’s ransom, but they gave a lot up to him in the way that when it happened, you were like, “Well, they have to sign him now, and then him rent him, you know, and they did.

Luke Jones 37:30
Well, they had they had control. I didn’t say they had to sign him at that moment. They had club control with him. I mean, that was that was why it cost so much to get him. They they had. I mean, he he entered the year with what he had, he had two more years of control. And they liked him enough to give

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Nestor Aparicio 37:44
him a King’s rant to sign him up, right? I mean,

Luke Jones 37:47
and they ended up getting Michael Ferret back anyway, who who was you know one of the one of the pitchers they gave up in that. But look, dude,

Nestor Aparicio 37:52
I can I can piss on Elias all day and Albernaz and his decisions on managers and all the things that Lock and Four is upset about. I’m I’m upset about, but you know you have to lock players. You have to get some players, right? And if they do have some, but Gunnar Henderson doesn’t want to be here, and you know Allen is adamant that the Rutschman thing is really just because he didn’t want to sign that they would have given him a deal, and you you’re you’ve said that too. Like I would have given him X amount of years at X amount of price. He balked at that, and once that happens, you got to deal him, right? Like that-that’s where we were with Machado 10 years ago, and that’s where you and I are with Gunnar Henderson saying you’re not signing him that you’d like him to be hitting 320 right now, and if he were, it would smell better, and you do better in the deal, but I, I every all of this is temporary except the guys they really invest in and the guys that they’ve invested in in this normalcy of the new ownership because the old ownership. I mean, we dealt with 32 years of that. I mean, I don’t need to. If you don’t know how bad and how unnormal all of that was. This is supposed to be normal. Normal is we have two pitchers sign, we have a first baseman sign, we have a young catcher sign, we have a shortstop we can’t sign, but we’re going to deal them. We have a second baseman that might be going to the hall a shortstop or the hall a holiday, and you know we still have players here, right? And from what Moneybag says, they’re going to go spend more whenever the time comes.

Luke Jones 39:23
Oh, and and and that’s why I was stressing to you at the time that at trading Adley Rutschman did not signal that this was going to be a full teardown to the degree that like you looked at the 2018 trade deadline because because of those guys being under contract, but because of the fact that Jackson Holiday still has years of control left, right? I mean that that you’re still looking at some of these younger guys to see if there’s another level, right? I mentioned Kobe Mayo 15 minutes ago in our segment that you know he’s starting to hit at a more consistent level. Now, does that mean I’m handing him a starting job? But now you’re in a position that you don’t have Rutschman and. Basayo and Pete Alonso at first base, where there’s not this logjam for someone like Kobe Mayo to get some to get some runway to play. If Kobe Mayo hits, they have room for him in this lineup now, right? I mean, it’s just that simple. But

Nestor Aparicio 40:14
Kobe Mayo should be getting a glove in the off season to try to. I mean, your defense doesn’t have to be really good to make this roster, I know they need him.

Luke Jones 40:22
He needs to be better, but he needs to be the DH. Well, when he plays, he needs to be the DH. If you if you want to if you want to spell him for Pete Alonso at first base every now and then, that’s fine. I think he plays a perfect dude. I hate giving up on

Nestor Aparicio 40:36
athletes, three sport athletes that look like they can do it. That like turn him into something, you know what I mean. But let’s

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Luke Jones 40:42
face it, they had already given up on him at third base until the West. Quitting on a

Nestor Aparicio 40:46
25-year-old guy defensively.

Luke Jones 40:49
I don’t want to quit on the bat, though. I mean, like, and and look, he can keep working on that. Prove everyone wrong. Like it’s that simple. Prove everyone wrong. But based on what we’ve seen, the body of work at third base. No, you can’t be an everyday third baseman. But let me finish my thought on Boz because you’ll appreciate this because I’m actually going to use an old school stat here. Boz is four and 11, four and 11. Like that’s a bad win loss record, right? When you’re betting

Nestor Aparicio 41:12
on that in Vegas and you look up on a little green and red board, it says four and 11. However,

Luke Jones 41:18
10 unearned runs allowed, and go look at the run support where that rang. I don’t know where it off the top of my head, but I know that they’ve cited this on the on the telecast over the yeah very bottom in

Nestor Aparicio 41:32
baseball, bottom something in baseball. Right. Point is,

Luke Jones 41:35
if Shane Boz had a more representative defense behind him and had gotten even for this team, more run-of-the-mill, middle-of-the-road run support rather than being completely anemic for him offensively, he’d be 11 and four instead. I mean, like, and look, I’m not saying that that you know, being on pace to win 14 games is like, oh my gosh, that’s unbelievable. But point is, I think

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Nestor Aparicio 42:02
the point is next year he can win 14 games. You would have not have a hard time convincing. It’s a nice season. I mean, he’s

Luke Jones 42:06
got a he’s got a 376 ERA. Now the one part of his game that hasn’t been quite where I would like to it to be is he hasn’t struck out as many people as I thought he might. But you know, other than that, his

Nestor Aparicio 42:21
pitching the contacts a problem in this organization. That’s

Luke Jones 42:24
right. That that that’s part of my part of my point. And just in general, you want your best starters to miss bats, right? Your best relievers miss bats. I mean that because you’re not subjecting yourself to bad luck in terms of does does that contact find grass at the worst possible time? But I think with Boz, you look at the peripherals, all the underlying stats. He’s really nice season. Again, he’s not going to get Cy Young votes. Yeah, back in the

Nestor Aparicio 42:51
bubblegum cards, going to look awful though, right? Because it’s going to look like six and 14 or something, right?

Luke Jones 42:56
Oh, it depends what you look on,

Nestor Aparicio 42:58
right?

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Luke Jones 42:58
See, to me, I understand that expression. I peck. I collected baseball cards. I don’t look at win-loss record, but I was humoring you on the the idea of and Jim

Nestor Aparicio 43:08
Palmer and Jim. How do you? By the way, before we go, and just from a comedic standpoint, how do you think Jim feels about the defense of the team?

Luke Jones 43:15
Oh, you know, despises it. I mean, like, it’s not, but it’s not just Palmer. It’s you think about this franchise, and I know we do this a lot, and I know we’re further and further removed from it because my goodness, we’re talking about 456, decades ago at this point in time. But you think about what this what this team’s tradition was built upon: pitching, defense, and three-run homers, right? But the defense was a massive part of it. When you talk about Brooks Robinson, the greatest third defensive third baseman in the history of the league, made the pitchers better. When you talk about Mark Belanger, when you talk about Luis Aparicio, when you talk about Cal Ripken, when you talk about J.J. Hardy, who was a Gold Glove caliber shortstop at his best, you look at that. I mean, second base. You have Bobby Gritch and Dave Johnson and Dower and Roberto Alomar. I mean, like you go down the list, go across the diamond. Every every position at some point in time has had Gold Glove caliber defense in the history of this franchise. And when you look at what that defense is right now, it’s an an organizational failure, failure. I mean, to see what happened Saturday night in that Bradish start, in that what when they made five miscues, not and not all of them were quote errors in in the box score, but they were errors, right? And you you just see that meltdown and the fact that, and I get it. Texas hit a three-run bomb late in the game to make it five to one, but that was a two-one game until the very end because of your defense being just horse. You know what, right? I mean, that’s how bad horse hockey. Yeah, I mean, just by the way, I got

Nestor Aparicio 44:55
I got Randy Moss coming on talking about the horse hockey with the Preakness too. But but

Luke Jones 44:59
yeah, I mean, I just. But that’s just what’s so frustrating about this, and that’s why I look. I think there is a path to getting this thing back on track, but my degree of confidence that it’ll actually happen if they stay the course at the top, meaning Michaelias and this front office and this current vision and the things that they value. No, I don’t have confidence that that will happen. But if you can bring in a new general manager with a new vision and new eyes and new ideas and a fresh perspective, and you kind of see what they were able to, what they’ve been able to do in terms of stocking their farm system with more interesting arms than they’ve had in quite a long time, then then to me I can see a path for this thing getting back on track over the next 18 months. You know, maybe doesn’t mean contending for a World Series next year necessarily, but it feels like it could be better because you do still have Pete Alonso for four more years, and you do have Basio for what seven more years, and you go down the list of you know Jackson Holiday can still get better, especially if you bring in maybe a fresh perspective to help him out. But you know, I just with this regime, there’s just too too much damage that’s been done, and with this group of players, the way they’ve been coached, the way that they’ve been developed or not developed, and in certain cases, you know, I just I look at it and just say, man, really feels like it just needs a reset, right? And the Adley Rutschman thing was certainly part of that, right? I mean, like that, whether you like it or not, that certainly happened. And Gunner’s going to go at some point, you know. And I think I don’t think that’s going to change, even if they change general managers. Like I, I think that’s reality for where they are at this point in time. And frankly, Gunner’s almost trending to be a guy that needs a change of scenery, right? I mean, he just looks so lost, and it doesn’t feel like they have any capability of helping get him back on track at this point. I hope I’m wrong. You know, stranger things have happened. We’ve seen him play at a very high level. If you’d like to see him at least go on a heater and make it look a little bit better by year’s end, but but yeah, I mean it’s just there’s just a lot. If he goes

Nestor Aparicio 47:14
on a heater, they’ll make the playoffs.

Luke Jones 47:16
I mean, he very well could. I’m not. Well, you’re the guy

8

Nestor Aparicio 47:19
that stood up the third week of June, and said he’s killing the team. And we’re six weeks later, and he’s still killing.

Luke Jones 47:24
Stand by it. Yeah, I mean it. As far as on field performance, he’s the biggest reason why they’re below 500. I mean it’s it’s number one, and I say that as someone who two years ago in late June was saying that if I had to vote for MVP, I’d take Gunnar Henderson over Aaron Judge right now. Well, and it’s been all downhill since then, quite frankly. But, but point is, I’ve thought highly of him. So, but we’ll we’ll see. And meanwhile, the Orioles continue this run on the road. They’ve got Minnesota, they’ve got Tampa. They come home. They’re going to play the Yankees in Tampa. They’ll go back on the road for another long road trip. I mean, you know, they come up. They’re interesting.

Nestor Aparicio 48:05
They got moments with the Yankees coming up. Those are always moments, right? Like I don’t know how though the people are staying up all night in in in Minnesota here, but by the weekend, you know, if they can win the first two games of a series somewhere, get a little bit of momentum going, and we can say, hey, season ends today. They’re the wild card team. Like, if we wake up and can do that next end of next week,

Luke Jones 48:27
I mean, if if we’re talking in those terms in early September after this stretch is over, this stretch started. What was it? 19 of 25 when they began this current road trip. 19 of 25 on the road. If we’re talking about them on Labor Day being the third wild card with a half game lead over Detroit or Texas or whatever, they’ll have earned it because this is a this is not an easy stretch that they’re in the midst of for any team, let alone a team that has the very obvious flaws that this team has. So I don’t I don’t believe that they’re going to do particularly well, but I also don’t necessarily believe that it’s going to go so in such a disastrous way that that they’ll be out of it either. I think they’re going to continue to occupy the same space where they’ve been, which is they’ll inch closer and closer to 500, and then they fall back again. Right? That’s just that’s what they’ve been for three and a half months now, and I don’t really feel like that’s going to change.

Nestor Aparicio 49:23
I’m not here to tell you that Tyler O’Neill can’t flourish here in this offense against left-handed hitting, left-handed pitching. Luke Jones is here. I have Raven scratch-offs to give away. We will be at the Fisherman’s Daughter in Catonsville next week on the 19th, the 26th. We move to Koco’s in Lauraville. I’m in Ocean City for a little while this week at Mako on Thursday. I’ll be chasing down the Senator Chris Van Hollen. I have a lot of political and social and community-based things going on by the end of the week around here. But I’m looking forward to some crab cakes, a fisherman’s daughter. That is, of course, the Fadelies family. Luke will be down at the ballpark next week. He’s going to be out knowings Mill. All week this week, we will be talking plenty of football around here. All are brought to you by friends at GBMC and Farnham and Derma. They are the comfort guys. You can find them at 410 367777. If you’re on the WNST Tech Service, you get all the breaking news first. All of that brought to you by Cole Roofing and Gordian Energy. You can follow Luke at Baltimore. Luke, you can find me anytime, anywhere. ness@baltimorepositive.com. We’ve been having some fun with some rock and roll and Brian Adams, and don’t tell anybody. But I went to Barry Manilow the other night. We are WNST AM 1570 Towson, Baltimore. I write the sports talk that the whole world sings. We’re Baltimore Positive. Stay with