It’s taken a year for the Baltimore Orioles to get back to the baseball that matters. Luke Jones and Nestor get Birds fans ready for October and sudden death baseball with Kansas City Royals. Gotta win Game 1 and Corbin Burnes vs. Cole Ragans is a good one.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
orioles, team, game, pitching, baseball, talking, good, week, luke, series, bats, october, play, oysters, months, camden yards, win, season, feel, royals
SPEAKERS
Luke Jones, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:00
Music. Welcome home. We are W, N, S T am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are a Baltimore positive.com you find all of our work out in those places. My man, Luke Jones, can be found anywhere the internet travels. He is Baltimore. Luke out on all the social medias. Our friends at the Maryland lottery are powering us up with these Raven scratch offs. We’ll have these next Friday crab cake tour on hiatus this week. Too much unpredictable baseball scheduling going on this week. But we allegedly are gonna have next Friday off on the 11th. Luke will be celebrating his birthday, which comes this week, my birthday, which comes next week, will be a pizza Johns on the 11th. Next Friday in the afternoon, we’re gonna be having some pizza, some crab cakes and crinkle cut fries. Might even get Luca meatball sub or one of those delicious imported ham they imported. I don’t know if it’s from Dundalk or from Italy. I’m not sure, but it’s imported ham in Essex. They import it from somewhere outside of Essex, maybe Middle River or Rosedale. We’re going to be down there next Friday. Our friends at curio wellness and foreign daughter, as well as our friends at the Liberty pure solutions powering up the oyster tour, which is coming toward an end, and about the platform that the entire month of October, so the folks can be educated about the bay and about the oyster recovery partnership and all of that fun stuff. Jiffy Lube has him back and forth from Owings Mills to Camden Yards. I would implore everyone to please read my dear David Rubenstein letter. Everybody told me all summer, just give the new owners a chance. You’ll have a press pass because he’s a bomber guy. And I’m like, Okay, so my press credentials have been denied this week. Luke will be at the baseball games. Luke will not be in Owings Mills. See steel comma Chad. We will not have representation for at least a couple days this week in in preparing for the Cincinnati Bengals. But Luke and I will both be watching the same game. He’ll be in Camden Yards, in our W NSD press box seat, and I will be watching on the telly. You know, it’s kind of a bummer. Ben McDonald and Jim Palmer go away. I’m not, I’m not want, I’m not ready for, like, out of town announcers, because you know how we feel about that in the playoffs. But I would say this Luke a different draw. I don’t know if they’ll be Thursday morning. We’re crying, and we got swept out of this thing by the Kansas City Royals. But if we would have asked for something last week, maybe we would have asked for this, maybe when the shadows are falling in the seventh inning and they have two hits against Reagan’s on Tuesday, that will feel differently. I don’t know. But how are you can you get baseball on the brain off of football. I mean, this has been a weird couple of days to be thinking football, football, football, baseball. Now we’re going to turn it back on again, and we’re going to say Lamar, who that was so Sunday night.
Luke Jones 02:32
Well, especially with the Orioles having wrapped up everything they needed to wrap up by Friday night. I mean, I’ll be honest with you, Nestor, I think I saw about three pitches total on Saturday and Sunday. I mean, good job Emmanuel Rivera on Saturday and they get a win on Sunday. But it really did allow itself to, you know, they had a chance to exhale. Fans had a chance to exhale. There had been a hyper focus on the Detroit Tigers and Tarik scuba and mainly because the Orioles had played the Tigers six times in the month of September, but lo and behold, it ends up being the Kansas City Royals. And I’ll say this, the Tigers were the hotter team, although they lost two out of three to the White Sox over the weekend. So I mean, they have no one to blame but themselves. I guess, you know, if they would have rather gone to Baltimore rather than Houston for the opening round. But I’ll say this over the course of the full season. I mean, this Kansas City team is definitively better than the Detroit Tigers, and for as much as, yes, it’s a good thing that the Orioles are avoiding. Terek schubel In the first round. Cole Reagan’s is pretty darn good. Seth Lugo is pretty darn good. I mean, look at the numbers that they put up. Michael Walker, who’s going to be the game three starter, if necessary, a pretty darn good they have a guy who, in a world where Aaron judge didn’t exist, would be the slam dunk definitive MVP in Bobby Witt Jr. So this is a talented team, and I think what’s so interesting about them one the Orioles played the Royals six times back in April, they they won four of the six. But you know, close games in there. I I can recall you, and I even saying at the time, for a team that lost 106 games in 2023 it felt like the Royals were better even then. Now, I would have never predicted this, that they’d be playing in October. But the point is, they’ve got some really talented young players, and they’ve got some veterans, you know, as I mentioned, a couple of those starting pitchers, specifically Lugo and waka that have really held up that rotation to a high level. And, you know, they added Lucas airsig to become their closer at the trade deadline. The, you know, everyone talked about Mason Miller and the A’s potentially dealing him. But I, I remember sitting with you at fadele saying, hey, Lucas airsig Would would be a nice addition, and the Royals went out and got him. So, you know, I’m not sitting here saying that, that the Royals are this juggernaut, that the Orioles are in deep, you know what, or anything like that, but it’s baseball, and it’s a two out of three, and it’s a royal. Team that kind of like the Orioles, not last week, not withstanding, didn’t really finish the season in the month of September, the way that they would have wanted. But, I mean, give them credit, they improved by 30 games from last year. I mean, this was a 106 loss team, and suddenly they’re in the postseason a year later. I mean, it’s kind of like the jump that we saw the Orioles make from Oh, or 21 to 22 and then another jump in 23 so they’ve got good starting pitching, and they’ve got a couple bats, you know, we’ll see about Vinnie past Pasc. I always struggle with that name. I know you do, but he could be back. It sounds like it’s possible he could be back for this series, and he he’s another formidable bat to add to that lineup. So, you know, I mean this, I said this talking to a few people in the press box. I mean to sit here and try to view this three game series differently, other than it’s in October, other than the stakes being through the roof for these two teams. Obviously, it’s a three game series. I mean, think about a three game series of the best team in baseball against the worst team in baseball, the Tigers, who aren’t even the best team in baseball, but had been red hot the White Sox, historically, record setting, terrible. They took two out of three from them this weekend when they needed to win, right? I mean, so that’s where you look at this and say, I mean, you just presented the, the scenario that no one wants to think about. But, I mean, by Thursday, this could be over. By Wednesday, this could be over. It could be right. I mean, I’ve said this. This is why I said all season long, give me the, give me the five days off and having to deal with some rust rather than dealing with a three game series. That, let’s face it, is a weighted coin flip at best. You know, maybe 5545 maybe 6040 right? I mean, that’s, that’s what you’re talking about with a three game set. So especially with the Royals having good starting pitching. I mean, the Orioles have to be ready to go. It was encouraging to see how they finish the regular season, the way they swung the bats. That needs to continue. You obviously have Corbin burns going in game one. They need to see the Corbin burns that we saw over the last few weeks, which was better cutter, more swing and miss, dominant Milwaukee esque version of Corbin burns, rather than the version that we saw for much of the season, which was really good, but not necessarily getting a ton of strikeouts. So, you know, this is going to be an interesting series in that way. I mean, the Orioles are at home. They’ve got the home field advantage for all three games. That’s a major edge. Certainly, they have more experienced than the Royals in the postseason, although Salvy Perez will have something to say about that, the veteran catcher. So we’re going to see what the Orioles learned from last year. We’re going to see what the Orioles learned over the last few weeks about themselves, in terms of hoping that the bats stay awake after it looks like they woke up here over the last week or so. But, you know, this is a Royals team that no one should be taking lightly. I mean, I think there, there was very much a perception because of school, because of how red hot the Tigers were that, Oh, good. You don’t have to face the Tigers. That’s the wrong thinking. Because, I mean, this is a Royals team that’s absolutely capable of beating them if they don’t play really good baseball these next couple days.
Nestor Aparicio 08:24
This was the better team all year, right? I mean, like, so let’s not act like we got the light load here or whatever. But how are you feeling about the Orioles? Maybe it’s about the opponent all day long. How are we feeling about pitching now that it’s just a game or two, you know what? I mean? This isn’t about will they survive the month? This is about rested, bullpen, Monday, off, home cooking, late afternoon. Shadows gonna have that, right? Um, home cooking, home crowd. It’ll be raucous at be like a football game out there. It should be, and it open open is, I don’t know all the football people might be a little hung over this morning, you know, ramp it back up and and the baseball crowd’s different than the football crowd, but it these games when they’re done, right? And I remember vividly, and again, that we had just stolen their football team, but the 9597 era of the Cleveland Indians, I remember going to those games at the football game the when the Phillies play playoff games, it’s like an Eagles game. It’s just a different sound in the ballpark. And you know that we haven’t played, not that well, we haven’t played a whole lot of playoff games here. But you know, this is a time to look at Delmon young and say, That’s all we got. That’s literally in the history of that ballpark. Moments in that ballpark, I forget Cal Ripken, forget the pope coming, because I know you’re Catholic, and that’s a big deal. I have Springsteen coming and Billy Joel, I’ll throw those in there. Those are, those are my high priests. Um, I, I’m thinking about moments in that ballpark, and I think. About 30 years into this, I wrote my letter to Dear David Rubenstein because I am a band media member, which is very disappointing from the new ownership. For me, extremely disappointing, quite frankly, that I’m locked out from watching the games, but that moment in the ballpark and that sound in the ballpark that can only have when it’s full, it doesn’t get full all that often anymore, which I’m writing a letter to Katie Griggs about that a moment and having moments where you win series, win big games, get a key hit in the seventh inning, get get a double off the wall that we remember and talk about 1012, years later. Um, this is all those commercials Major League Baseball. This is what we play. This is where. These are the moments. I don’t know where the pile diver is. I always love using pile diver because I remember the day that I met Angela Showalter after Greg Bader in the Orioles told her that I was a bad guy and I’m to be avoided. I remember that day Buck Showalter as the last press car while I was at the Brandon high press conference last year, the last real press conference I attended, I snuck into at the Camden Yards warehouse the day they hired Buck Showalter, and Buck talked about pile divers, pile he didn’t say that a lot during the course of his time here, but pile divers. And I thought, who are the pile divers here? To me, Jordan westburg is my favorite pile diver. Um, just this is the gritty time of the year where like heroes are made, and the Aaron Boone home runs happen. And I want to feel that. I want that for our fans, I mean, and if we’re here Thursday, and we got our feelings heard, and Reagan shuts them down on Tuesday, and somehow the bullpen blows it on Wednesday, and you know, it’s just not good enough, and Cano isn’t whatever happens here and they don’t hit the ball, which, I mean, there’s anything, any reason that we’re here reading a requiem over them before the the Ravens play next weekend. It’s gonna because they don’t hit the ball and they haven’t hit the ball consistently in months. I just want to have some moments and and there weren’t none last year, right? I mean, they made the playoffs. It was good time and all that. I don’t want our best moment to be the curse of and Dino, for crying out loud. You know, let’s improve upon that. And this is the only time you can improve upon that, because walk officer Jackson holiday and sitting little baseballs out and saying, and we, we did this. We had a walk off, we danced, we had water fountains, and we spurted everybody in May. No, no, no, no. These are, every one of these is times 10 for games, no, times 100 because the memory will be there if they win and if they lose. Um, you know, we’ll look back on August and September and say they are who we thought they were, because they haven’t been a very good baseball team the last two months. They really haven’t. No,
Luke Jones 12:41
they haven’t. The offense is obviously a big part of that. I would actually disagree with you a little bit, though, because you asked me how I was feeling about the team going into the season or going into the postseason. I’m a little nervous about the bullpen. Imagine that, right? Imagine that. But at the same time, you know, we talked about this last week. I mean, yen your canoe not looking great his last few times in the regular season. You know, even Sir Anthony Dominguez, they got him some work on Sunday. And, you know, gave up a walk, gave up a hit. You know, it’s been a little choppier for him. And just the general, you know, do you have enough length? Do you have enough guys that are going to miss bats and do that? I mean, look, obviously it’s a non starter, if they don’t swing the bats at all, and Cole Reagan, Cole Reagan’s tosses seven shutout innings, and Seth Lugo tosses six shutout innings in game two. And then, chances are, you’re probably going home at that point. I mean, it’s that simple. So of course, I mean, there’s the I don’t want to even say extreme example, because you’re right. I mean, we saw mean, we saw in August, and very much, especially in the first three weeks of September, how much they struggled to swing the bats. Of course, you’ve got to play complete baseball, right? I mean, you have, there’s no such thing as you know, especially considering where the Orioles are, because you don’t have Kyle Bradish, you don’t have Grayson Rodriguez’s upside, right? I mean, you have Corbin burns, who’s a bonafide ace, Zach Eflin, who pitched a lot like that, but generally speaking, has not been that in his career. I mean, even last year for Tampa Bay, I mean, was as close as he’s been to an ace, but generally he’s been more league average to above average. You know, I’m hoping his last start against the Yankees was a little bit of an aberration, you know, with with the walks, and not because he’s wearing down or anything like that. But, I mean, you’ve got to play complete across the board. You know, this isn’t like we talk about it all the time, about Lamar putting on the Cape, right? And Lamar doing it all for the Ravens at times, you know, especially in a pre Derrick Henry world, right? But you know, there’s no, there’s no such thing as that in baseball, right? I mean, unless, I guess, you have the most extreme of Reggie Jackson hitting three home runs or something along those lines. Baseball such so dependent on passing the baton and having more than one guy. Do it so, you know, yeah, they need their offense to look more like it did over the last week or so. And you mentioned Jordan westburg Being a pile diver. You can’t just have one. You need five or six guys that are going to do it, right? I mean, okay, there might be an MVP of a series, but they’re going to need multiple guys to swing the bats. You know that gunner Henderson, who was far and away their best player this year, you know, Anthony sundant Santander, who led them in home runs. They’re going to need those guys to be big. They’re going to hope that Adley rutschman wakes up. We’ve been talking about it for two months now, but it improves their chances tremendously if Adley rutsman can swing the bat more like he did in the first half than what we saw in the second half, which was one of the worst regulars in Major League Baseball, you know, offensively over the last three months. So, you know, there’s a lot, there’s a lot to really like about this team. We’ve talked about this all along. You know, you don’t get to a point where you’re what their high water mark was, 24 games over 500 you don’t get to that point in June or early July by being, you know, just really, really lucky. They were excellent over the first half of the season, but to your point, they weren’t so good over the second half of the season. And that’s where you kind of look, not that the Royals are a mirror image of them, but you know, the Royals were a team that was very hot and cold over the course of their 86 and 76 win season. I mean, they they had some stretches where they looked fantastic, and they had some other stretches where you wondered if they were going to win another game. You know, a week ago, at this time, we were wondering if they were going to make the playoffs, because they kind of looked like, oh, that that’s not looking good. But give them credit, they did just enough, and other teams, like the Minnesota Twins, completely collapsed and allowed them to make it. But it’s a new season now, and that’s why, when you look at these short series, it’s hard to focus on anything but the pitching. And that’s where you look at this and say, Hey, burns against Reagan’s. We saw it twice in April. You know, the one matchup, you know, Reagan’s was excellent. The other matchup in Kansas City, the Orioles clobbered Reagan’s, and he was out after a couple winnings. So you’re hoping to see more, more of that than the former. But you know, this is a team that really leaned on its rotation big time. And you know, they’ve got, don’t get me wrong, they’ve got hitters. I mean, Bobby Witt, one of the best players on the planet, you know. I mean, we love our guy here in Baltimore, Gunner Anderson, but you know, Bobby Witt in the second half was every bit as as great as gunner was in the first half. But you know, add in more athleticism, right? So, I mean, he’s a phenomenal talent that that lineup one through nine doesn’t necessarily frighten you, but you know, they certainly have guys that can do damage. And again, you know, there feels like they’re, you know, they were able to write the ship a little bit, I suppose, but it’s a, it’s a clean slate, you know what? Everything you’re, you’re, anything that you would say about the Royals in terms of how they finished in September, you kind of say the same thing about the Orioles in terms of wanting to paint an optimistic picture and say, Hey, fresh start. Put September behind you. Put August behind you. You swung the bats really well over the last five, six games of the season. Great. Now let’s roll that into October. But again, that Royals rotation, they’re gonna have something to say about it. Because, I mean, when you’re talking about pitchers with the, you know, the eras that they have, and the wins above replacement. You know, you look at Reagan’s and Seth Lugo, I mean, these were five win pitchers, you know, in terms of wins above replacement. I mean, that’s, that’s rare territory there. I mean, that’s really, really good. Not to mention Michael waka doing what he did. So again, there was such a hyper focus on the Tigers, because they played them in September, and these teams haven’t met since April. I mean, think about everything that’s changed for the Orioles since April. You throw that out. I mean, I don’t know if any of that’s relevant, but they better be ready to play, because this is a the Royals are kind of where the Orioles were a year or two ago, where you just say they might just be ignorant enough to to not realize that they’re ahead of schedule, and especially when you’re talking about a best of three, you better start fast, because you can have a bad 24 hours and and then we’re given this team’s eulogy. And certainly no one wants that, but you know what you mentioned, at the very least, forgetting about the World Series or anything like that. At the moment. At the very least, how about win a postseason game for the first time since 2014 let’s start with that. And to your point, give the fan base a moment here. You know, whether it’s a Delmon young kind of moment, where it’s something dramatic, you know, come from behind, walk off whatever it is, something like that, which obviously would help them win a game, but it also would get be a be a jolt of energy that this team, this fan base, needs that reward, right? I mean, regular season, so they don’t need to
Nestor Aparicio 19:54
win the World Series to have a moment. We’re still talking about Delman freaking young, and we, nobody even knows. We if he’s one. Look through Baltimore. Nobody even knew he is right. So, like, and they didn’t win the World Series, only talking about Tito Landrum when, you know, or Rick Dempsey, you know. Like, I just, for me, it’s been a long time since they’ve had a moment there that hasn’t been Billy Joel or Bruce Springsteen. Like, literally, and I’m getting old, and they can only have these moments now, because you can win all the games you want in April and May and June, you can have all the exciting you know, you could drink from. You have five hoses on that, on that, that water hydration, bong, that they’ve the Homer hose, or whatever they are. I just, I want to see the promise for all the year, all the new ownership, all the new everything. And by the way, I have a letter coming for David Rubenstein this week that the fans get to squeeze some juice out of this, and the players do too, because it’s been a little morose the last couple of months. Because I think hope was a little bit lost. My hope is not lost on any of this. But they don’t need to win the World Series to have a successful October, in my mind, because I think the expectations have been set differently. I think if the world series started in July, they better win or bust, certainly, what a series or two, you know, and I think watching them play over the last 60 to 90 days, and I think the the injuries were certainly a part of that, through pitching, huge disappointment of the ball pan, the fact that the bats went called, the fact that the one and Adley rutschman. I mean, this would be like Lamar Jackson not looking good all of a sudden when Adley rutman Doesn’t look good, and you say, Well, how can we win without him? You know, I want to see the leaders lead. And all the things that you talked about back before the trading deadline, which was, yeah, Mike Elias can deal for Zach Eflin or Eloy Jimenez or, you know, Trevor Rogers, or a deal for any of these guys, the guys are gonna need to win this, or name rutchman and Henderson and Santander and cows are and westburg the guys. I want to see that, by the way. And we’ll talk more baseball, guitar, baseball week. I find the Arizona Diamondback situation on Monday to be like the way they’ve done this. Used to do the one day playoff, remember that Randy Johnson game years ago, or the one day playoff, and like, they play all night, and this what happened to the schedule and rain delays in baseball and a double header in a in the middle of a monsoon that’s going to decide whether the diamond Diamondbacks get on a plane to Milwaukee, and if they split the series, it’s It’s no bueno. It has to be a sweep, just a wild circumstance. I I’m, I’m glad the Orioles aren’t in that circumstance. That’s all,
Luke Jones 22:30
Oh, sure, no question. And especially on the heels of the Diamondbacks, they had a really good second half, and then it’s like what happened at the very end, right? I mean, they were really trending up, and then, then you’re at the mercy of other outcomes. And to your point, you don’t have these games 163 scenarios. Now it’s all about tie breakers and and they’re doing that because they added another round of the playoffs. So I get that, you know, I’m not that’s not even a criticism. It’s just the reality of what it is. But you flip a coin for as much as for as much hand wringing as there was about the Orioles over the last couple months. And I understand that, and I think you’re right. I mean, I do think it zapped a lot of the enthusiasm. I think it’s ramped back up over the last week. You know, I think people are excited now, especially finally knowing what time the game is, even if you know you got to take off a half day of work, at the very least. But you know, there it is tough when you have a season that they had last year, when that felt so ahead of schedule, when you have the first half that they had this year, and then maybe not even first half. Because, you know, by the last week of June, things were starting to go awry a bit. But just what they did through June 20, you know, whatever that date was, when they finished off the series win at the bro in the Bronx, when they completely clobbered the Yankees, you know that that that was the high water mark of the sea of the regular season, really. So it’s tough when you can’t maintain that, and you backslide some, and you have a month of September that was on track to be a losing month until this last week, where, fortunately, they regrouped and they did what they needed to do to clinch the top wildcard spot. You know, the playoff making the playoffs itself. You know that was never in danger, because they had done such heavy lifting over the first three months. But you know, wherever they’re ultimately going to wind up. And you know, you asked me a week ago whether I thought that they would still be playing. I think I forget what date you said. I said or it was october 11. I think it was whatever it was. Point is, you asked me if they were going to make a deep run, and I said, if you want my honest opinion, I don’t think that. You don’t think we’re having pizza next. Doesn’t mean they take it on, right? That would be too serious. They’re going to, um, yeah, I mean, I would that would be that they’re ALCS bound. You. I’m not saying they can’t. I’m not saying, pack it. Pack things up. It’s over. I’m not, of course, I’m not saying that. But if you’re asking me, you know to bet $100 on it, I’m gonna say probably not. Because I’m just I’m concerned about their pitching. I just am. They’ve, they’ve experienced so much attrition with their rotation, even though Dean Kramer pitched really well down the stretch, and obviously they have Fn and burns, you know, one two punch there that I’ll take against most teams in the field. You know, maybe not every team, but most teams, I’d say, or at least I’ll go up against any team. But you know, the the bullpen is still, I’ve been consistent. You’ve been hearing me talk about this since March, and obviously a lot’s happened in terms of injuries and Craig Kimbrell not being effective and to the point where he’s off the roster entirely. So you know, that’s where I have a tough time envisioning them playing deep, deep into October. But hey, no one like the Texas Rangers bullpen at this point last year, so you never know. I mean, if, if Corbin burns can be the best version of Corbin burns, and Zach Eflin can be the best version of Zac Eflin, and we see a dean Kramer that looks like the Dean Kramer we’ve seen the last few couple weeks, got a heck of a shot, assuming they swing the bats well enough, right? So
Nestor Aparicio 26:27
well the adjustment of pitching, if Kramer doesn’t have to pitch, if they win two games, things change a lot. If this turns into a 18 inning series as opposed to a 30 inning series, right? Like, to some degree over the next couple of days. And that’s about length from the starting pitching. That’s about how they’re going to swing the bats the next couple days. But I don’t want to see them playing baseball on Thursday, right, like that. And you know, the odds of that are probably, you’re, you’re the, you’re the mathematician here as to how they would split. But man, if it comes down to Thursday, and Dean Kramer’s got the season on the line, you know? I mean, I swallow hard on that, thinking about that, just in a general sense, with a little bit of a taxable pen, right? Let’s say that all their guys are going on Tuesday and Wednesday, and let’s say it goes 12 innings one day, whatever, Thursday becomes problematic. I I won’t feel good about Thursday if you and I are getting together Thursday morning, and there is a Thursday
Luke Jones 27:23
Yeah, and look, a lot of that is just because it’s an elimination game. I mean, that’s just because you’re never going to feel great about that those situations. I mean, you’ll feel great about whoever’s pitching that night, if it’s a pitcher that you love see and take the hill. But you know, game seven and game five in the Division Series. I mean, that’s as nerve wracking as it gets. I mean, I mean, your season’s on the line so but you just, you just spelled it out better than I did a few minutes ago, where you just said, you know, talking about this series in terms of 18 innings compared to 27 or, you know, throw in an extra inning or two for good measure. That’s where I do have my concerns about this team making a deep run. It’s that cumulative impact of the pitching. It’s not it’s not that the bullpen isn’t good enough to do it on October 2. It’s can they do it? October 1, second, third, if necessary. October 5, October 7, October 9 and 10th, October, 12, you get my point like it starts to build. And that’s just, that’s a lot when you’re talking about a bullpen that, you know, I just, I don’t have a high degree of confidence in every pitcher in that pen, you know. I mean, I’d like to think I have a confidence in Sir Anthony Dominguez, but the last week or so, it hasn’t been looking as good. Same with Cano. I mean, Danny cool on my love, but is it going to be Danny cool? He was just, he’s back, and there’s no more rust, and his elbow feels fine and all that, you know, some of the other guys in the pen, and, you know, CNL Perez walks too many hitters, you know, I mean, and he’s been a guy that they’ve tried to trust throughout the years. So again, you can win a series, you know, you can win games, you know, with a less than great bullpen, but it’s the cumulative impact when you’re talking about, I mean, these guys are entering their seventh month of play, all these guys, you know, not, not just the Orioles, all these teams, you know, that’s part of the, you know, the endurance. We think about it in terms of it being a sprint in October because of the short series, but it takes a lot of endurance because, you know, you’re going to the bullpen quickly. You know you’re we saw it how they how Brandon Hyde handled Dean Kramer in his last start. I mean, two times through the lineup, and then they went to the pen. I’m guessing that’s what you’re going to see. You know, certainly, whether it’s Kramer or, you know, Albert Suarez, who’s not going to pitch into a potential Division Series, you know, I think that was clear based on how he threw on Sunday. What? Six innings, 71 pitches. But you know, you’re having to lean have. Fully on your pen. I’ve cited it for months now. The teams that made it to the World Series the last three years, they averaged using four and a half to five relievers per game in October. I mean, that’s what you’re looking at there. So tell me your five that you feel the best about in the Orioles pull pen right now, and you might get 10 different answers from 10 different Orioles fans if you ask them that right now, so, but
Nestor Aparicio 30:26
we’ll see. Well, this is what makes things nervous. They get in trouble and burns. Yeah. I mean, if Burns is only three and a third somehow, and the game’s five, four, I that becomes problematic for me, right? Or right off the bat Tuesday, right?
Luke Jones 30:41
Sure, sure. And look, any team that’s in that position, unless your pitching is so tremendous that you feel so great about four or five guys in your rotation. But if you know, and a lot of these teams are like the Orioles, where it’s like, Hey, you have an ace, you’ve got a number two, you feel really good about your number three, you’re like, hey, okay. And then number four is kind of like, okay, can that guy get us one time through the order, you know, a clean and then we’ll kind of go hit her to hit her after that. You know, there are other teams in this postseason field that kind of fit that description, and that’s kind of where the Orioles are. So, yeah, you’re going to have to lean on your bullpen a whole lot, but you’ve, you’ve made the point for probably the better part of the last month, you’ve talked about game one, game one game one, game one in a best of three. Especially now forget about the Division Series, forget about the LCS, forget about the World Series, for the moment when you’re talking about a best of three. Game one is massive. I mean, it absolutely is massive. You know, kind of in the way that you think about a regular season series, where you say you win game one, you got a heck of a chance to win a best of three, right? Only your season’s on the line. This isn’t May or June or even September. So, yeah, they need burns to be great. Yeah, they need to go out and not get completely shut down by Cole Reagan’s and, you know? But if they don’t, then it’s, Hey, you’re playing for your life and all hands on deck, and you can’t worry about the next day or the next series. I mean, you gotta do whatever you can to survive. I mean, that’s just where it is right now. So it would be way easier to do that if your offense looks like the offense we saw in the first three months of the season. There’s no question about it. So hey, I wish I had some genius insight for you, but it’s a best of three baseball series. I mean, the stakes are so much higher, but it’s the best of three. It’s not much more than a coin flip in one way, one direction or the other. I mean, it really isn’t. So that’s why you you hope that you play well, and you hope that the that the ball bounces your way. I mean, that’s that’s a big part of this. I say it all the time in October, Nestor luck is way more involved in October baseball than anyone cares to admit. Yeah, you need your great players to be great. You need some lesser players to be better than you expect if you’re going to make that deep run. But so much of it still comes down to, you know, is the ball going to bounce your way? You know, is the umpire going to make the call in the spot on that two, two pitch with two guys on base? So, you know, we’re going to see, and again, this Oreos team, you hope last year’s experience plays a part this year with these guys hopefully being a little more comfortable understanding the tempo, the crowd, noise, everything that’s involved in October baseball. And in turn, you hope that the Kansas City Royals, who other than a couple veteran players here and there, largely, I mean, Bobby WITTs never played in the postseason. Gunner Henderson has Adley rutman has. So you’re hoping that there’s a little bit of an edge there that I don’t think is going to be the deciding factor in the series, but you hope it can give the Orioles a little bit of an edge to, at the very least, get off on the on the right foot in game one.
Nestor Aparicio 33:55
He’s Luke Jones. He’s Baltimore, Luke. He will be at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. I am band. David Rubenstein’s getting his finally getting his letter. He’s owned the team for six months now. I have been locked out for six months. Luke will be at the ballpark Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Luke will maybe not Thursday, Luke. Luke will be at Owings Mills, maybe on Friday. I don’t we don’t have any rain in the forecast here. It’s a weird week, man. I will be here monitoring it all. I am a very available individual, and I’m gonna be doing a lot of writing this week. Hope you’re enjoying my columnist if you haven’t watched our our retrospective, hope that you do that. I have a letter to Eric DeCosta. I have a journalistic letter out about how I’m banned and my employees allowed to go but the Luke will do a bang up job. And hey, look, if they lose, it’s your fault because you’re there and I’m not so Luke will be down at the ballpark, and the the ravens are off the hook here for at least a little while, after a really, really impressive win on Sunday night against the Buffalo Bills, ravens a two and two Orioles at 0.0 but. And earn a World Series here this month. So big doings around here, big times at the ballpark, four o’clock Tuesday, 430 on Wednesday. Hopefully not necessary on Thursday, but if so, it’ll be four o’clock on Thursday afternoon. I am eating oysters everywhere. It’s all brought to you by our friends at the Liberty pure solutions water company. They keep your well water clean, and they’re great plumbers as well. They’ve done all the work for me over the last couple years. Doug workman and his friends, one 800 clean water and also liberty, pure solutions. I highly vouch for them, just like the oysters keeping the Chesapeake Bay clean, I’ve been eating oysters every single day for our 26th anniversary, 26 days, 26 oysters, 26 ways. It all launches tomorrow, on October 1. So we’re going to do that through the month of October. It’s also brought to you by our friends at curio wellness and foreign daughter. I’m wearing my curio Orioles gear. I have purple gear. I have Marilyn gear on. Our friends at curio wellness and foreign daughter encourage you to learn more about CBD. THC, things that help, bombs rubs, things that that help my aching back like this crazy move product that doesn’t smell and isn’t greasy and weird and makes me feel better because I have an l4 condition. So big thanks to curio wellness, as well as our friends at Jiffy Lube, multi care and royal farms for powering Luke up and getting him back and forth wherever he needs to be, from Camden Yards, the Owings Mills and back and forth again. They don’t let me go out of the house. I have to watch the games on television. I hope the announcers are good. That’s the most important thing. He’s Luke. I’m Nestor. Huge week ahead here, and it’s not just because it’s Luke’s birthday. Will be a pizza John’s next week, celebrating with our friends at the Maryland lottery. I’ll have these Raven scratch offs to give away. Mark that down next Friday. It’ll be an American League Championship preview is we go to I want to be optimistic Houston, because I think we can’t beat Cleveland. Gotta worry about beating Kansas City. He’s Luke. I’m Nestor, baseball, football ahead. We’re Baltimore positive. Stay with us. You.
