Luke Jones and Nestor discuss the Orioles’ pitching woes, mounting injuries and slugging through it in Toronto with Jackson Holliday and Anthony Santander.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
orioles, pitching, talked, calls, pitcher, soto, point, good, santander, runs, earl weaver, rogers, night, mayo, brandon, day, hyde, bullpen, ball, holiday
SPEAKERS
Nestor J. Aparicio, Luke Jones
Nestor J. Aparicio 00:02
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T, Tess, Baltimore and Baltimore positive. We are positively getting up on a wet weekend here in Baltimore, but the Orioles will be on the road and inside blimps if they need be. Although Sky Dome, you know, I’ve probably seen 30 baseball games at skydome. I don’t, I don’t think I’ve seen two with the roof open. So it was kind of a fun couple of days. We’re getting closer to the Maryland crab cake tour, relaunching itself again. We’ll be back down to faith lease when the cheat shows come to town. Two weeks from Friday, we’ll have the gold rush, seven doublers to give away. We’re also going to be loving up liberty, pure solutions with the clean water as well as Jiffy Lube, multi care for putting us out on the road, powering up training camp, powering up the season, all sorts of things going on. But Luke one, though, it feels like a Batman episode. You know what I mean, like, you know, Mr. Freeze at the end till our next episode. You know, they they get a beat down on Tuesday night, get their feelings hurt, especially after the Suarez start and the word on Grayson Rodriguez is better than maybe we thought in the beginning. But, you know, it’s, it’s always day to day. We’re all day to day, right? But for at least one night, bats come alive when they need to holiday. Looks the part. Mayo doesn’t. Santander looks like he’s going to hit 45 home runs. Like it’s insane, um, in a in a dead ball era, it’s, um, it’s been a wacky couple of nights, and we’re just getting going on the road here. But, you know, they’re walking the tightrope every night with with starting pitching, and we saw that with Rogers as well on Wednesday
Luke Jones 01:35
night. Yeah, it was a better version of Trevor Rogers. I think a couple of the runs early on was kind of some tough luck. I mean, didn’t give up like this, loud, hard contact early on. Covid Mayo’s defense didn’t help him out early on. So it’s not as though he was awful, wasn’t great. And you know, I’m not going to sit here and celebrate a start where he throws 94 pitches in five innings, but he gave them a chance to win. And when you’re dealing with the pitching woes that the Orioles are dealing with in terms of the injuries, as you mentioned, Grayson Rodriguez, the initial indications are it’s better news. It’s not the same level or degree of strain that he had two years ago when he had the lat issue that cost him three months. So fingers crossed on that. I think there’s still some determination there as far as what the timetable is, all of that. So I don’t think we’re I think we are looking at this through the lens of cautious optimism. I think that’s what the Orioles are right now. But that doesn’t mean he’s gonna miss one start and then he’s back. You know, I think he’s probably gonna miss some time here, and they’re gonna be careful, because you still have some wiggle room here, if you can get them back. Them back around Labor Day, something
Nestor J. Aparicio 02:43
I was gonna say, if you get him back Labor Day and it’s right and he’s right, it’s good. I mean, we’ve seen means come back and be right for a week and a month, and we’ve seen Bradish come back and be right for month or two. And you know, this is different. I mean, it’s not Tommy right. We’ve pointed that out. But sore, sore and hurt is hurt and trying to throw the ball 98 miles an hour, when you’re at only 98% you can’t be done. I mean, like, literally. I mean, that’s probably, that’s probably pretty poignant after 30 years, if you’re at 98% you can’t throw the ball 98 miles an hour. I just, I don’t believe that. I think you have to be 100% if you want to go win playoff games. Well, I
Luke Jones 03:20
think you can throw. I mean, Kyle radish was throwing harder than he ever had,
Nestor J. Aparicio 03:24
but how long then his arm fell off. How long is it gonna last? Right, exactly. And but you wind up compensating, from a body standpoint, whatever you’re doing to overdo, you’re doing something else to do damage. You
Luke Jones 03:34
can Sure, sure. And again, this is a completely different injury. I mean, a latch strain, as we talked about the other day. It’s something that can linger for pitchers. So you want to be careful with it. It’s not something that’s catastrophic in the way that you think of Tommy John surgery, but you don’t want it to linger. And you certainly don’t want this to be something where, if he has a chance to come back and be effective for the postseason, you don’t want to rush him back. And you know, if it has to be mid September as opposed to September one, then so be it. That’s what you have to do. Injuries
Nestor J. Aparicio 04:05
are different than baseball injuries, right? As we talk about them, and what we’re expecting from a football player to play on Sunday versus like, what a pitcher should be doing in August to make sure they’re 100% right? Because if anything goes wrong with the pitcher, then you don’t have them in October again, right? I mean, anything that’s a setback. Now this late becomes very problematic. It does, however, I
Luke Jones 04:29
would also say with football players, there’s plenty there’s being healthy enough to play, and there’s being healthy enough to thrive. And we’ve, we’ve seen
Nestor J. Aparicio 04:37
plenty different, though, with your upper body, I really do, of
Luke Jones 04:40
course. I mean, I think that’s yeah, I think that’s pretty evident. But still, the point is, whenever you have time to work with you want to be as cautious as you can be. So unfortunately for the Orioles, and to be remiss if I didn’t mention this, Jacob Webb goes on the IL and elbow discomfort. You know, elbow inflammation. You’re hoping it’s a minor deal. They didn’t say UCL damage right away. And sometimes there are cases where an elbow or a shoulder gets a little inflamed, and you take a couple weeks and you’re okay. But Jacob Webb, along with probably Cano, although canoe certainly have had his stretches where he hasn’t been as good, he’s probably been their best reliever. So that’s not good, especially when we’re already talking about a bullpen where you’re trying to see where Sir Anthony Dominguez, and you know, to a lesser extent, because he’s got to show that he can be effective whatsoever. Gregory Soto, you have new pieces there. You brought back Brian Baker, Keegan Aikens back in the bullpen for the time being, because Albert Suarez is presumably back in the rotation until Grayson Rodriguez is healthy. We already talked about Chase McDermott being on the shelf, so no reinforcements coming from Norfolk, as it pertains to him anyway. I mean, you still have Kate povidge and some others, but it’s just not ideal. So with that, all of that being said, yeah, it comes back to your offense, and it comes back to needing to hit the ball and score runs. And in the case of what we saw on Wednesday night, the Orioles were trailing after six innings. And by the way, and this had recently, I know the Banner had actually done a piece on this just a couple days ago. John mioli, the Orioles had not had a win when they were trailing after six innings since late May. I mean, think about last year, the story of the late inning magic that they had over and over and over and look. I mean, this team’s 21 games over 500 it’s not as though they haven’t played at a high level for most of the season, but they haven’t had that same Taylor Teagarden
Nestor J. Aparicio 06:39
moment that walk off by that James McCann or whatever, right? Like that. Walk offs are all about comebacks, really. I mean, every time there’s a walk off and we’re jumping up and down, they usually came back, usually Sure and
Luke Jones 06:53
I mean, on the flip side of that, you’d say, well, they’ve had more games this year where they won by 2345,
Nestor J. Aparicio 06:59
runs, right? You asked them to do last I sure specifically remember Baltimore, Luke saying they need to blow more teams out. Well. I
Luke Jones 07:07
mean, it’s not this, this. I
Nestor J. Aparicio 07:09
remember that specifically as a comp. I did say that before this team 101 games,
Luke Jones 07:14
it wasn’t as much to complain as much as it’s an observation in terms of if you want your bullpen to to hold up and not be run into the ground, and not have all these guys that are running on fumes by early September, then, yeah, you’ve got to have some blowouts mixed in there where maybe you don’t have to throw your high leverage guys quite as frequently. It wasn’t a criticism as much as an observation of just what the makeup of the team was and how they won game. So point being this year, they haven’t had to rely on that as much, but you still want to be able to do that on occasion, and that’s why it was so big to see Jackson holiday do what he did. I mean, down in the count, and just crushes one. I mean, it’s we’ve talked about it, obviously. But where he was in April and the reaction in April. I never for a second thought that he wasn’t going to still be a really good player. But when you see how much he struggles in April, and it was
Nestor J. Aparicio 08:10
extreme, right by the way, we’re watching Kobe Mayo do the same thing here for this piece of work, just strike it out, even on lousy umpiring, and we’ll get to all of that very lousy. But yes, yes,
Luke Jones 08:20
and that’s where you have to just, you have to remember, especially baseball, and this is where football and basketball and hockey, other sports, there’s just so much failure that’s baked in, even for the best players. So when you have young guys coming up, and I think with especially with some of the pitching injuries and the Tommy John epidemic, and all of what we see in baseball, I think that jump from triple A to the majors is probably more pronounced than it’s ever been, because anybody McDonald
Nestor J. Aparicio 08:50
talked about left handers like, you know, any left hander they’re seeing in triple A is, was it Bowie last week in Salisbury a week ago? And they just, you can throw the ball, throw strikes your left handed. Come on up try, you know, and that’s where Mayo sitting 30 home runs in Norfolk, right? Or, excuse me, Norfolk. And
Luke Jones 09:08
I mean, look at Kade povidge as a perfect example. Look at some of the numbers he’s put up at Norfolk, especially strikeout numbers. And you’re thinking, Oh, this guy’s going to miss a bunch of bats, and he’s come up to the majors. And look, I’m not burying Kade povidge either. I just said that there’s an adjustment period here, but you see what it looks like in the majors compared to what how his stuff plays at triple A. And it’s just a reminder that any pitcher that’s really worth his salt and really quality and really tough, not spending much time at Norfolk or triple A, maybe they’re there for a little while, but then they’re getting the call, because teams need pitching. So I think with Jackson holiday just to see him do what he’s done, first of all, it’s just good for him and his confidence and his development. And a kid who’s not even 21 years old, and he’s hitting the long ball, and no doubt about it, kind of long balls too, right? I mean, it shows you this kid’s. To continue to mature physically over the next couple years. I mean, they said
Nestor J. Aparicio 10:03
he was even shocked how far he hit it. Yeah, I mean,
Luke Jones 10:06
that was the thing so and look, he’s on a heater right now, where, you know, he’s hovered three straight games all
Nestor J. Aparicio 10:13
that. But they’ll figure out the weakness in his game that, you know, just like with covid Mayo they came out and it’s a kid, hit the curve ball, hit the slider, you know, watch it break. This is a big league one. Okay, right? Sit down and go, go back and watch some tape and figure it out, and get your wrist moving faster, and get the bat moving fast. You’re like, I we can talk about it. We’re not major league players. I mean, Ryan Ripken can talk about not being able to, you know, like guys that have tried to do it, are really good at it, way better than you and I could ever be that they’re now. Kobe Mayo is getting his salt the way Brooks Robinson got his the way Cal Ripken got, like, there’s a history to all of this, right? And the way gunner Henderson struggled, right? I mean, they don’t just pop into the major leagues and look like Fred Lynn and Jim Rice did. And there’s an old school reference for you,
Luke Jones 11:02
yeah. I mean, for every Fred Lynn or Jim rice, or Albert Pujols, for the Cardinals, who was, you know, an MVP from the moment he stepped on the field, it felt like,
Nestor J. Aparicio 11:12
well, Gunner Henderson feels that way. But if you saw the first 60 days, right? Just takes that. If you take it, if you take the first three tenths of the, you know, first mile out of the marathon of their career, you would say, you know, trying to just fit in. And Rogers talked about that, just even being a big leaguer and coming to a different team and not knowing your catcher, you know, there’s just a whole lot that goes on when you get called up and listen, you’ve been in that locker room now, 15 years after being a fan for years, I witnessed it real early on as a journalist, back when I was a journalist, that I would see these guys come up. Then it was Rochester, and you know, I wasn’t there when Ben McDonald got there, but I was there when Ben McDonald was welcoming Jeffrey Hammons and, you know, every Mark Smith and every guy that tried every first round pick, every Jack voit that was on the bus back and forth, all of those guys, the appreciation they would have just for the per diem and getting a day in and having a bag of crap that came from Tidewater then, and they’re like, trying to get their girlfriend together and their parents and like, it’s, it’s really, it’s An overwhelming thing when you’re just called up to be the backup shortstop, it’s different when you’re there to save the franchise, the way weeders was, or the way rutschman was, or, I mean, Henderson had a little more low key, even on the road, the home run, the helmet, the Cleveland all of that stuff. But this is big. I mean, it really is. And for 20 year old kid, 20 year old kid, dude, we haven’t my life, I don’t i Who’s the last 20 year old they called up and expected to play and stick and hit 260 Manny
Luke Jones 12:49
Machado. I mean, Manny Machado is 20 years old, and now that, and that was even more Hey, he’s
Nestor J. Aparicio 12:55
a different 20 than Jackson holiday. This kid feels like a grown up. He’s married. Dad played in the big leagues the Mr. Miami. I mean, Machado still had maturity issues when he was 30.
Luke Jones 13:05
Yeah. I mean, and I don’t want to get too, too far into the weeds as far as that, but yeah, it’s, it’s challenging. And I mean, covid Mayo is 2222 is very young for the majors as well. I mean, you have some guys who get caught up 2425 sometimes as old as 26 and they might be mentally ready to handle it, but there’s still the physical challenge then of hitting the velocity and the spin and the the vertical and horizontal break that major league pitching has compared to triple A so and then take five
Nestor J. Aparicio 13:37
years to figure it out. They get really good at it, and then you start getting hurt. They
Luke Jones 13:41
just or your peak is just very limited, right? I mean, some major league players, as we talk about the guys, for every guy that has a 15 or 20 year career, I mean, you have dozens and dozens who even make it, and might even have some success. And their their prime, their peak, is much more fleeting. You know, they might just be a solid Major Leaguer for a few years. And it’s not even that they physically are completely washed up. It’s just it’s so difficult that you get to a point where you just, you’re not doing it at a starting caliber level anymore. And you know, Cedric Mullins is dealing with that right now. We’ve seen him kind of become more of a part time player. We saw it with Austin Hayes because, well, you have Colton cows are up here now, and you have other guys that are pushing for playing time, but for holiday to do what he’s done mayo, of course, is taking his lumps right now, but I think you’re still looking at this through the lens of I’d rather have covid Mayo struggle for the next two or three weeks, if that means I might have a Coby Mayo power profile that could help my team in September and October and certainly next year moving forward. So it’s really provided a big lift. What holiday has done with Jordan westburg out, you know, with Adley rutman, who appears to start, he’s starting to swing the bat better, you know, I think the contact is consistently harder. He had a hit on Wednesday, and. Night. You know, we’ve seen it with Gunner Henderson. The power profile start, started to come back a little bit. He had it over on Wednesday night. But what holidays done? And then, what can you say about Anthony Santander? I mean, you said it. I mean, he’s got 34 home runs. It’s already a career high. Made a spectacular catch at the wall that potentially saved the game for them with his glove. I mean, he’s just been massive for them, and it’s amazing, because you think back to where he was in early June with the bat, I think Henderson, I know I, I posted this on Twitter not long ago, but in early June, I want to say gunner. Henderson had nearly doubled him in home runs for the season, and now Santander has more than gunner. And yes, gunner’s fallen off with the home run over the last month, month and a half, compared to the pace that he had, which was to be expected. I didn’t think gunner was going to hit 55 home runs, but Santander has just been huge for them. And obviously, more and more chatter will be made about potentially resigning him. And look, I’ll hear that with a deal that makes sense, but just in the in the present, in the meantime, where they stand right now. He was huge for them and for this team that’s dealing with pitching woes, in terms of injuries, in terms of questions about effectiveness from some of these guys that they’re going to have to lean on. That was huge for them to get what they got from Santander and holiday and the kind of game that felt like it was shaping up to be a loss. And it was one of those games where, even with the umpiring being what it was and and who was a van over it bad night behind the plate, bad calls, and only brave and Hyde wound up watching the game from the Westin and missed calls on both sides. Now Toronto, it felt later in the game that the Orioles got some of those calls. You know, Orioles pitching got some of those calls, but early in the game, I mean, certainly you looked at some of the calls and you just scratched your head that said the Orioles still weren’t doing a whole lot with the bats, even when you weren’t pointing to the strike zone. So was good to see them breakthrough. Obviously, Jackson holiday with the big home run, and Santander just the bookend performance for him, the early knock, obviously, the big catch, the home run late. I mean, just big stuff from the Orioles veteran right fielder, you know, the the elder statesman with Austin Hayes gone. You know, Santander is the guy that you know, he’s, you know, along with Mullins and got and mount Castle guys that they drafted it once upon a time. I mean, these are the guys that have been around the longest. So for Santander to do what he’s done in a contract year, it’s really been impressive. And like I said, they got just enough from Trevor Rogers, and then the bullpen coming in behind him was able to do the job. And, you know, I mean, it’s, they’re trying to figure that part out right now, and it wasn’t a safe situation. So, you know, we’ll, we’ll see when Craig Kimbrel next pitches. But you know, whether it’s Dominguez, you know, CNL Perez tossed a scoreless inning. Cano, but Bert Smith with another scoreless inning. I mean, he’s a guy that feels like he quietly is starting to earn a little bit more trust. I mean, we’ll see. I’m not saying he’s going to be pitching the eighth or ninth inning, but somebody better step up, right? And that’s right. I mean, they just need that, right? I mean, they need that. And as I said, it can’t just be the same two or three guys every night. I mean, you really need especially with Grayson Rodriguez on the shelf now. I mean, Albert Suarez, we already talked about it. It was admirable what he did the other night. But is he going to give you seven innings? No, are they going to expect Trevor Rogers to go seven innings? No, you have basically one guy right now that you trust to do that with any level of consistency. And it’s not as though Corbin burns goes seven every time out, but he’s the one guy, right? So everyone else, even Evelyn, it’s, you know, kind of a, you know, F’s a six, and then we’ll see kind of guy. So they need that. They need their bullpen to step up. It’s now or never. And you know, Gregory Soto is one conversation, but they need other guys in their pen to really look the part that they’re, you know, rounding into form and going to be big for them down the stretch. Because, again, now you throw Jacob Webb’s absence into the equation, he’s been that guy that’s thrown at so many different spots and games. He’s given them multiple innings. I think we had even recently talked about, you know, some concern about whether he was going to wear down because they were leaning on him so much. But Brandon Hyde was leaning on him because he trusts them. You know, I hear fans talk about management of bullpen, and I’ll hear that, and there are times where I don’t necessarily agree with what Brandon Hyde does, but at the same time, it’s like, if he can’t trust someone, and if he can’t use pitcher A or pitcher B other than when it’s a extreme blowout, one way or the other, that’s just going to put that much more strain on the other guys in the pen. So that’s where these guys do need to step up. So it was good to see the bullpen do what they did on Wednesday night, which was toss four scoreless innings and allow the offense then to stage that late comeback, which, as we said, their first win when trailing after six. Innings since late May, which was surprising when I saw that. But you know, when you kind of come to think of it now that a lot of those wins earlier in the season were come a little bit, were coming a little bit more easily than they did last year, and nice to see them have some late inning magic. On Wednesday,
Nestor J. Aparicio 20:16
he’s Luke Jones. He’s Baltimore, Luke. You can follow his work. We’re going to be covering the ravens and fake football all weekend. We’re gonna be watching from Tampa, drying off by the time the weekend gets here as well. Maybe going to Green Day and Hershey, who knows? I wore my El Guapo shirt today because I don’t get, you know, I give state fair a lot of love. I give Beaumont a whole lot of love, El Guapo. And, you know, in the basement, such a great place to go watch sporting events. Get over to Catonsville, give them some love. I wore green this weekend. It was not for the Eagles, by the way. So alright, Luke, so you know that point in the show where you’re like, you know, Nestor, I’m glad you brought this up. And so I wrote a note down last night at as Rogers was struggling. So I wrote this down about the sad a little bit this morning. This morning, and if you and I were getting together at fadelese Friday for the weekend to do a piece, or I’ll go back to Jack Gibbons being my boss at the paper that he would, you know, have a budget meeting Sunday night and say, What’s Kenny rose with all going to write about this week? What’s the column going to be on? What’s Henneman going to take a look at? What you know? What are we going to write about this week? What are we thinking about this week? And everything you just said, and I watched the whole pregame show, and I could do a whole Phil Jackman two minute TV repairman on massen, and how excellent Ben McDonald is, and how patronizing the bottom end of the bottom end of the broadcast are where, like they begin a broadcast. They’re 12 minutes in before they mention that anything happened to Grayson Rodriguez in the pregame show. It’s insane, but nonetheless, they give good locker if that matters so but I’ll say this started to see Rogers and I saw hide in the dugout doing the pregame media scrum, and we had a different name for it back in the day, but you can’t refer to that. And it’ll Yeah, so hi, just talking about Soto, and I feel like sometimes I’m in the dugout, because I’ve been in the dugout for 25 years, doing that job and thinking of what retort questions would be and how to position the question and not offend the man. I don’t miss any of that with hardball trying to figure out how to ask the question the way he wants it asked, when we all damn well know what the question is. In the case of Soto and I don’t know Brandon Hine at all, I’ve been in a room with him twice in my life before they threw me out. So I don’t even know how the follow ups are. He seems to me to be at this point, um, after they lose the day after. You don’t have to ask him the question he sort of, you know, has an answer and and it doesn’t feel as rehearsed as maybe it is. I don’t know. I really don’t know everything we’ve learned. In retrospect, we’re talking with some other coaches that everything’s rehearsed in steel hardball land. I don’t know how much hide sitting in the dugout feels like. He goes over the script three times, did Philo Soto, he’s just sort of like, there’s an all star. I’m trusting Him. We just brought him in. It’s the sixth inning. I’m trying to figure out what he is. And you know, like we’re trying to get him going, which is great baseball speak, trying to get him going, which means I can’t. We’re not sending the Norfolk. We need, you know, we got to get the guys out. And it’s either him or it’s Perez or, I don’t know what it is, here’s where I want to do a segment with you. That’s K Fave that if I were assigning you write a column on this or the old days, and I spent a long time on the radio with this in the in the McPhail era, was grow the arms by the bats right, and they would get an aerietta or a gauzman, who I saw eat donuts in the dugout the other day. Or they would get these pictures that that can thrive in other places. They could be bad enough to draft a Gausman, or have an arm like an areata, and I could go through the Tillmans. They dealt for different pictures of that era and said, and they got the most out of Miguel Gonzalez and way and Chen and a couple of other guys. And, I mean, even before that, who was my roommate, Rodrigo Lopez. He lived in my building, right? So, I mean, they, they got some marginal pictures to perform pretty well. They’re so good at developing hitters and players and drafting them, and getting Heston kerstag Good enough before he gets hit in the head to be hitting 300 the big leagues, to have Ortiz doing what he’s doing. And when I see Soto, or I see Rogers specifically, or I see these guys they brought in last week. All of them are now arms for maybe hitters, right and and look, we can go through the Rule five, you just mentioned Santander and what the dumpster dive that this organization went through for years and years trying to find a job. Gibbons, right, and then overpaying him on the back end, right? So, um, the notion that there that a Rogers would come in and he’s at the locker in in Toronto, amidst co workers, let’s be honest with you know, Brett Hollander asking questions that Steve molesky mean, these are people being paid by management ownership, Mr. Rubenstein at this case, um, and I think about that, it’s a way to do it right. We’re really good at hitters, so we’ll trade them and get some pitching. And Rogers is talking about the next two years, next two years, next two years. And I’m like, Well, the next two years, you know, Norby is going to be here, and Ortiz is going to be there, and I don’t know where Burns is going to be, but you know, as we equate the player with the trade, and let’s not forget the money, because the money, like in football, the money’s a part of this one way or another. When you’re dealing guys often taking their money problems or taking $18 million off their hook to have a pitcher for next year. All of that, but the notion that some organizations develop one or the other, some better than others, but this organization, there is a feeling amongst mature pitchers that, when they get here, you can make them better, right? So they think, and look, I dealt with this with Brian Billick, who thought he could fix Terrell Owens, right? You know, like that. We were just going to absorb him. I want you to make a case that that they’re good at fixing pitchers or making pictures better in that way, that the Astros, that part of it, there was a real lineage of taking so so pictures and making them better. And I don’t know that that’s even fair here with means and Bradish and these other guys’ arms fell off Batista, because we can’t even count them, because they’re pretty good, and they were developed in some way. But this is a real question for bringing these guys in, as to whether Soto really is better a month from now, because they figure something out and get him going. And I don’t know if I have confidence in that. You know what I mean? I have confidence I can find Jackson holiday, find young, mainly Caucasian players in college drafts and high schools who have high intellect, high IQ, all the sigma Idell poker hand, you know, like growth mindset every day straight A student first of class loves the game. All of that, those intangibles, as Jimmy the Greek would say, but the pitching side of this, you know, I remember, grow the arms by the bats. Now it’s, it’s clearly the other way, because, and I’ll tell you why I feel that way. You don’t ever mention any pitching in their organ. You mentioned catchers. You mentioned Holly now, holiday, Mayo, westburg, all the names you’ve been giving me in 1920 20, like they’re all here. But at the Calvary now is $18 million for it’s, it’s changed, and some of that’s injuries, but some of that’s also like, I don’t Rogers thinks that they can fix him, like, the way he speaks, like, I’m here and they’re doing new stuff, and I’ve been here five minutes. I i If they win a World Series, it’ll be because of that. It’ll be because you’ll have a story to write about how they really got the most out of the pictures they had? Because it’s going to take that at this point, dude, because there really is no Chase coming over the hill or povidge coming over that none of that’s happening for them. They’re they’re going to have to play with what they got. Well, I
Luke Jones 28:14
mean, if Grayson Rodriguez doesn’t come back and looks like Grayson Rodriguez, I don’t think they’re going to be making a deep October run
Nestor J. Aparicio 28:20
anyway. Um, okay, all right. That’s just, that’s flat. Ronnie Stanley gets, I’m not arguing that. That’s just,
Luke Jones 28:25
I mean, I just, I mean, I don’t know what the path is for that, unless your bullpen suddenly transfer transformation. You know, there’s a transformation that they become this elite, deep group that I just haven’t seen them be that said you kind of answered your own question when you brought up Kyle Bradish, and John means, I mean, John means was a regarded as organizational filler, and he became an all star, albeit for an all star, an all star for a team that didn’t really have an all star no hitter. I’m not taking anything Exactly. Kyle Bradish was not a first round pick, you know, was not someone that was regarded as this top 50 or top 100 prospect in all the baseball and yet he was a legitimate Cy Young Award candidate
Nestor J. Aparicio 29:06
last year. You know, he was, he was a guy. They identified something, right? So, I
Luke Jones 29:10
think right. So I think where they’ve had success has been identifying individuals who have a certain baseline to them, whether it’s a certain skill set, something about their profile as a pitcher, where they say, hey, there are tools here to work from work with and to improve. And we’ve seen them do that this in the bullpen. I mean, look at what Felix Batista became, as far as his rapid development after kind of languishing in the Orient. That
Nestor J. Aparicio 29:37
criteria, swing and miss, right? Swing and miss is where it starts. That criteria, right? Oh, I
Luke Jones 29:42
mean, and that’s the Orioles. That’s everyone. I mean, everyone wants swing and miss now. I mean, that’s just, that’s why we have arm injuries, because everyone’s max effort, right? I mean, that’s just what we see. But you know, whether you’re talking about someone like him, yen, your Cano acquired in the Jorge Lopez deal with looked terrible when he arrived in. Baltimore to the point where people were wondering why they kept him on the 40 man roster two off seasons ago, and then suddenly he’s pitching in the All Star game last year. Now, has he been as dominant since that first half of 2023 No, but he’s still a really good setup reliever. You know, he’s still a good, legitimate Major League relief.
Nestor J. Aparicio 30:19
Things work out, in my mind, having watched all of these cats, he’s the one guy that, in October could be their closer and hold the ball and win the World Series. That That to me, he’s got a lightning in the bottle ability. I’ve seen it from him, where he can be really nasty, right? I mean, and I don’t, you know, I’m not sure Soto’s track, you know, all the, I mean, certainly, you know, we’ve been down on, on, on the $11 million closer, and I don’t know that Kimbrel is going to be that hero. And, you know, I don’t know that. I feel that way about him, I would say, of all the guys they have, of all the guys they have, and now the web’s hurt too. And you were talking about him, I would say canoe is a guy that I still would say, and I don’t know his makeup. I don’t, you know, I don’t talk to him. You know what I mean. I don’t Armando Benitez. I knew his makeup. He had a lot of cultural issues. That was a tough spot to put him in back in the day, to make him to go the other kind of go, my dad’s kind of goat, the bad guy, goat. Um, that that that job is really a head job, right? Like, that’s a, that’s a mind game, as much as it’s a throw strikes and and do all that, when you’re the closer, it’s a different there’s a different mindset about it. I don’t know if he’s that guy, but I think he’s the one guy. When I see stuff, and I’m like, is anybody going to come save the day? Oh, I mean, maybe he might cost him the day. Maybe they know that, and that’s why they’re not going to put him in that role. Well, I
Luke Jones 31:49
mean, I think the thing that makes me take pause about him is he’s not a big swing and miss guy. I mean, he’s just under a strikeout per inning. I mean, that’s, I’m not saying that’s bad, but I mean, that’s certainly not Felix Batista in terms of ability to really mow people down and look, I mean, you’re especially someone like Cano with that sinker. You get ground balls. And look, when it’s going great, that’s awesome. And I’m not anti that, right? Let’s, let’s be clear, I’m not criticizing that profile, but that profile inevitably involves contact, and when the opposition is putting the ball in play. Inevitably, it finds grass. Sometimes it finds holes in your defense, and you’re going to have guys on base. So when that happens, or if you happen to walk a guy or two, I mean, which happens to any pitcher? Do you have the ability to strike people out in those spots? I mean, part of the beauty of Felix Batista was the nights where he wasn’t at his best, and suddenly a couple guys are on and you’re saying, oh my god, he can walk the basis load and then strike, then he strike out the side, right, exactly. So that’s, that’s where I take some pause with, hey, look, man, I’m
Nestor J. Aparicio 32:52
not making this case for canoe. Otherwise, I understand might be the best they have that well, and literally, like, I, you know, I don’t, right, you’re, you’re creating this Johnny Bravo closer that they don’t have. It doesn’t exist, right? Exactly. Well, I don’t know where somebody’s got to pitch the ninth inning. And to your point, if it’s a committee, they win in the World Series. Well, we’re going into October. It’s tonight. It might be this guy tomorrow. It might be that guy. I don’t think you’re, you’re, you are in late October, if that’s the way you’re trying to play. I
Luke Jones 33:19
mean, it all, see, I don’t necessarily agree with that, I think. But this goes back to what I’ve said over and over. I don’t look at it through the lens of one guy, because one guy can’t do all of that. One guy like you have to get to that point, and you need three or four relievers in addition to that guy that you trust. So that’s where I look at it and say, you know, I don’t need it to be if I don’t have Felix Batista, if I don’t have Mariano Rivera in his prime, if I don’t have Craig Kimbrell in his prime, you know, Craig Kimbrel of 10 years ago, then I will look at matchups, and I will view it through the lens of it can be different guys, but I need to have different guys that can do the job. And I need to look at it through the lens of what’s the best possible matchup. And again, if there’s a ninth inning where three out of four hitters do up or left handed, and they’re probably not going to be pinch hit for then I’m a little more open to seeing al Perez being in that spot in that specific game. So well,
Nestor J. Aparicio 34:14
you feel better after Wednesday night, because at least you, you feel like, well, I got a level of trust to your point. If you can’t trust any of them. Well, I mean, that’s and that’s what’s the problem when you start losing Webb, you start losing the guys You did really trust. He was a go to guy around you’re the last 60 days and what. And
Luke Jones 34:31
this is where I want to stick up for Brandon hide a little bit, because, I mean, he’s just, he got crushed, absolutely crushed, for using Soto on Tuesday. If you go back and look at Gregory Soto’s numbers with the Phillies, I’m looking at it right now. So his very last outing he had with the Phillies, he got tagged for three runs. You know, it was a day or two before the Orioles acquired him, but prior to that, Nestor, in his previous 18 innings, he had a one five era, and it struck out 24 guys and had walked seven. He. Is on a on a roll for two months. So he has one bad outing, bad outing Not, not going to sit here and sugar coat. It got lit up. And probably the Phillies just said, Hey, you know, we couldn’t trust him earlier in the year. He got himself on a nice roll. Now he’s, you know, high selling. Hey, we like Seth Johnson for the Orioles that might be a guy that we can plug into our rotation in a couple years, or maybe he’ll be a reliever for us in a couple years, whatever. So, so that’s where you look at it. It’s not as though the Orioles acquired Gregory Soto when he had been lit up for a month. You know, I don’t, I don’t think they necessarily perceived him as someone that they need to fix in the way that Trevor Rogers. The perception is that maybe you can fix him and get him closer to where he was a few years ago with the Marlins. So he comes in, was bad his first outing, like really bad his first outing, and then over the weekend in Cleveland, it was not the same level of disaster, but it was shaky. So Is that enough of a sample then that you’re not pitching him at all, and suddenly he’s banished to the back of the bullpen. I think, I think Hyde was trying to show a level of confidence in him now, after it happens again on Tuesday night, now it’s a different story. Now it’s a case of, yeah, I think Gregory Soto is probably not going to be pitching high leverage until he at least stacks a couple lesser successful outings out there where, you know he comes in leading five, one or trailing five, one, and then looks the parts. So
Nestor J. Aparicio 36:27
I felt that. I felt the worst for them on Tuesday night when you know he’s out there getting lit up and Kimball’s in the bullpen warming up, and they’re getting their ass beat. And these are the guys they’re going to be counting on to win a World Series with that they’re now like hides feeling like it’s mop up. Let’s just get these guys in and have them throw some strikes and get some work in tonight, and that means they’re probably not working the next night, right? You know? So there’s a little bit of you’re taking the the, you know, the horses, and making them the cart a little bit, just trying to get them through um, and make them feel better so you can get home next week and have some level of confidence when your stadium fills up that they’re not booing the on guy. Well, you know what I mean? Like that. They gotta win some ball games to your point, right? Like that. That’s a nice little wake up. That holiday was a part of that. And certainly Santan there, there’s some leadership being shown there with the bats. And I saw somebody in the line say they’re going to slug their way to a championship. And I’m like, yeah, looking that way, that’s what it looks like all of a sudden. Mean, we talk six pitchers in May, and let’s get pitching, and let’s get more pitching, and let’s get more we got some pitching, and still it’s like they better score 678, runs every night, or
Luke Jones 37:34
they’re going to be in trouble. Well, go look how many home runs the Rangers hit last October. I mean, that’s why I’ve kind of, I’ve really pushed back when people say, Oh, they’re too reliant on the home run. It’s like most of the best offenses in baseball hit home runs. I
Nestor J. Aparicio 37:47
mean, well, that’s why he brought Mayo into pitch hit Tuesday night, right? You know, I didn’t like that, right? I hear you, but you know that while that was dumb, I
Luke Jones 37:56
mean, that was a dumb move. We went through that, yeah, and I heard Brandon and Brandon, and since you were talking about Brandon Hyde the next day, he he rightly, he correctly pointed out that for as much grief as he gets about his pinch hitting decisions on the regular, and I’m again, as I’ve said to you, I usually don’t have too many issues with Brandon Hyde’s pinch hitting moves, Because when they have pinch hit this year, it’s worked out they have by far the highest averages pinch hitters. Now that’s
Nestor J. Aparicio 38:27
Hold on. I want to stop, because that broadcast didn’t stop and spike the ball on this they said the all time record was a Minnesota Twins team. I don’t know what year it was, at 363 in pinch hitting situations, yeah, which Terry Crowley would take, MERV Redmond would take, Jim Dwyer would take. Earl Weaver would have loved to. Earl Weaver would have written a book about managing a team. If he pinch hit 363 at that clip, they were hitting 370 so it’s not just best in baseball, best in the history of baseball, like that’s kind of crazy, right?
Luke Jones 38:59
But that also, again, that doesn’t give you a free pass on every single decision you make. And that’s why, as I said the other day, I could live with the holiday, you know, hitting Slater for holiday, but Mayo for cows are in that spot. To me, was that was, I still don’t get it a couple days later. Point is, with all of this, that you have a 26 man roster. And you mentioned Earl Weaver just a few seconds ago, 26 man roster, and that’s something that Earl Weaver, whether it was Hank Peters or whoever, you know, what was the architect for the roster itself, Earl Weaver always said, you know, I want the best 25 guys. You know, I want the best bench that I can possibly have, because I’m going to use them. And them, and Brandon Hyde has tried to do that as much as possible. Now, how it looks today compared to what his bench was a few years ago, obviously, is a different story. Is you’re a competitive team, but they have and I’ll say it again, I’ll continue to say this, because people continue to try to. Paint this. Fans continue to try to paint this, and some media, frankly, too, that you know maybe aren’t around the team as much, but try to paint this that it’s this silo where Brandon Hyde is making these moves with full autonomy, and Mike Elias and sigma Adele are sitting there up in the, you know, in the owner suite, no, these are organizational philosophies. Now that doesn’t mean that Brandon Hyde doesn’t have some level of autonomy when the game starts, because Mike Elias isn’t hitting up his cell phone and said, Hey, do this? Do that. It’s not like that. But they scrimmage these things. They talk about these things. So I my only point was, you know, a kid who’s struggling to find his first major league hit coming up for a guy who’s been your hottest hitter over the last two and a half weeks, who’s actually handled left handed pitching pretty well. That was, that was a that was a step, way too far for me. But what they’ve done, there’s been a method to their madness. It’s not Oh Brandon high doesn’t look at, you know, people say those kind of things. You just really kind of show that you’re just saying things for the sake of doing it. Just like Brandon high gets tossed on Wednesday, because I’ve heard people complain that Brandon high doesn’t stand up tossed the right way. He didn’t like a complaint. He gets tossed. He gets tossed. And then guess what happened? They got rung up on another bad call right after that. So What? What? Yeah, it’s not like it bought them a good, you know, got a got rid of a bad call, or something like that.
Nestor J. Aparicio 41:24
By the way, can I make a case for John Eisenberg doing the show this week? Just to interject, because he told me a great story. He and I did an hour together bird tapes. Go listen to him. He told me, because he talked about Earl Weaver and my dude, John Miller, not that. John Miller, the Wall Street Journal. John Miller has written a book on Earl. He’s got the early press of it, and he was showing a little picture of it, so the book’s kind of complete. And he’s been on my show, and the last interview I did with Earl and all of that. And he said that when he interviewed Ken Singleton, they were talking about how profane Earl was. And he said that, you know, Earl would enrage the umpires, and then we would never get a call. Like, we would just never get a call. You know what? I mean, he’s like, that’s the part that, like, pissed the players off. Yeah, it was like, Earl, you know, I’ve been shat upon. I’ll laugh at you. Palmer will laugh at you, or whatever. But when you piss off the umpires, you’re squeezing our strike zone, you know, like, everything about the game changes, if the umpires turn on you in the strike zone, and I tell you what dude, that dude sucked and then, and then he had rabbit ears, and then he throws out hide. And all I could think of in the modern era, because I’ve seen the Earl Weaver, you know, diatribes of, you know, going to the Hall of Fame for F and up World Series. All I would say is, dude, when this game’s over, there’s, there’s a videotape of your work, much like what I’m going to present for Chad Steele and Greg Bader soon, there’s evidence for balls and strikes and yeah, much like Angel Hernandez getting run out of the sport over it that that’s where we are right now. And whatever these umpires do, they better call it the way the computer calls it, not the way they see or think they see it like they better call it the way Rob Manfred sees it. And I don’t want to go too far into the rabbit hole, but people bet on these games, and they’re being adjudicated by Rob Manfred, essentially so. And Rob Manford is the bookie the house. They they pick the winners and the losers, and on a night like Wednesday night, when the manager would say and they won the game right? But if we lost the game and the guy had 16 incorrect calls on 118 pitches, that that’s a real problem, especially when a hitter’s in oh two, and he should be in two. Oh, yeah.
Luke Jones 43:42
I mean, Larry van ever had a terrible night at the play? You know? I think your Weaver points interesting. I think there are times where it probably can be to your benefit, and other times it’ll go the other direction. And I guess my point was, I’ve heard a lot of well, Brandon Hyde doesn’t stand up for his players enough. You know that that kind of thing where I feel like, well, wait a second, is this ejection for the players, or is this for you as a fan to feel better? Right? I mean, I mean, like, let’s think about, you know, let’s
Nestor J. Aparicio 44:11
try to look at this objectively and constructively. I never met a manager or coach that got like fans, like he got himself thrown out to fire up the team. No, he got himself thrown out because he’s really pissed off, and he’s out there trying to make a point that the umpires effed up, and it’s wrong. And I think in the modern era, where we’re gambling on it, and there’s a digital thing, like, literally, you can see when it’s poor. And it doesn’t take Ben McDonald or Jim Palmer to be a homer to see when, when McDonald’s like, well, he got a break there. You know, he’s calling the high strike. Start throwing it. I mean, that’s the way Ben thinks, you know what I mean, and that’s the way the pitcher has to think, right?
Luke Jones 44:48
Well, and I’m glad you just mentioned that, because there are times where you do have to adjust and just say, hey, two inches off the off the corner, it’s going to be a strike. And you can say, well, I don’t want. Mess up my, you know, my plate discipline, my swing decisions, I feel like I’m really locked in and and I’ll hear that as well. But then if you if your team’s not going to get the results, then you’ve got to live with the consequences then. But what I will say again earlier in the game, yeah, I mean, the calls were really going against the Orioles. But take note, I noticed on a couple occasions later in the game, Orioles pitchers got a couple strike calls that were not strikes. So that’s my point. That’s why I think Larry Vanover, yeah, yeah. It’s just, it’s the game and boy Wednesday night, in addition to we talked about this a couple days ago, what we saw for really the duration of the series in Cleveland, boy that that was like a coach’s tape for automated strike zone. I mean, it really was, because, I mean, of late, and, you know, meanness, I the borderline calls, where it’s really close. And you look at, you know, we’ve got the box that’s on TV, you can see the little icon. And this is something that a lot of people miss when the circle is an open circle, meaning it does, it’s not filled in. That means it’s a ball. That means that that the ball did not clip the strike zone. There are times where it might look like a ball, but it clips the front edge, very front edge, or the camera
Nestor J. Aparicio 46:17
angle is not, is not conducive to what but
Luke Jones 46:21
my point is, but my point is, there’s, there’s a computer. There’s a technology element to that, where if you see a filled in ball that comes up when Adley rutschman, or whoever’s catching, catches the ball, that means that it clipped the part of the strike zone. So you will see some balls that look like they might be an inch or two outside, but they clipped the very front edge of the strike zone as it was moving through the zone. So they call that a strike point is even with that, you’re going to have some borderline calls that umpires are going to miss. They don’t have the benefit of the box. I am empathetic to umpires that, I think, with the velocity and spin and horizontal and vertical break that we see today, which is crazier than it’s ever been, which is a big reason why these arms are are falling off, you know, figuratively speaking, but it’s really tough to do. So those calls I can live with when it’s four inches off the plate and a bad miss. And we’ve seen some bad misses here of late, and we’ve seen some great framing. Say, Okay, Larry Vanover, that’s below the bar, some of the umpiring we saw. And, yeah, oh, and that’s part of it, too. So, you know, we’re moving in that direction. We’re going to see a challenge system at some point here in the near future. I don’t know if it will ever go fully automated, but that’s coming. There’s no doubt about that. In the last week, or they’ve reinforces what, for me, feels, yeah, if you have the technology, start using it and but hey, the Orioles got the win. They benefited from some calls late that they didn’t get early in the game, and certainly Anthony Santander and Jackson holiday came up huge in what amounted to their first post sixth inning comeback win they’ve had since late May. So big win for the Orioles on a day when, you know, he got some decent, good news on Grayson Rodriguez. We’ll see, you know, encouraging, hopefully, but unfortunately, lose Jacob Webb and you know, we’ll, we’ll see what the deal is with his elbow soreness that he’s experiencing right now.
Nestor J. Aparicio 48:12
He’s Baltimore, Luke. He’s Luke Jones. He is in Owings Mills will be down at the purple side of Camden Yards. Uh, hope you get the tour of the black wing let me know. Let me know how. Let me know those hot dogs really are better inside the perimeter, and if the drinks really are colder inside the perimeter. And are you going to be in the new press box? Are they not done that yet?
Luke Jones 48:34
I will be in the new press box, which is up higher and the corner of the end zone. So, you know, I think the black wing suites, or whatever they’re called. I think that’s where the old press box was. So we’ll see how it looks. But yeah,
Nestor J. Aparicio 48:48
Friday, I’m gonna smile here and laugh, and if Roy summer off is listening, give him my love, I don’t think he’s allowed to speak to me anymore. But back in the day, when I helped them sell PSLs, and we helped sell a couple 1000 up in 513, and 12 and 14, Roy would come in. But not just Roy, it was David Modell, who I famously said, never lied to me, right? Like, like, privately, David, I had a lot of dinners together, his cancer battle, my wife, like all, never lied to me. I’m calling and David, you’re listening. I’m calling bullshit on that right now, because you know what he used to when they were building the stadium, and they had the there was, they gave you a CD that gave you the the video of like what was going to look like, and they had a big black bird fly in. And so you’re trying to get your 500 bucks, your PSL, right? They called the corners where you have seats, so I’m going to chat. If you’re listening, use this. Patrick, all the guys, miss you. Guys. Tom Marisol, really miss you. They called him victory arches, so your seat now is under the victory arch. So I just want you to know that David Modell named that um so that. So if they say they downgraded you to say your seats under the victory arches. That’s all you need to do. That’s the original name for them. You learn something new every day. There we go. He is Luke. I am Nestor. We’re here to have some fun football, fake football, really good peaches right now, and really good corn and really good crabs. And it’s summertime, and we’re independent race. And if you’re worried about the pitching, so are we, that’s why we’re going to discuss it every day. I’m Nestor. He’s Luke. We’re wnst. Am 1570 Taos in Baltimore. We never stop talking victory arches, Baltimore, positive.
