Putting Orioles pitching into focus as Blue Jays come to Camden Yards

Are the Orioles really moving to six-man rotation with the possibility that Grayson Rodriguez could return this week? Luke Jones and Nestor discuss the deficiencies and realities of the Birds’ bullpen depth and sudden arsenal of capable starting pitchers. And what Brandon Hyde and Mike Elias will do to manage and add more help as the Blue Jays come to first-place Baltimore.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

games, bullpen, years, pitched, team, orioles, ninth inning, craig kimbrel, closer, night, talking, point, kimbrel, baseball, yankees, baltimore, hyde, preakness, win, days

SPEAKERS

Luke Jones, Nestor J. Aparicio

Nestor J. Aparicio  00:00

Oh, welcome home. We are wn st Towson, Baltimore and Baltimore positive. We will be at Faith Lee’s on Friday. we’re faithless last Friday. I had such a great conversation there with fellow that owns a guy named Danny mark that owns medium rare. So make sure you hear that this week we have the Preakness race, the Preakness Stakes being run this week. Bob Baffert will be here, lot’s of luck, Larry Cole, Miss up pride of Mount St. Joe, with all due respect to Jim Schwartz and Chris pica. He’ll be here this week, and we’re going to run some races this week but we also have some baseball going on in the Orioles are home all week long. Luke Jones has spent his weekend at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. He was not in the sky chasing the Northern Lights like some of us were and but of course, my press pass is under review. They let you in. So there you are seeing the defending national league champion. Arizona Diamondbacks. Dude, I gotta be honest with you. We talked a little bit on Friday, we had a crap kicked out of faith. These talk last week preview the series, I kind of forgot, like they were in the World Series until I saw, you know, Carol rolling around me and all the guys that watched in October for a month, who sort of went away because they’re the Arizona Diamondbacks. And like we haven’t, they haven’t beaten us since 2007, or whatever. But so this was a little bit of a flashback series. We think even for you, who doesn’t sit around watching the Arizona Diamondbacks play every day, but did for a month last year and formidable competition, I would say real good vibes for the team on Friday with Ruben splash Saturday walk off Westberg. And then Sunday kicked the ball around a little bit. But all that being said, I mean, we’re talking about a loss and not a great loss and not indicative of who they are. But they’re playing just some unbelievable baseball the last two weeks. I mean,

8

Luke Jones  01:43

I mean, not just last two weeks. I mean, it’s this has been who they’ve been since the beginning of the season. I mean, they have a couple of series loss, but they continue to play 667 ball, they continue to win two out of three, right? I mean, the weekend was what we’ve seen, they win two out of three and okay, they lose a game on Sunday. Yeah, you’re right, they kicked it around a little bit. And, you know, we could talk about Ramona Reyes, who’s playing sparingly. And when he plays, he makes a critical error that then leads to you know, the game breaking open up and inning or two later, but they lost every team loses games. I mean, they’re going to lose games the rest of the year. But

Nestor J. Aparicio  02:18

there’s why are we also shocked every time they lose? Well,

Luke Jones  02:22

that right there reflects you saying that says at all, that this team is really good. And they need to be really good because the New York Yankees continue to be really good, and they continue to win, and they’re right on their heels. But beyond that, which we’ll continue to talk about that for the weeks in the months ahead, I assume assuming I remember

Nestor J. Aparicio  02:41

8

a time when the Yankees would be a game behind and would just outspend you and go get their Scherzer Verlet, whatever they’re gonna get at Whitson for crying out loud. That’s how old I am. But that’s not really the case this year where they’re destined to improve and destined to have the money to spend the destiny to have the depth in their organization that, you know, if the Big Bad Wolf is coming in to get them with the Yankees, this is a lot of young guys that have either failed here or got hurt. You know, there’s a lot of things that could go wrong for there to be distance here. But the Orioles feel like they’re the more pliable franchise of the two between now and let’s say August 1, when you can augment your team. Yeah,

Luke Jones  03:22

I mean, there’s that there’s the fact that the Orioles are much younger. And I mean, we saw this with the Yankees last year, injured guys have gone down. I mean, there’s certainly more of a question for that for a veteran laden club. That’s why I said pliable. I sort of adapt by plier Sure, I think there’s still there’s room to grow. There’s meat on the bone for the Oreos, whereas and I don’t say this to be disparaging to the Yankees, but for the most part, and that’s not to say they don’t have anything in their farm system. But for the most part, this is kind of their team. And to your point, are they going to be able to go out and acquire even acquire a piece that you know, if they say, Okay, well add payroll, but how are you going to go get that in the middle of the season, but the point is, it

Nestor J. Aparicio  04:01

becomes a little bit of a bidding war, whether it’s, they’re gonna get this player or we’re gonna get that player. And that’s the way it was when Angelo’s and Steinbrenner were fighting over David Wells in 1996, or whomever it was that we could never compete in that place. I think it’s the other way around this time.

Luke Jones  04:16

Yeah. I also think you have to be really careful. That’s also how the Orioles landed Albert Belle. And we saw how great that worked out for them in terms of what they were on the field and what he was so yeah, so there’s some of that there’ll be plenty of time to talk about that. I mean, we’re still a couple months away from the trade deadline. But in the meantime, this is a team that just continues to roll continues to play good baseball, of wheat. One thing that came to the forefront on Friday night and then repeated itself on Saturday, Craig Kimbrel. some middle ground with him. Taken out of the closer’s role for now, although I don’t necessarily think that’s permanent. I said all along. I never really would have treated Craig Kimbrel as my everyday closer anyway, I think you’re much better off trying to match up and, and try to pass the baton a little bit in that regard. But he pitched well on Friday night in the seventh inning of a one run game. It’s not as though they relegated him to mop up duty. And then he pitches the 11th inning in Saturday’s win and pitched while they’re hit batter. But this

8

Nestor J. Aparicio  05:18

is a point where they’re gonna manage this and he is a $13 million player and his arms not falling off, he can get guys out. If it’s about strikes, not necessarily his back or issues like that or being overworked. They can alleviate a lot of that they can’t. They can’t make him throw strikes. But they can at least make sure when they put them out there out there that they’re giving him a chance to succeed, which is going to look different than Batista, which is take the ball, throw it take the ball, throw it in, his arm falls off. But in the case of Kimbrough, this can be well managed and you don’t want to bury him. You don’t want to be an asshat fan and say he stinks. Just throw them away, because that’s not that’s not smart. And last week, Steen this on the internet does not shock me. I forget about baseball fans, just the general sense. But I also understand to your point, you know, this is Well, Ron now Elias makes good decisions. They make analytical decisions, they make decisions based on data. And, you know, to your point, he’s not going to speak never was going to be the closer every night. Now they need to figure out what the role isn’t to your point over the last couple days in earnings over the weekend. Right? Like yeah, now. Exactly.

Luke Jones  06:31

And to be clear, that doesn’t mean he’s never going to close. What I’m saying is you should to meet someone who’s going to be 36 years old here in the very near future, was never the guy to say, well, he’s gonna be the workhorse and he’s gonna save 45 games. I mean, I just I think you even look at how the Phillies tried to approach him last year. I mean, you go back last April, he got off to a rocky start. He pitched in the seventh inning and in a close game. I mean, it’s not as though this is the first time that a team has backed off of a veteran guy.

Nestor J. Aparicio  07:01

This is a Mariano Rivera, who’s been doing this for years. You’re like, oh, out of the seven. Well, how dare you insult me? And I

Luke Jones  07:09

8

think and I think some of this and you already alluded to it, some of this is your you’re also paying him $13 million. That’s the respect. That’s the respect you offered him in the offseason. Now it’s a case of okay, what is going to be your optimal role in terms of you being effective, you staying healthy, US covering ourselves in the event that you’re having an off night that we’re not just going to go down with a sinking ship, and this is why I kind of scoffed at some of the fan reaction to Brandon Hyde what he said in DC on Wednesday night. The proof had been in the pudding already that he had pulled him from the some of these ninth inning outings. So he’s not going to throw him under the bus publicly. nor should he he’s not going

Nestor J. Aparicio  07:48

to let them lose games because and that’s the big key. He’s making twice as much money as everybody in the bullpen combined. That’s a tough job position. Right? Put yourself in any that job position where you go to work every day, that guy’s making 13 million you’re making 300 grand everybody’s here. He’s blowing games that creates problems, man. I mean, it’s it’s the beginning of time in any workplace that can create a problem. But all that being said, he spent $30 million a year and we need to count on it. But you can’t let them lose games in a pennant race. Like this is different than any other Oriole year, because the Yankees are there. And every night they have to win. They’re expected to win. We we weren’t talking like this for the last 25 years. Really? Right.

Luke Jones  08:26

Right. But at the same time, you know that that can be a potential problem. But let’s face it, there isn’t exactly a litany of established arms in the bullpen. It’s not as though you have some other teams former closer, setting up for you in the eighth inning, watching Craig Kimbrel, then close games. So I mean, the reality is, if anyone has anything to say, it’s like, Guys, fifth on the career saves list. Yeah, let’s take a step back. And I think that was part of the message over the last several days when you asked any other guys in that bullpen? Like, you know, for example, he was asked on Friday night after he saved the game, and Kimbrel pitched in the seventh through his interpreter. He said, Look, I mean, we all go through some time periods where we’re not as effective. And we all go through that. And he he alluded to the fact that some of the struggles he went through big time a couple years ago, even before he arrived in Baltimore, so there’s always going to be some of that. But I think what we found over the weekend, and again, we’ll see how this is going to evolve. Is the Orioles finding some middle ground here and saying, Look, we still value you, we still brought you in and a three two game and the seventh thing on Friday night. That doesn’t mean that’s gonna be your role moving forward. But there might be some times where we say You know what, this team has a whatever team it is, and I’m just not specifically alluding to anyone but if it’s a team that’s a little more lefty heavy. That might be a night where maybe there’s a specific pocket of of in the order that Craig Kimbrel might match up with. And that might be a night that Danny coulomb might be someone that closes in the ninth inning if the lefty the pocket of lefty hitters in the opponent’s lineup is due up in the ninth inning. That’s why it’s So many in the analytics community beyond the scenario where you have Mariano Rivera, for example, and even they would say, Mariano Rivera might be better off pitching the eighth on a certain night if the heart of the orders do up in the eighth inning in a one run game. But putting that aside, point is if you don’t have that locked down, dominant, closer, that’s a workhorse that’s durable, that is going to make 75 appearances what you know, whatever the leading mark would be in the American League, then you should be matching up and mixing and matching and kind of using up a little bit of a committee approach anyway. Now, that doesn’t mean all eight guys in your bullpen are going to close games. But I’ve said this over and over and over in a modern day game of baseball where even the ACES even number one starters around the league, I mean, Corbin Corbin Burns has gone seven innings once so far this year, it’s a different game than it was even 10 years ago, let alone 30 years ago. So with that being that being said, you have to have multiple guys that can pitch the eighth and the ninth inning over the course of 162. If not, you’re gonna run your best relievers into the ground. So if you’re going

Nestor J. Aparicio  11:11

to win 101 games to that one, that is really the difference here over 15 years, you and I discussing this Clozaril not just the game has changed and all that. It’s just they’re gonna win a lot more games, they’re going to have so many more nights where they’re headed by a runner too, because that’s baseball, and we need a guy, not the same guy every night. And you know, a lot of that got born out in the 70s with Bruce Souter, and, you know, every single night then running Sparky Lyle out and his closer thing and the firemen and then roleplayed sponsored and all of a sudden you have to have a closer a closer we’re gonna win 100 games this year. He’s not closing at games like so no matter who it is. Even the Yankees and I’m sure there were a lot of games. They were up nine to two. And Mike Stanton pitched the ninth inning or whatever, Jeff Nelson pitched the ninth inning. That’s who the Orioles are now they’re gonna win all of these games. And he can’t No one could be that guy every night. It blew Batista his arm out last year, right? Like he shouldn’t have pitched as much as he did. We can sit here. That’s revisionist history. But that’s for a lot of these guys. But there is a point where 75 appearances and 100 100 That’s every other night, over a year over seven months with no problems with full health with nothing but perfect results because lord knows the first night you give up a home run to show Hey, oh, yeah, the ninth inning you stink no matter who he gets while saves in a row. He’s nice stunk last night. Let’s like let’s have cool and close tomorrow night. That’s baseball because they play so much. And some folks around here aren’t used to that because we haven’t won a whole lot. Right? And a general sense. I mean, we have a young enough people around here. They haven’t seen anything in regard to baseball but have strong opinions about what they read online. But the opinion is this a 36 year old guy and I was when you were talking about picking spots and all this stuff. You don’t want to have to compare it to third down defense pass rush. You know, when you’re signing a 36 year old closer, you’re signing Dwight Freeney at the end, you’re signing, Terrell Suggs at the end, you’re signing Elvis doing really any of these guys, we say, he’s not a 75 down snap guy, he’s, he’s gonna be 25 downs on third down in the perfect situation. And we’re gonna nurse them up. And we don’t need Kim from picture more than three days a week. For once we get to that point, settle down, you know, we’re just we’re not gonna, because we’re playing the Steelers this week, willing to run around for 65 snaps this week. And I think of when you say 3536 year old closer, you say fifth on the altar. I almost feels like sacks to me. I almost want to put that in and get a little football

8

Luke Jones  13:42

in here. I mean, but it speaks to also understanding who the player is. Let’s be very clear Nestor. Craig Kimbrel just had an awful stretch. I mean, he had a five game stretch where he didn’t finish the ninth inning four times. I mean, he was taken out because he was that effective. So fan reaction or media reaction to that. There’s concern was fair, but also for me, it was also understanding what this guy has been. And some of this might be that people would question and say, Why did you throw $13 million at a 35 year old clothes? Or who go look at his last six or seven years? Look at the just look at the era over the last seven years? It’s been very up and down. I mean, some years where that the seasoned era just looks Oh, is that guy? Is he washed? Is he done? It’s been up and down. But if he didn’t have him the first month, who would have been the guy they were going to and that’s and again, that kind of lends itself to the overall point that we’re talking about here. You don’t really have anyone and I don’t say that to be a knock on Cano, or Danny coulomb or Jacob Webb, who’s given them some major contributions over the last few weeks. But you don’t have that locked down guy. You don’t have that elite. Edwin Diaz kind of guy in today’s game where you say, well, he’s the ninth inning No, no questions asked. They had that and Batista you know, I don’t know if he was necessarily overused guys break. I mean, we see pitchers babied all the time, that still get hurt, right? I mean, it’s just it’s a violent, unnatural act on the UCL the elbow with the shoulder, like

Nestor J. Aparicio  15:15

this cow Bradish go this week, we’ll see that action. Yeah, well,

Luke Jones  15:19

we’ll be holding our breath again. It’s looked good so far stuff wise, but we’ll be holding our breath again. So yeah, Grayson Rodriguez has now thrown a couple bullpens looks looks like he can be activated here in the near future. What’s that going to look like with his shoulder? So the point is, and whether you’re talking starters or relievers, you need as much depth as possible, and you have to be able to pass the baton as much as possible, unless you have such a dominant team. And look, the Orioles have a very dominant team relative to the rest of the baseball, but they still play plenty of close games. So unless you’re winning nine to one every night, and that, then if you’re doing that, then you’re the greatest team of all time, potentially. But unless you’re doing that, then yeah, you’re gonna have to use different bullpen arms. And in this day, even with the starting rotation that’s pitched as well as the Orioles have over the last few weeks. And let’s face it, the rotation has been really good. Brandon Hyde said on Friday, he confirmed that you could see a six man rotation at least for stretches of time where they don’t have many off days just to kind of manage these guys, and you’re gonna pull on me Corbin has been one of their best starters over the last month. I mean, you’re gonna relegate him to the bullpen. Just because Grayson Rodriguez is coming back or do you maybe go to a six man for a few weeks, at the very least, and you kind of see what it looks like. But point is you need as many arms as possible. And you have to be able to trust as many arms as possible. And yeah, that’s not to say that Mike Bauman, for example, is going to close games or whoever the last man in your bullpen is going to be. But you better have four or five guys that you feel good about on any given night given matchups, given fatigue, given just load management for all these different guys length of the game when you’re better. Let’s have any games. Oh, yeah. I mean, when when it’s an extra inning game, then that all bets are off. That’s why Craig Kimbrel got the win on Saturday, he pits the 11th because you got to the point where you say Okay, who else is it going to be at this point. So that’s why it was even in a losing effort on Sunday, Albert Suarez giving them the innings that he gave them was good on the heels of an extra inning game that put them in better position for the Toronto series. So it’s early starters, Suarez right. Yeah. But yeah,

Nestor J. Aparicio  17:26

8

I mean, not even that much. Just the fact that hey, they might hit seven man rotation. Right, exactly. Although we were talking about a three man rotation last month and we we might have seven guys that have capably started in pitch pretty good baseball at some point in the last month, all of them and that a decent start. Some of them have three or four days it starts Luke Jones is here. He’s Baltimore, Luke, we’re going to be promoting the Maryland lottery and our Pac Man scratch offs on Friday at fade Lee’s I guess for the rest of the pitching while we’re on pitching and we’ll get to hitting later because and defense. You know, we’ll do a whole segment on that. Later on. Everybody pissed off on Sunday, they kick the ball around for a minute and a half. They’ve been almost flawless in that way. Certainly for the last month. It’s like, oh, the bullpens have met now the closure has been a mess. The bullpen hasn’t been a mess and the other part of the piece for Kimbrel four out of five taken out in the last two weeks pitch. If four out of the five I don’t know did they lose off for I’m trying to think what season they won. I mean, I’m trying to think of how many games it cost them. And to your point, he got hooked and they still had a chance to go back out and maybe when I’m trying to think of any of those games it really like got out of control. Maybe this first I’m trying to launch

Luke Jones  18:40

the the Friday night Oakland game we’re gonna save he lost that one. I’m trying to I think they lost two of them pointed the point you’re making though is sprint hydrometric

Nestor J. Aparicio  18:53

still save the game? They figured it out links take you out well have a shower and win tonight. And lesson learned they haven’t lost yes it cost them a lot of games is what I’m saying. And

Luke Jones  19:03

again, that’s where I go back to when he is struggling. That’s when you take a step back and they did that on Friday night he came in in the seventh inning it was a three to two game at the time. He pitched well it looked good I know there was a little bit of loud contact that happens I mean I mean if we’re gonna pick apart every single guys outing I can tell you plenty of guys that we all view as good that will give up some loud contact sometimes so that’s going to happen but point is he did his job but you look at where that was in the game. It was still high leverage was it the highest leverage of the game? No but it was higher leverage still you gotta get it’s that but it also left the Orioles more outs if that goes sideways. At that point you still have other relievers you’ve yet to use that you can bring in to try to put out the fire and also yes, you still have your give your offense then three more ups to try to tie the game if he gave up two runs. So that’s what you have to do sometimes. I mean, you back off guys a little bit. That doesn’t mean you bury them. That doesn’t mean you You’re looking for a pound of flesh to embarrass the guy. Despite how, you know some people on the internet, were talking about it, but you’re just and then you see if he gets himself back on track. And you know what was funny about it Kimbrel talked to in the clubhouse on Friday afternoon. And I don’t know if he was trying to allude to the last six or seven years, which he’s been so up and down. But he said, Look, I’ve struggled before I’ve struggled worse than this before, and I’ve gotten out of it, I, I take full accountability, I need to be better. I can’t put my bowl position that many times in a week, I take full responsibility for that. At the same time. I’m confident that I’m going to figure this out. You know, I’ve been doing this a long time, but I gotta go do it. And I gotta make the adjustments so and his his last two outings since he spoke, it looked better. Now that doesn’t mean that it’s going to look great against the Blue Jays. It doesn’t mean it’s gonna look great against the mariners, it doesn’t mean he’s going to be fine the rest of the year, I would venture to guess that even if Craig Kimbrel reels off a streak of scoreless outings here, he’s going to struggle again at some other point this season, maybe multiple times, because again, that’s kind of been who he is, who he has been in recent years. The guy that was the Hall of Fame elite, unbelievable. unhittable closer in Atlanta, all those years ago, he hasn’t been that guy in a long time. That said, that doesn’t mean he can’t still be effective. And this kind of goes to your you use the pass rush analogy. The Justin Houston that we saw in Baltimore wasn’t the Justin Houston in Kansas City where he was a Pro Bowl player. But he was still he was still productive for them. He had some big games, he had some quieter games, but he was productive. Go down the list of veteran guys that they’ve used at different times. Sometimes they look amazing, and sometimes even have an amazing year like clowny did this this past year. But other times, it can be more modest. Other times, they might look their age, they might look like a guy that you say okay, he’s not the guy that he was seven years ago as a Hall of Famer. Right? Yeah. I mean, he’s fifth on the career close career saves list.

8

Nestor J. Aparicio  22:01

You will make him a Hall of Famer closing Game Six of the World Series at the Orioles win. I mean, it was like I was looking at his, like how much money he’s made 100 million dollars, like all of that, and was only one one title. And it was six years ago. Now. I mean, 18, you know, he got important into that to win and like he wants to win. You. I mean, like I know anything about him. I’m not, I’ve been around plenty of 35 year old closers back in the Lee Smith era in the Doug Jones era, and you know, all of that. But when you import a guy like that into this situation, this might be the best baseball team this guy’s ever been on. And he’s been on some really good baseball teams.

Luke Jones  22:38

I mean, it’s very well possible. I mean, you’re talking about a team that’s continues to win two thirds of its game. So getting guys

Nestor J. Aparicio  22:45

out in the seventh inning for 36 year old guy may still employ those, you’re still important. Or

Luke Jones  22:49

8

if it’s the eighth inning, or maybe it becomes a case and this, you know, to the scenario you presented with the World Series, I am still going to bang the table between now and the trade deadline about them needing to add another really serious elite reliever to their bullpen that I’m hoping that’s the guy pitching the night. But that doesn’t mean Kimbrel is not pitching the eighth in a three to game or the 710 to three, two games. So the point is, again, you need multiple guys who can do that kind of work for you. So I get it, he’s making 13 million, you’d like them to be more consistent. I’d like him to be more consistent. I was concerned about what we saw over the last couple of weeks. That doesn’t mean you bury him. That doesn’t mean certainly doesn’t mean you’re gonna release some I mean, especially with 13 million or $30 million salary. I mean, we’re talking July or August. If he’s terrible that entire time. Until then, then we’re talking about that. So it was good to back off. They found some middle ground here. He contributed over the weekend. He looked better over the weekend, and we’ll see how this looks. I think if it Brandon Hyde has learned anything. The these first two months with Craig Kimbrel, a month and a half, it hasn’t even been two months, you know, it’s still early, despite what we think he’s seen that okay, it’s not Felix Batista, I can’t run them into the ground, you know, thrown a lot of back to back days and three out of four days that’s probably not conducive for him or most guys, quite frankly. So I’m gonna manage them there and chances are, if I’m going to have him in a high leverage spot, I probably need to have someone behind him that isn’t necessarily warming up from from Jump Street, but they’re stretching and they’re going to be ready to go to start loosening. If if it looks like the bad Kimbrough was on the mound that night. I think Brandon Hyde thinking about in those terms is very fair. Right so and he plays our

Nestor J. Aparicio  24:40

games by the way to your it’s going to happen right? He’s gonna go out and throw ball one ball, three balls seven, and treble is going to happen and high is gonna say I’ve seen this. I don’t care about your feelings. We’re in a pennant race. It’s wonderfully the Phillies

Luke Jones  24:53

did it last year go back and look now granted the Phillies also have you know, some some other really impressive arms in that bowl. Then, by the way, to your point, I’m glad you made the point. The Orioles haven’t had a bullpen problem. It’s been a ninth inning problem here recently with Craig Kimbrel specifically rested their pens pitch well for them. I mean, okay, we could talk about guys like bomb in or, you know, yo 100 mirror as guys that have been on the back end, you know, not the backend, the front end of the bullpen, I guess would be the better way to describe it. But in terms of Cano coulomb CNL Perez, Sunday aside, obviously was not good Sunday. But Jacob Webb’s been so good for them. So it’s not as though they’re devoid of other options. They’re just yeah, they’re not the established ninth inning elite option that, you know, that Felix Batista had become in just two years, so they were always going to miss him. And we saw how Brandon Hyde navigated the Sept or last September with matching up and by committee and Okay, sometimes it was Cano, but sometimes it’s Coulomb. Sometimes it might be Perez, we’ve seen Jacob Webb close a couple games here. I think for the time being, until and I’m not saying they will. But if they go out and acquire an all star closer, you know, a younger Craig Kimbrel, for lack of a better description. They should continue to proceed that way. You know, look at the matchups look at how a team’s lineup is constructed and go from there. And if it’s you know, one night great if it’s cool on one night, great if it’s Jacob Webb one night, great. If it’s Craig Kimbrel that night, and he does the job. Awesome. Now, I just named for guys that you feel pretty good about overall, I guess some people would argue about Kimbrel fine, although I’ll remind everyone, he was excellent the first three and a half weeks of the season, which is still a big percentage of the games they played to this point. So, you know, again, cooler heads need to prevail in these types of scenarios. Doesn’t mean you can’t be concerned doesn’t mean that when Craig Kimbrel you know, when the bullpen door swings open and he’s running through that fans aren’t going to be nervous. I understand that. There’s plenty of nerves, plenty of nerves on Friday night, but at least it looked better. And I I applaud Brandon Hyde in the Orioles for finding a middle ground here back off a little bit. But you didn’t want to bury his confidence. You didn’t want to embarrass him. You don’t want to relegate him the mop up duties? I mean, we’re not at that point yet. I mean, yes. You know, we’re not talking about someone who has been bad for a week or for six weeks, you know, so this was a case of reset him a little bit, back off a little bit, leave yourself some options, leave yourself some outs and he was able to do the job and did the job Friday night and got the wind and relief on Saturday. So seems like that situation is at least calmed down a little bit at least until the next time he comes in and again throw strikes I suppose. All right. We’ll talk

Nestor J. Aparicio  27:41

pitching and defense and we’ll actually talk about all these wall bangers we have around your Luke Jones has been the cover of baseball. He’ll be there all week long. Not a lot of rest for the weary here after having a couple of days off last week and getting to sleep in your own bed, run down to DC and play a couple of games there. But big week ahead. And all things being considered this is as good as it gets when a Preakness week where you’re home all week, the horses are coming in. We got a post position draw. I don’t know that we got decent weather on the Preakness forecast on Saturday. We’re doing a lot of Preakness around here this week. But baseball and Preakness first place it’s May it’s this you know, despite the outcome on Sunday, this is a real nice period and a big week

8

Luke Jones  28:23

ahead for them. No question, no question and I mean, they’ve got an off day Thursday so they do get a little bit of rest there. But look at the schedule ahead after this. After this homestand concludes they’ve got quite a stretch of not many off days. So again, that six man rotation chatter I think is interesting. I don’t think it’s a definite that they’re going to do it but Grayson Rodriguez through a bullpen on Sunday. Sounds like he’s, you know, he’s doing well. Sounds like he’s thrown off his pitches sounds like he’s close. I don’t know if they’ll send them out on one rehab start are saying well, you haven’t been sidelined that long. So we’ll see how it plays out. But in the meantime, team has an opportunity against the Toronto Blue Jays who as much as the Orioles and Yankees have been impressive, the Blue Jays very underwhelming, very disappointing to this point. Especially considering how they were perceived just a couple of years ago. So chance to win another series against an al least opponent and then finish up the homestand against Seattle over the weekend. You

Nestor J. Aparicio  29:21

want to hear me people in Toronto, you could do that from last week as well as far as like them being Canada’s team and me thinking they were about to become a Yankees. You know, I mean, I really believe that five years ago, I thought, man once they got the fever back and they started playing playoff games up there. I just thought like, look out because they have in my mind unlimited resources because they’re Canada’s team. And when I’m there, I just, you know, they’re that the franchise since I saw Joe Carter hit the home run out of there and 93 throw over the last 30 years. They’ve been a really disappointing franchise in that way to me giving resources where they used to be going back to 89 I don’t all the players that they have when they got good in the 80s and early 90s, that franchise sort of lost its way to some degree over the course of time that I always looked at as I always thought they would be the ones that would keep Boston out of being elite in the division because I just thought they would have resources and never plays out that way. They almost feel like the small market team from Canada that to some degree.

Luke Jones  30:26

I think you look at that team and they’re there three, four years ago, what the Orioles are now how the Orioles are perceived. Now, I think three or four years ago, there were a lot of people who thought the Blue Jays were going to become that, you know, I mean, they they had their stretch with Batista, and Edwin Encarnacion that you know, they had some playoff teams Batista with the bat flip famously in the postseason, but that young core that they had I think was perceived similarly to what we talked how we view the Orioles right now but hey, you can have prospects you can have young talent you can even have money to spend, you still have to go out between the lines and play and you need to win games and that’s where the Blue Jays this year and you know, it’s to a lesser extent cuz they were in the postseason, but I think a lot of people thought they might become this dominant team. And that just hasn’t happened for them and it hasn’t happened so far this year. So we have a retail

Nestor J. Aparicio  31:14

8

we’re all expecting the Orioles just being series the next five years and when two of them and like it’s not as easy as it looks keeping young. I mean, I remember Marcus Stroman was going to the Hall of Fame right? Yeah,

Luke Jones  31:27

I mean, you gotta go do it. Hey, he’s had a good career. But he hasn’t any didn’t stay in Toronto long term right? So you gotta go do it. You got to capitalize you got to strike while the iron is hot. That’s why for the Orioles right now. Who knows what’s going to happen with rutschman Gunnar Henderson all these guys. I mean, are they going to extend some of the like Oreos for life right now? Right? Yeah, they always do until they’re not anymore. So the point is, they’ve got a phenomenal team on the field. They’ve got more on the way that you think you hope there’s payroll flexibility and the potential to do some things on that front. But you still have to play between the lines, right when, but first pitch at 635. I almost said 705. But at 635 during the week now. First pitch, payroll and prospect ratings and all that stuff. None of that matters. You have to go out and win and the Orioles. To their credit. They’ve done an excellent job of that now for going on close to two years. But in the meantime, the Blue Jays have been one of those teams that you would say it’s been the opposite they’ve they’ve kind of gone the wrong direction. Not that they’re totally out of it. But they have pretty clearly along with Tampa Bay, you know been very underwhelming in the Al East thus far. Springtime

Nestor J. Aparicio  32:32

and pennant race in Baltimore I wear my curio wellness shirt here we have Wendy brown fawn on last week, they have present that our 25th anniversary. I was chasing the northern lights over the weekend. You can follow me on social media for that. To see whether there was success or not. I’m I’m inking a rather comedic piece. I think that John beuran piece in my 25th anniversary where I did a tongue in cheek version in 1987 of failing miserably at doing television. I’m thinking about keeping that sort of theme of failing miserably and chasing the Northern Lights this weekend. But it all adds to the experience. It’s all baked into the cake even when you go to Spokane. He’s Baltimore Luke I am Nestor we’re very available individuals here all week long talking baseball, we’re certainly gonna get some football and airports all over with and we’re gonna and we got the Preakness in town this week and Bob Baffert is gonna be stopping by Larry Cole. miss some of the folks from NBC. Donna Brothers is going to be here, talking about Mr. Dan shipping to Baltimore. At least for a couple of days, we get to talk horse racing, I get the sound like I know what I’m talking about. I know a lot more about what I’m talking about anybody else on the radio. I am Nestor. We are wn St. am 1570, Towson, Baltimore. Down the stretch. They come at Baltimore positive