We’ve been at this a long time at WNST. Our first ballpark reporter almost 30 years ago and lifer pal Allen McCallum joins Nestor to discuss the two weeks of “Fall Training” before the Orioles will need to win games in October for what feels like an unlikely World Series run.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
weeks, orioles, team, pitching, alan, game, henderson, season, ravens, hitting, win, couple, injury, playoffs, baseball, bullpen, bats, holiday, hispanic, october
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Allen McCallum
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T, Towson, Baltimore, Baltimore, positive. We are positively preparing for Oriole playoff baseball here two weeks from now, trying to find a raven victory somewhere between Dallas and Buffalo and Cincinnati. In the coming weeks, we’re doing a lot of deep, dark radio here this week about a bad offensive lines, bad offenses in general, bad hitting, bad everything except, well, let’s play off baseball. We had an AFC Championship game here this year, and we’re hoping for the best in October. It’s been a little while since I got together with this guy. Well, not really. We did get together a couple weeks ago with Max Weiss. We had crab cakes and shampoo. We had Warren Beatty driving around in old Mercedes. We had Goldie Hawn on her prime, an unbelievable performance by Carrie Fisher in Allen McCallum Star Wars, basement theater adventure. But, you know, I thought we’d be having some Oriole playoff baseball and ALCS together. Figured, you know, there’d be a night they’d be on the road where I’d be banned from attending, and you’d be banned from attending, and maybe we get together and watch a playoff game together on the telly. Alan, I we may have very limited opportunities to do that this October, but I would say this, and I told Luke this, and I am Baltimore positive, and I can write what I want, think what I want, about the Ravens or the Orioles and the people that run the teams and the creeps that are involved in their ownership and in their their front offices. But I would say I am not down on the fact that the Orioles can’t win the World Series next next month. They have enough starting pitching to do it. The starting pitching has been better. That’s been cold. Um, I don’t think they can’t win, based on what I’ve seen lately, but I would like to see over this next week or two, whether it’s the Yankee series next week or whatever, I would like to see some signs of life that that team we saw most of two years ago, all of last year, in the first 60 to 90 days of this year, can return for a week or two or five and try to steal a World Series in October.
Allen McCallum 02:11
Wow. Well, you are certainly optimistic. Nestor, you know, at the first month of this I said, you know, they’re in a slump. They came out of that horrific June played extremely well, as they had through the first three months of the season, and it just looked physically and mentally, emotionally exhausted after that, that gauntlet they had to run. And then you get two months in and you’re thinking, wow, this is, this is an issue. And then granted, so much starting pitching on the shelf. Jordan Westberg goes down, Heston kerstad gets hit in the head, a lot of things, just every bugaboo thing that the Orioles could go through, they’ve gone through the season. And you think at some point this has got to turn and then over the last six weeks, the hitting has been so atrocious. I have to say, I’ve never seen anything quite like this, where I know they weren’t hitting with runners in scoring position through most of the season, but they were hitting home runs, and westburg and O’Hearn were getting big hits, sort of to squelch it, not to mention that Garner Henderson was having an MVP season, and then when Westbrook goes down, or Hearn goes in this horrendous slump, Henderson did for a while, seems to have come out of it. I don’t know. I mean, as much as they’ve had the injuries, there are other things clearly going on in this team. Their approach to hitting has been really just horrible. And you know, you look at Adley rutschman, I have to believe that Adley Richmond has been battling an injury. There was a statistic where, after he got hit on the hand, at that time, he was hitting right around 300 as he’d been through the whole first half of the season. And then his hitting has just been dramatically different. And substandard since then, um, between the fatigue of of catching that the potential hand injury that I’m I cannot confirm. Um, there, there has to be something else going on with them. I don’t know what it is. Um, this club, has we talked about it before. I mean, there was, there’s clearly some schizophrenia on this team between bringing up young players, the guys that have been here for a long time, and a lot of them, other than Santander, struggled through much of the first half. They jettisoned Austin Hayes, I would imagine, because there was some friction about him not playing and Cedric Mullins, who’s who’s finally playing more like Cedric Mullins, the productive Cedric Mullins was so horrible offensively through through the first half of the season. You have to ask yourself, you know how much of that was was impacting, or is impacting this? Club. They’re just, there are a lot of issues. They’re clearly still a rebuilding team. As much as they want 101 games this year, as much as you say, as you say, they can win the World Series, there’s some things they need to figure out in in the off season, without question. You know Colton Couser, who’s who’s a top rookie of the year candidate. I’ve got to tell you, it seems to me, this is probably the weakest Rookie of the Year class in the American League in a really long time. I know people love Colton Couser, man delivers. I tend to refer to him a little more as swam, SW, a m, Swing and a miss because of the just immeasurable amount of times that he swings and misses at pitches, and if he expects to have a long major league career, that’s something that’s really got to improve. Last year, they spent a lot of time having good at bats, going deep in accounts and working them to get the hits they needed. And it seems like the club has really gone away from that. If you told me the pitching the bullpen was going to collapse, I probably would have believed that, given Batista and some of the things that happened before the season, if you while they struggled, I wouldn’t call it a collapse. If you told me the starting pitching was going to was going to be going to was going to be less, I would have had a little more trouble believing that with Corbin burns, but given the amount of injuries, you’d say, okay, but, but that really hasn’t been the case either. I mean, they’ve gone through some struggles, but Suarez, in the in the season he’s had really has helped stabilize that, not to mention training for Zach Eflin, the pitching has been decent enough. If you told me the infield defense was going to struggle, I would have, I mean, I would have believed that gunner Henderson seeing him at shortstop for the first time as a full time player. While he has tremendous skills, he has a lot to learn about sort of playing under control, playing the routine play. We didn’t know about Jordan westburg. Jordan Westbrook were great at third base, but has been out. And then second base has been a bit of a black hole without Jorge Mateo defensively, they’re just a lot of things going on with the infield. They’ve been a little better recently, but if you told me the hitting was going to completely disappear, I just wouldn’t have believed that. Yeah, that’s a shocking
Nestor Aparicio 07:27
part of this, but part of that also is, I look at it Allen, and I say they’re a different team the bottom of this lineup. I mean, there’s guys we don’t recognize. I mean, starting with the Austin Slater’s and the Jimenez’s, and then just tripping down the road of the rivers, and just who these guys are and and this goes back to back when, you know people like you and me used to cover the Orioles and be around the team when Sid thrift would come up. Talk about Luis Matos being a five tool ball player, and Alex Oh, Choa, and you know these players that were turned out to be quad A players, or in your case, maybe how you feel about Colton cows, or which is, he’s just a guy. He’s gonna be a 250 hitter, he’s gonna strike out a lot. He’s just gonna be a guy. He’s not gonna be a superstar, not gonna be a one one. We’re worried about ruchman being a one and being a superstar at this point, based on the injury and the foul tip on June 27 and sort of everything that fell apart there. Um, Jackson holiday, Jackson holiday. I was going to Kobe mayo. We go through these names, and I brought something up with Luke, and he burned up at me a little bit. And I guess part of it is revisionist history, because it was so six weeks ago, right? It was so six weeks ago that there was a trading deadline and they were in this thing. And I’m not down on Elias decisions at all, right? Like, no, he gets whatever he does. He does. We got this new owner. Um, all I know is you and I are still sitting outside looking in for our media badge as well. But they have a new owner. They have maybe some finances, certainly taking on salary with Eflin, and the things that they’ve at least done initially that appear to be different than the way John A would do things, right. But for me, the the notion that the bats were going to get cold is insane. The notion the bullpen had to get better and the rotation had to get better, especially when Bradish and means those guys weren’t coming back right, the Connor Norby thing, and not just because Rogers is stunk and been AAA, it hasn’t been a factor that they gave two pieces, Stowers and Norby away, but at this particular point, how did somebody in the organization look at this and say probably should keep Norby around, because he’s ready to play now, like he’s closer to being he is a better over the next 100 big league at bats, Connor Norby will give us more productivity independent race than a 20 year old kid that. Looks like he belongs in Little League, you know, like and and the Kobe Mayo thing that 40 home runs against double a pitching at the triple A level and beating the cover off the ball does not equate to anything more than maybe being Dave Kingman in the big leagues, making that jump, especially when you’ve never made it before, and the time that it took Henderson to catch on, and he was young, the time that it caught Adley rutman To catch on, although it was his infectious enthusiasm two years ago that feels like it’s just gone right that that thing, that pat on the ass, pet that He that Pete Rose thing, that he brought that energy, that he brought that Kirby pocket thing, that thing that I we haven’t seen it, and again, his injury. But it’s very curious to me that they really felt like Jackson holiday was going to help them win a pennant and has it, and that they’ve been shocked by that after the first go round in April, and that unfortunate the Westberg injury. They couldn’t have counted for that or whatever, but they have to have accounted for the fact that this holiday thing, he might not give them the best chance to win the World Series this year. And I don’t, and I don’t feel like that that’s the case right now. Well,
Allen McCallum 11:22
so it’s not, let’s be clear, it’s not time to give up on holiday or Kobe mayo. Look, I’ve said this to you 1000 times. I believe in apprenticeship, and I don’t care how great a prospect you are, I think you most players will benefit from staying down in the minor leagues for a period of time, and even when they called up Jackson Holly the first time, I thought they’ve passed over Connor Norby, I think he deserves a chance to prove what he can do at the major league level. Let’s give holiday more time to develop into the player they need him to be at the minor level that that’s That’s ancient history that when the tariql Rumors were going that the Orioles could get him and that Jackson holiday was would be part of the package, I was in favor of treating holiday not because he failed the first time at the major league level, but for a couple of reasons. One, this team is extremely left handed. They’re going to be in the future, if you include holiday and kirstad and Sam basayo, guys that are that are either here or working their way here so many left handed bats, and we’ve already seen, despite the numbers early in the season, that they are susceptible to left handed pitching, not even just quality left handed pitching. And I think they need more balance in this lineup. And Connor Norby being right handed, a guy who you believe could hit was a part of that, um, plus, if you believe they’re gonna they need to sign Adley rutschman and gunner Henderson. And I’m, I think the jury’s still out a little bit on gunner, uh, Adley rushman to a long term contract. It’s hard to have three top guys and you’re include Jackson holiday that you’re going to sign like that to long term and put the rest of the team together. And I thought it made sense for balance, for finance, whatever, that if you could get tree scuba, and nobody knows whether they could have or not, that you include them in the deal. Fine. They’re worried about Connor Norby is a defensive player. I get that, but ultimately, I think balances it matters a lot. He certainly would have been impactful for this year. But nobody knew that two days after the trade deadline, Jordan Westberg was going to get hit on the hand and be out for the rest of the second for the bulk of the rest of the second half. We hope we get him back now. So look, if you believe I like the deals that, that he made, that Elias made at the deadline, I can’t swear to you that I understood all of them at the time. I think Brendan Rodgers is more of a long term. I think they’re still they, I think they believe he’s still recovering from his surgery, and that in the next couple of years he’s going to he has a possibility of getting back to where he was in his first year in the major leagues. Maybe that’s true. Um, but I think that Elias, when people want him to make moves for right now, often looks forward and tries to make moves that way. Um, it’s worked out with Zach Eflin, Sir Anthony Dominguez has been pretty good, certainly better than Kimbrel on the back end. Soto, it’s had a couple of atrocious outings, and has been sort of decent as they nurse him along. You know, Eloy, him and Jimenez, when he first got here was pretty good. He’s been struggling the last few weeks. So it’s been, I would say he sees it around C plus for those deals, Zach effel is has been fantastic for them. There are a lot of other things going on on this club. It hurts not to have a Connor Norby, but you have to give something, get something and all. Ultimately, they had to move Stowers and Norby, those guys that clearly they had decided were not part of their future, and they needed to move them. So it’s, it’s a little maddening that they got traded in the situation, in the in the deal that they got moved in, not knowing Rogers is going to do. But it is what it is. Ultimately, I think what we’re one thing we really have to appreciate is that for a year and a half, the Orioles didn’t lose, didn’t get swept in a series, and hadn’t lost a Division Series in the American League East, and that those two records, those two runs, are absolutely outstanding and immeasurable in Major League Baseball, and it feels like when that bubble burst against the St Louis Cardinals, a lot of things went afoul. I don’t know what that means. I don’t know if that’s just a mirage. I don’t know if there are other things boiling, but they had a run where they were untouchable, and we got to live through it and and they have just completely fallen apart since then. Anything can happen in the playoffs, and if they get coulomb and Jordan westburg back, and if Heston kerstad can, sort of can sort of find what he had when he first got back up here. Yeah, maybe that could energize the team. You never know. I mean, they they’re still pitching well enough to win hitting, hitting, some home runs can cure a lot of ills, and this club certainly has the potential to do that. There’s a different energy in October, but they have some things to prove and overcome in the next two weeks, and we haven’t seen enough signs offensively that they can do it yet. He is
Nestor Aparicio 16:49
Alan McCallum. He was our long time Oriole Insider. Still is here all these years later, and loving the Orioles and doing the good work down in DC in the music space, and we’re watching movies together. He got me out watching shampoo a couple weeks ago with Max Weiss having crappies. That was like a real social call, you and me, like in your house. It’s almost like we’re, like, really friends. It’s amazing.
17:10
Imagine that.
Nestor Aparicio 17:13
I also want to give a shout out to Ray Bachman, who is our mutual friend, who is a battling cancer. We’ve been very, very Ray strong around here. We’re just kind of getting going and the things we’re going to be trying to do for him. So I just do want to point out that as we do era pieces here from now last century, Alan and we’re 24 and a half years into this century, we’ve been knowing each other a little while, and we’ve been talking a long time about the potential for an October run, an Oriole baseball i i know you’re not up. No one’s optimistic, because they’re baseball fans, and they’ve seen this act, but I’ve also seen the act of teams that look awful in September, that have talent. You know this? This isn’t an untalented team. This isn’t a team incapable of scoring 10 runs every night for a month. It’s not um, that. And the pitching, as I sit here, two weeks for the playoff begins, the pitching is better than I would have even thought it could have been a month or two ago in regard to what they’re getting out of their starters, what they’re getting out of their bullpen, how they’re getting Mondays off and getting a little bit of rest, how they’re getting a little bit of length out of their starters, how my Venezuelan brother Albert Suarez has performed, and names that we would not have brought up before. But, you know, waiting on Webb, waiting on cologne, waiting on westburg, waiting on whomever we’re waiting on, you know, urea, I guess we’re not waiting on Mateo anymore. Probably not waiting on Mount castle right, certainly not waiting on Austin Hayes or the people that are the yearly departed and gone, not waiting on Craig Kimbrell, right? No, no. For me, the bats are the key and the starting pitching that’s already there. I mean, can’t do much better than burns and effluent and whatever they come up with, with Rodriguez or Kramer or Suarez or whatever it’ll be, they’ll have some bullpen arms. They’ll have some healthy arms. I don’t know that Burt Smith or or Dominguez or Soto or whomever it is, but they’re going to put a credible Major League Baseball team that won a lot of games, 90 games, whatever it’s going to be out there in a game one circumstance. There’s no reason to think that they can’t have a five two lead in the eighth inning and steal game one in Kansas City, here, wherever it is that they’re going to be over matched in any game, in any circumstance. You know when, when rushman, Henderson, and whomever is coming up in the lineup, there can be a couple doubles in a three run home run, that there could be all of that in the postseason. So I’m not in I’m not going to kick dirt on them until Yogi Berra tells me that I can. Literally, they’re
Allen McCallum 19:52
going to get in the playoffs. Anything can happen in the playoffs. It would be nice to be a little hot going in. But. But, yeah, absolutely, sometimes it takes a day it, you know, one two game stretch where you start scoring and you sort of remember how to do it. Ryan O’Hearn, who I will say, I believe, is more of a had a great year last year. Had was having a decent, having a solid year this year, clutch hitting year. I do believe he’s more of a pinch hitter than he is an everyday player. And I think Heston kerstead Next year is needs to get a shot at that full time BH role that said Ryan O’Hearn knows how to hit in the clutch. Can Do It Again. Anthony Santander has four. Is the third most home runs in the game, right? Uh, all it takes is, is a couple of games where they figure out how they used to do it and they get going again. So, I mean, there’s, there’s no reason to kick dirt on them. At this point, they’re getting in the playoffs. Let’s go. Let’s see what happens. That’s
Nestor Aparicio 21:00
why I don’t want you talking on here about next year. I know tomorrow, baby. There’s just right now. I mean, they’re in a position. Hey, look, the ravens are Owen too. Are you talking about last year’s playoffs or this year’s playoffs? They better talk about, like, getting a freaking first down, literally. And the same thing with the Orioles, like, they better talk about better at bats, better pitch selection, better offerings and better pitches, using all of this science they have and all of this video, they have to be on their game against whoever the game one starter is, and win that game, and then you win the next game and and all of a sudden that starts to sound like a winning streak. Alan. We can have those. We’re still allowed to have those around it, you know, we break out a little Major League thing, the one thing that, and I don’t want to lead with this, and the I’m doing a Dear David Rubenstein letter next week, and a guy of, you know, my, uh, authentic Latino persuasion and National Hispanic whatever month that they’re going to call it this month or next month. And they want to, they want to talk about diversity and equity inclusion. Well, I have an African American who likes baseball. You’re a little bit of an oddball, Alan, I don’t know if you’ve been to the ballpark lately. And the Hispanic guy in a city that never had any Hispanics, that’s now 23% Hispanic, according to Odette Ramos, you know, the elementary school I went to is 74% Hispanic. And when I mean Hispanic, I mean real Hispanic, not gringo like me. They don’t speak any English, so this community is becoming more Hispanic. They want the sport to become more colorful and more all of this other stuff. You and me sitting here on the outside, locked out, while David Rubenstein and his Whistler decide who they want here and there. I’ll get into all of that. I will. I’ll get into ticket sales. I’ll get into massing and its implosion. I’ll get into how bad some of the broadcasts are. I’ll get into all of that, their social media, selling tickets, their Birdland thing that they do to their Birdland people, and how they’re screwing people and raising prices and doing all that. But and I’m going to challenge Katie Grigg, all of them, and how they’ve awfully they’ve treated me in a way that I don’t deserve, like never deserved. And you know that from 20 years ago, when they’re attacking me in the outfield, not paying their bills, just all the awfulness of the Angelos era, all that gets washed away if they win a series or two next month, and they can catch fire, and they can be something different than what they used to be. And I am still, still going to stay bullish on their starting pitching, as long as it’s alive and breathing, even if it doesn’t look great the next two weeks, if it just looks okay. And I’m going to be still bullish on all of this, because this is rarefied air. This is a chance for them, if the ravens are going to be one in four next month, right? I mean, this is a chance for them to do something and have a podium and have a platform that they won’t have in November, December, January, and even if they don’t win the World Series. And I’m not expecting them the world when the World Series, but I’m expecting that they could. I don’t want to see them losing eight to one in game one, three to nothing in the second inning of Game Two, and taking an eight to one facer in game three the way we did last year, and them hitting 128 in a three games. Two games here, did get eliminated, right? Yeah, I That would suck for season tickets. It would suck for Mojo in the off season. Look, it sucked that we lost the AFC Championship Game. Ran the ball three times. But there’s been hope now at Owen, two things have changed for them, and I feel like with the Orioles, this last 60 or 90 days has sort of sucked the hope out. I told Luke the other day. If you’d watched games over the weekend with the sound down, just the body language Detroit, it looked like their 10 games back with 11 to play, and like Friday especially, that’s gotta stop, you know what I mean? Like there has to be a point where. Adley rutschman has to start patting guys on the ass and saying, look, we got one game. All we got to do, score a couple runs early against whoever the royal starter is, and get a win. Get another win and engage the crowd. Do something good. Have one of our starting pitchers, you know, get the walk off in the fifth inning after delivering a five inning, one run performance as the shadows are falling and the Yankees lost game one in there, if they were or however it works, right? Like, October is a wild thing, man, like, and I can’t, I can’t portray that in September. But to your point, all I want to see the next two weeks, all I want to see this giant staying in the Tigers even up in New York. I don’t want to see him get in fights in New York. I don’t want to see any of that crap. I just want to see them compete. I want to see some better at bats. I want to see better. I’m calling it fall training, not spring training, fall training, that it’s fall training the next two weeks to be ready to play baseball in October at the healthiest, in the best state of mental condition, physical condition and rest, and not worried about how shitty you played in August. You know what I mean? Like, that doesn’t matter. And let the fans have that. Let the fans be dour. But I can’t have that inside the house there. They gotta be better. They gotta find leadership. Alan,
Allen McCallum 26:23
in 2019 the Washington Nationals won the World Series basically with three very good starters, two or three relievers, two superstar hitters in the lineup and some clutch hitting. That’s how they won it. And the starters have never been the same since you look at the Strasburg and Corbin and the like, but that’s how they want it. And more and more, we see postseason baseball being played like that with the teams that that that are deficient to some degree, the Orioles, have all those agreed ingredients and more. Um, they can, yes, they can go in the playoffs, and they can win the World Series, and they they certainly need to go into October thinking everything that happened in the last three months is over. It’s time to start playing baseball the way we know we can. Let’s go. Let’s effing go. That’s, that’s how they need to approach this thing is they had, they had in October, a couple of weeks from now, no question. Alan,
Nestor Aparicio 27:25
I love you. I miss you. We haven’t gotten a ball game yet. I don’t know. I mean, maybe we’ll stumble into some playoff tickets here. But I am, and it’s not just because I’m Baltimore positive. I’m a I’m a baseball expert. You know what? I mean, I’ve been doing this my whole life. This is all I’ve ever done. I have never been the guy kicking dirt on a team that’s capable. That’s I’m worried about the offensive line of the Ravens being capable. I really am. Like, whether it can be good enough. There’s nothing about this baseball team if they’re West, bird’s back and cows are upright and curse that can be available. I don’t think mount Castle is going to be available. I don’t know. I don’t know where we are with Urias or the other benchy Guys, or whether that’s Eloy Jimenez, because you need a right bat, or whatever it is, wherever these cats are all one first round for epics. These guys have all done it for a couple of days or a week or two, where they can hit 425 for, you know, 429 because that’s a nice round number um, for a playoff series, at least, because that breaks down the nice math. The one thing, they don’t draw walks, they don’t they don’t take pitches, they don’t get into at bats they but they used to, they’re not playing good defense. You know what I mean? These are things. I want to see some error free baseball. I want to see some situational hitting. I want to see some walks or some, you know, making crappy pictures in the Giants bullpen this week and the Tigers bullpen, you know, make them work. Make them work. And I want to see good decisions. And I want to see the manager not look like Peter Angelo’s died yesterday. You know what I mean? Like, let’s, you know, let’s, let’s get a little energy. Let’s get a letter in bed, down at the ballpark. There’ll be energy in New York next week. Get a little energy. That’s that. That’s all I’m asking. Alan, we’ll reconvene two weeks from now, okay, two weeks from Monday, let’s 13 days. 14 days. We’ll get together, okay, and to see how we’re doing. All right, we got a deal. Alright? Alan McCallum, you know him. I love him, and not just because he’s already bought network on that DVD, Blu ray that we’re going to be able to see the Ned Beatty scene. It’s here. You got it?
29:35
I haven’t Well,
Nestor Aparicio 29:40
in regard to the ravens, I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore with the Orioles. You know, they can still win the World Series next month. He’s Alan. I’m Nestor. We are Baltimore. Positive. Am 1570 tasks of Baltimore. Make sure you stay with us here at wnst.
