The Baltimore Orioles season is halfway to nowhere

Ownership. Management. On the field. Off the field. In the stands. Defense. Pitching. Hitting. Leadership. You tell us any place that this current iteration of the Baltimore Orioles is excelling? We’re now entering the second half of the 43rd consecutive season that the franchise appears to not be headed for a World Series parade. Luke Jones and Nestor reset a mostly-lousy Orioles season at the halfway point and during a half-hearted home stand at Camden Yards.

Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discussed the Baltimore Orioles’ struggles, particularly their defensive issues and recent losses. They highlighted the team’s poor fielding, citing specific plays that cost them games. Despite some talent, such as Gunnar Henderson and Adley Rutschman, the team’s overall performance is subpar, with a record of 21-29 by May 20. They criticized the management’s decisions, including the handling of pitchers and the lack of defensive improvements. The conversation also touched on the team’s financial issues, fan frustration, and the potential for future roster changes.

• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Recap the Maryland Crab Cake Tour photos in a segment next week for the Fourth of July.

Orioles’ Defensive Issues and Recent Games

• Nestor Aparicio discusses the Orioles’ defensive issues, emphasizing that the team has not had a single good fielder since Manny Machado.
• Luke Jones agrees, noting that the Orioles’ defense was a significant factor in their recent losses, including a terrible loss on Friday night and a near blown lead on Saturday night.
• Nestor Aparicio highlights the lack of situational awareness among the players, which he believes is a major issue.
• Luke Jones mentions that the Orioles’ defense has been a problem for years, and even their best defenders, like Pete Alonso, have made critical errors.

Impact of Defensive Errors on Game Outcomes

• Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discuss how defensive errors have directly led to losses, such as the recent game against the Angels.
• Luke Jones points out that the Orioles’ defense has been particularly poor in recent games, leading to a significant number of outs being given away.
• Nestor Aparicio emphasizes that the lack of competent fielding has been a consistent issue for the team.
• Luke Jones mentions that the Orioles’ defense has been worse than in previous years, with no one player standing out as a reliable fielder.

Management and Coaching Decisions

• Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discuss the role of management and coaching in the Orioles’ performance, particularly the decisions made by Craig Albernaz.
• Luke Jones criticizes Albernaz’s decision to pull Trey Gibson from the game despite his strong performance in the fourth inning.
• Nestor Aparicio questions whether Albernaz’s decisions are influenced by sabermetric auto-programming.
• Luke Jones argues that the Orioles’ bullpen is not reliable enough to handle long chains of pitchers, and that the team needs to find a way to get more innings from their starters.

Future of the Orioles and Management Changes

• Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discuss the potential future of the Orioles, including the possibility of management changes and trades of key players like Gunnar Henderson and Adley Rutschman.
• Luke Jones expresses skepticism about the current management team’s ability to turn the team around, despite some talent in the farm system.
• Nestor Aparicio suggests that the team might need to go through another rebuild, but questions whether the current management is capable of leading that process.
• Luke Jones highlights the need for better roster management and decision-making at the top levels of the organization.

Fan Frustration and Team Performance

• Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discuss the frustration of fans, who feel that the team is not performing well despite some promising moments.
• Luke Jones mentions that the team has had worse seasons in the past, but the current level of frustration is high due to the perceived talent on the roster.
• Nestor Aparicio notes that the team’s performance on the field has not matched the expectations set by the front office.
• Luke Jones emphasizes that the team needs to find a way to consistently perform well in all aspects of the game, including defense, pitching, and offense.

Impact of Ownership and Ticket Sales

• Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discuss the impact of ownership on the team’s performance and ticket sales.
• Nestor Aparicio shares a story about a fan who was displaced by the team’s new ticket policy, highlighting the frustration of loyal fans.
• Luke Jones argues that the team needs to find a way to balance ticket sales with the needs of loyal fans.
• Nestor Aparicio criticizes the team’s approach to ticket sales, suggesting that it has alienated some of their most dedicated supporters.

Comparison with Other Teams and Leagues

• Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones compare the Orioles’ performance to other teams in the league, including the Phillies and the Nationals.
• Luke Jones notes that the Phillies have had similar defensive issues but have managed to perform better overall due to their pitching and offense.
• Nestor Aparicio highlights the need for the Orioles to find a way to consistently perform well in all aspects of the game.
• Luke Jones emphasizes that the team needs to find a way to get more innings from their starters and improve their bullpen performance.

Final Thoughts and Future Outlook

• Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discuss the future outlook for the Orioles, including the possibility of trades and management changes.
• Luke Jones expresses skepticism about the current management team’s ability to turn the team around, despite some talent in the farm system.
• Nestor Aparicio suggests that the team might need to go through another rebuild, but questions whether the current management is capable of leading that process.
• Luke Jones highlights the need for better roster management and decision-making at the top levels of the organization.

Nestor Aparicio 0:01
Welcome home, we are W N S T A and 1570 Towson Baltimore. We’re Baltimore positive, positively getting you into the weekend. Here we have sale 250 We’ve got the Heritage Fair in Dundalk, and we just concluded our Maryland crab cake tour, literally for the year, because we work on an annual basis with the lottery from July one through, so it’s been a hell of a year. I’ll recap all the pictures next week for the Fourth of July. We had a great, great time up at Green Mount Station, one of our homes away from home, up in Carroll County. Zach Dermer from Florida and Dermer came by, we hung out, we had some crab cakes, really, really good time. Luke stopped by, my dude Howard Share came by, and of course, Casper Wells. You’ll hear that this weekend, as I don’t know, the Orioles return home, Luke, a limp home, I mean, I talk about the defense all year long, because that, to me, that’s the glaring thing, like that’s when I sat with you and Casper, and we did a little round table with Howard over Green Mountain, I’m like, the bad defense, it just doesn’t go to sleep, you know, it’s like dishonesty in a relationship, it just doesn’t sleep. It’s, it’s always there. And when you’re in one run ball games, or tie ball games, or extra inning ball games, or whatever, I mean, you don’t have the latitude to give a fourth out when they’ve already given me a guy on second base. So I don’t know, they don’t do little things well, which is why there are sub 500 outfit. Period.

Luke Jones 1:21
Yeah, I mean, they’re just not that good. I, I said it to you on Monday, on the heels of the Dodgers series, which they won two out of three. They, they could have swept, they also could have lost two out of three, and their defense was directly related to Friday night’s terrible loss and a near blown lead on Saturday night, but defense

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Nestor Aparicio 1:44
is a lot of problems because it opens up innings for pitchers who we were like, well, Dean Kramer’s, he’s only Jane Boss, can only be so good, but I know when you kick the ball around or when there’s even the perception that you might, I just, I’m only saying this because I’ve been watching baseball my whole life, I’m 50 years into this, 35 years into doing this on the radio, I think this is the worst defensive situation the franchise has been in. Like, where I look up and down and say, my god, they don’t have one really good fielder anywhere, and even one or two or five would wouldn’t be enough. If you had five great fielders and Ford, that stunk, it would be enough to eat you up, but when everybody kind of isn’t all that good, I mean, Ruchman, I, when he’s not playing, I mean, obviously, but we’re going to talk about his eye in a minute, but like, I don’t look anywhere and say, like, we had Machado here for a minute, and that was, I don’t know, he was such a jerky fellow, and such a prima donna, and such a great player, and such an Adonis of everything, that maybe we didn’t appreciate, just like he might be the best fielder we had here in this century, you know, like literally, as far as you mentioned platinum, and all of that, forget all of that. How about just competent on a nightly basis? I don’t think the organization has done a good job of putting that together, and I know you’ve been, you’ve been all so has Allen been all about that for two years. Yeah, I mean, they don’t value defense, it’s

Luke Jones 3:07
just that simple. They have a couple good defenders, and that’s it. And one of them was right in the middle of what happened on Wednesday afternoon. I mean, Pete Alonso has played a good first base. I put that play with Aiken at first base, I put that on Alonso. It was a relatively routine ball, and I know he talked about it after the game. His read on it off the bat, he thought it was hit a little bit harder than it was, so he wasn’t positive that Jeremiah Jackson was going to get there, even though Jackson got there and was in front of the ball, right? I mean that chopper, he was right there, it was a routine play on his end, but the problem is when you have Alonzo take two steps toward fielding the ball, everybody had a position, and then you have two guys that are close to first base, but no one’s at first base in the way that Jackson knows exactly what the target is, where the ball needs to be, and they, and then the ball circumstances

Nestor Aparicio 3:59
this year, you brought some other two weeks ago where you’re like the play was to run backwards because there was nobody at the bag, right? Like the fact that bags are so uncovered in modern major league baseball, when my dad taught it in the Colgate Little League in 1978 like cover the bag, I was a catcher, back up the back up third base, back up first base, that’s your job, like just in a general sense, to be aware, I situational awareness, I mean, dude, that doesn’t show up in the box score, doesn’t show up anywhere in your nerd analytics, or any of this saber, or any of that, like situational baseball for these cats, no bueno, I mean, I, it just everybody was texting me, you, everybody was you, text me in the middle of the game, you never hardly ever

Luke Jones 4:45
do that, you ever take someone, if someone does it, it’s you texting me, yeah, that’s

Nestor Aparicio 4:49
how appalled you were, I had eight people, eight people, Joe Poili, to everybody’s texting me when they spit up their lunch at 630 in the evening, and it’s like. Ah, and you just, when you and I started saying nice things about that, you know, they won two out of three Dodgers, David, I know they did. We’re gonna be hearing about that for the next eight weeks, because that’s going to be their potential that we say good things about them, because they hung in with the Dodgers, they hung in with the Yankees. Yeah, but they don’t catch the ball.

Luke Jones 5:18
Yeah, I want to go back to my original thought, though, when you first.. sorry,

Luke Jones 5:24
no, no, I was talking about Monday, and on the heels of two out of three, and I said this at the time, and I wasn’t.. I almost felt bad saying it, because I do see some talent on this team, as much as that, hearing them say that has almost triggered a gag reflex at this point in time, because I’m so tired of hearing them talk about how talented they are, or they’ve shown they can play with anyone, you know, the same stuff that mediocre to bad teams try to convince, say to convince themselves that they’re good, right, but I wasn’t that excited about the weekend series, I was more annoyed by it, and it wasn’t just what happened Friday night, which was a game that they gave away. It wasn’t just Saturday, which was a game they nearly gave away, and Sunday they won convincingly. I was almost annoyed from the standpoint of you guys played with the Dodgers, really. You outplayed them for most of the series, and yes, you won two out of three. But I said it to you, and it sounded tongue in cheek, it sounded flippant, but I wasn’t insincere, because I mentioned now watch them go and lose two out of three to the Angels. This is saying that, by the way, this is so on brand for what they are, the way they lost this. First of all, the fact that they lost this series on the heels of what happened at Dodger Stadium, and the fashion in which they lost on Wednesday specifically, that was the most Oriole of Orioles things we’ve seen of this team over the last couple years. But I want to, I want to humor you with, you know, humor me with something here, because I don’t do this normally, but a minute before you and I logged on here to talk about this, I pulled up my Facebook memories, and I just thought I thought this transition was very interesting. So, three years ago, and you know, I don’t think it’s the exact, but it’s within a day or two. Three years ago, Jordan Westburg was making his major league debut, and you know, we know what’s happened there with the injuries. You were extremely fond of him. I’ve been fond of him as a player when he’s healthy, all that, but we know how that’s played out. But that was three years ago, two years ago, and this was your headline for our segment that we were doing at the time, keep in mind the Orioles, after they won that series in the Bronx, that you and I have talked about till we’re blue in the face, as far as that being kind of the last high water mark for this team, as it pertains to 23 in the first half of 24 but a few days later, you know, not a few days later, they immediately went to the Houston, they were swept by the Astros, and they lost five in a row, but your headline for our piece that we did, coming off of you said that’s four losses in a row for the Baltimore Orioles, doesn’t happen much around here, that’s what you said two years ago, last year this was your headline for a piece that we did. I don’t, I don’t even remember what this was about, but this is what you said. As I texted Luke Jones last night, after another tragedy in Birdland, the Baltimore Orioles find some creatively interesting ways to lose baseball games, and now we’re saying the same exact thing a year later, right? So, think about that three year progression there, where we know where they were in 2023 and where they were going, and Jordan Westburg was the latest young player to join the fray. And then two years ago, the fall that continued big time in the second half. The moments

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Nestor Aparicio 8:54
didn’t kick the ball around, and the left fielder didn’t kick the ball haze, and you know, but it’s more

Luke Jones 8:59
than that, man. You know, you know that, like, they’re not very good at any, like, even their audience, which is their strength, and it’s their relative strength, but it’s not that they strike out

Nestor Aparicio 9:09
a lot, and they, it’s not a superpower, right? Right,

Luke Jones 9:11
they draw some walks, you know, they hit for power, although some guys haven’t hit for nearly as much power as you would expect, they do strike out a lot, they, they really go back and forth in terms of runners and scoring position and situational hitting. They, they’ll have a stretch where it looks pretty good, and then it’s just bone dry again. I mean, it’s just, they’re not very good, they just aren’t. And you know, you, we, we’ve talked a lot over the last month. Obviously, they had the big home stand in late May, and that kind of got them at least to the point where their season was no longer teetering, but they were 21 and 29 on may 20. Since then, and yes, they’ve played better, but not much better. They’re 17 and 15 since then on that kind of pace. Okay, maybe they’ll hit. The 500 mark by september 5 on that kind of, you know, what I mean. We’re

Nestor Aparicio 10:03
going to be talking about them on july 28 as being in Purgatory, four games off the wild card, which doesn’t sound bad, or two games, you know. There’s like being in the nine games off the wild card, because they’re not going to be bad enough, and nobody’s going to be good enough, right. So, so it’s like being

Luke Jones 10:18
in, it’s like being in the NBA, where they’ve

Nestor Aparicio 10:20
been to Pittsburgh Steelers,

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Luke Jones 10:22
well, no, it’s not the playoff, but it’s more like the NBA, where especially now, where you have the top 10, you know, see 789 10 do the play in just to get into the first round, whereas I looked at it, I think I want to say it was, I think it might have been Golden State this past year in the Western Conference, they were the 10th, the 10th team in the conference, so they were in the play in their record was 37 and 45 and they were quote a playoff team. Now it was the play in, but that’s my point here, like this is not what fans signed up for, this is not what Michaelias was advertising five or six or seven years ago, right? This, this is below the bar, and it’s below the bar by a pretty wide margin. And no, I’m not suggesting that I’m demanding 100 win teams every year either. But, but how about you not kick the ball around? This is this is a sub 500 team. They’re not horrendous, but they’re not good either. Like, period, they’re just not good. I mean, at some point in time, we can talk about all these different stretches of time. We can talk about the fact that they haven’t been 500 since april 30. Last weekend marked the two year anniversary of kind of the last time they were truly looking like something resembling being special, right. We can talk about last year, on Tuesday, they hit the halfway mark of the season. They hit game 81 and their pace was exactly one game better than what last year’s final record was. I mean, we have two years of evidence now, with even changing some variables, like the manager, for example, and we’ll get to Craig Auburn as in a minute, because I take some issue with how he handled Wednesday’s game as well. We’ll get to that. Well,

Nestor Aparicio 12:09
we’re 81 games into this, so I can judge him, right? I can give him a halfway report card now. You wait for the wall, like

Luke Jones 12:16
I mean, like I give him the

Nestor Aparicio 12:18
John McCain, by the way, for anybody listening on the radio, he gets the John McCain enough,

Luke Jones 12:22
but I would also say, how much of it is is actually him, because these issues preceded him, right? I mean, these issues have been issues before he arrived. Maybe, if anything, the last calendar year has validated Brandon Hyde a little bit, at least in terms of like Brandon Hyde wasn’t the major problem. What is

Nestor Aparicio 12:40
he? Is he a coach or base coach? He’s

Luke Jones 12:42
at the Rays, with the Rays. He had what, special advisor or something like that. I mean, not an

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Nestor Aparicio 12:47
on-field job, right? Okay, that’s why I don’t know. His

Luke Jones 12:50
title is, you know, I’ll pull it up here. Special senior advisor to the baseball operations department for the race, right? So,

Nestor Aparicio 12:57
six years, seven years, I

Luke Jones 12:59
mean, 2019 through May of last year, right? I mean, and look, let me be clear, that’s not me saying, let’s not be saying Brandon High in

Nestor Aparicio 13:07
line to get a gig, he was a manager of the year kind of guy, like, yeah,

Luke Jones 13:11
I mean, I’m not well,

Nestor Aparicio 13:12
I just, I haven’t heard his name, and

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Luke Jones 13:14
right, I’m like,

Luke Jones 13:16
yeah, I mean, that’s that’s kind of what happens though, when your team starts off as in disaster fashion, is loud, but he’ll be the Reds

Nestor Aparicio 13:22
manager on opening day next year, something like that, I guess. I mean, you know, I mean,

Luke Jones 13:27
I mean, it might be that he maybe has to upgrade to being a bench coach for a year or two, and then, you know, something like that, see

Nestor Aparicio 13:34
him as damaged goods, but okay, especially not now, to your point, we’ve never had this conversation, right? I, yeah, but I

Luke Jones 13:40
would also say

Nestor Aparicio 13:42
that

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Luke Jones 13:42
this is not me singing the praises of Brandon Hyde as much as this was something that was much larger than the manager, and that’s what that’s what I think has been validated. Really lousy

Nestor Aparicio 13:53
ownership is at the heart of all of it, and the decision making of Peter Angelos and Fredo, and now these two clowns. I mean,

Luke Jones 14:00
but I think it’s Michaelias. I mean, like, look, they’re the

Nestor Aparicio 14:02
ones that allow him to keep the job and have the job, sure. And that was a decision that was made by Peter eight years ago, and John, right? So, like, he’s here because he was in the seat. I mean, clearly, Greg Bader and Jennifer Grandal, and the rest of this crew, I, you know, Katie Griggs is the new person in the seat, there, all the rest of this feels to me like they’ve been moving furniture around on the Titanic, and to your point, it’s this, you have said this off the air, on the air, in every way. How much has changed from the new owners of other than more poor things and charging people more money? I went to lunch the other day, Costas with someone that I do hope will be a sponsor soon, a person that is it from Rosedale, his son plays baseball. I’m not going to out him, and I don’t really know him all that well. I’ve gotten to know him as a potential sponsor, someone I’m going to do business with here, but we got to talking about, I mean, he loves baseball, right, and he’s one of the. Dudes that had a ticket in the first 10 rows that they told him you have to buy 81 games, so in other words, his bill was going to go from 13 grand a year, which is a lot to give the baseball team for 27 games, to whatever it was, 13, whatever his plan was, you know, but he was giving them like 14 grand and they demanded, you know, 100 basically, for to for him to keep the seats and make him take every game, and I’m like, Who’s that sales rep who’s getting on the phone to an Orioles fan in this isn’t Philly, New York, Washington, Washington, like, whatever, this is like a real dude who’s a baseball guy who loves baseball, who spent the afternoon, not he loves baseball, he loves the Orioles, he’s talking ball, he could, he could do my show and do a hat, he knows a lot about baseball, and he’s like, I went from 15 grand a year every year to, they get zero from me, and I almost just almost acted like we weren’t on the radio, f them, and I’m not going to give them money, and that’s that, and I’ll go when I want to go, and if, like, he could not believe, yeah, the arrogance that that he was treated with as someone who paid to watch Rio Ruiz and Mark Trumbo, so like I am,

Luke Jones 16:18
and who’s replacing him, you know what I mean, like, yeah, yeah, I got somebody

Nestor Aparicio 16:22
dying to sit in that seat, 81 games, I wasn’t $50 a throw. He told me that was a buck and a half a game, he was paying it was a $600 night every time he went to the ballpark just for the tickets, and they told him, unless you take all 81 we’re gonna find somebody richer up in Ruxton. We’re gonna find somebody up on caves, like they know what the hell they’re doing,

Luke Jones 16:46
which I will say this

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Nestor Aparicio 16:47
mistreating me aside, which was dumb. And when I see him, you’re dumb for mistreating me, all of you, in front of everybody. Like, yeah, I mean, I deal with that every single day of my life, they’re like, but they don’t just treat, mistreat Nestor. Nestor has a microphone, they, they mistreat you in Arlington three years. I’ve just seen them, they, Jim Palmer came up to me at a funeral and tells me that they mistreat him. So part of this really is ownership, and I’m going to continue to go back to where is Spaghetti Aragon, like, where is he? Where, where are the people that lead this team when the Nationals are in town, and we’re doing sales? I mean, they’ll come out through the little papal wave, maybe they sit for half an inning with Kevin Brown and hand them the questions. I mean, this is not accountability at any level, at any level, and on the field, off the field, all the way around, they’re a poor moribund franchise that you and I are subjected to talking about every single day, and I keep waiting for it to get better. I keep waiting for it to get better for other business people, for other fans, and all I.. and then we put the games on, and to your point, they’re not a good baseball team, and if that’s your product, if the movie’s not very good, I don’t care if Tom Cruise is in your movie. If the script sucks, you got a bad movie.

Luke Jones 18:08
Yeah, just to go back to the ticket thing for a second, and then I do want to get back to Wednesday’s game, because I teased it what I wanted to bring up. But he’s

Nestor Aparicio 18:14
going anywhere. What are they gonna..

Luke Jones 18:15
but it comes, but it comes down, but it just comes down to look, sports are expensive everywhere, right? They’re getting more expensive everywhere, right. So that scenario of what you just laid out with someone who was displaced, that happens, and that happens a lot across major professional sports at this point. Time, I’m not saying it’s right, I’m not defending it, but it happens. But you look at it pragmatically speaking, in order to do that, the game plan, right, the strategy is there’s someone to replace that individual, or there’s a company, more specifically, probably to replace that individual. Is that happening, or are you just displacing some of your most die-hard, loyal financial supporters for what, for those seats to then sit on the secondary market, right? And, and probably are, or ultimately being bought for a fraction of what you’re trying to sell them for. I had a friend of mine that got

Nestor Aparicio 19:16
snookered into this, and she was offering her Monday night tickets yesterday all over Facebook, showing the seats and all that, and I’m like 100 bucks, I’m like I could go to the game for 12 or I can watch it on TV if they let me, and we talked about this at length with our ensemble with Casper Wells at Green Mountain Station, just how good the game is on TV, how that box on TV makes it a better television show than going to the game, unless you want to socialize or want to be there. You have, you like the smell of Camden Yards, or whatever it is, or you like to taste the $15 beers. Or, I mean, I like it in the perimeter

Luke Jones 19:54
of the stadium, right? What was it that the line? Oh, no, no, no, no. Let me be a

Nestor Aparicio 19:58
prick for a minute before you get back to. Real baseball, the Bills opened their stadium the other day. Did you see that? I did. And by the way, it looks like a European soccer pitch. It’s kind of, you know, I mean, all the money you could spend, all the money the guys on Long Island and up at Syracuse and One Honor paying for Buffalo Stadium, right, to keep Bon Jovi from moving them to Toronto or whatever. But I watched it, and I watched the press conferences, and all that, and all I could think about was that brick from the Ravens. I got to go back and find that press conference, find out who that guy was, because he’s some business guy. I might see him at the Maryland party, for all I know, but who had the audacity to stand next to Sasha Brown on his first press conference and say that the well, we all know the beer is cold or inside the perimeter, and the hot dogs are a little better inside the perimeter. And all I could think about for the Bills fans, just this is Bills fans. Listen, I welcome David Modell off the boat, you know, to his grave. We talked about tailgating and the experience, and that was who David was. That’s why he fought the churches over at 33rd street to get tailgating, and none of that benefited him really all that much, because you’re paying the same for parking and the new stadium. It cost him hot dog sales on the inside. David didn’t think like that. He was thinking more event community, let’s make every Sunday a Super Bowl, which it was for everybody your age who went with their parents and tailgating, and like all of that stuff that feels like that has evaporated a little bit, but this Bill’s experience for that franchise, where they are with the mafia and the fans and the tailgating and the tables and all of that stuff, and now they’re going to do a night at the opera and charge every fan a premium for the right to a ticket, a premium for a ticket, and then a premium when they walk in and Bill’s fans are in the first five and 11 that goes up. I remember what Orchard Park looked like, like people aren’t going to pay. Remember when the Jets tried to bang their people for PSLs, thinking they had more fans than they did? Like the PSL thing worked here for a minute and a half, and I was a poor sucker, and I pimped it, and all of that, but like seeing this perimeter, non-perimeter thing, and the cost of going over the rope for the perimeter in all of these organizations. I mean, the Orioles invite me, invite me, Mark Fine has personally invited me, and their Chief Revenue Officer, Don Rovak, they’ve personally invited me to stay home and watch the game on TV, because it’s better, and I say that as somebody that likes the game, likes baseball, whatever, and it’s free, and the beers here in the bathrooms, like they’ve done to me what Dick Cass was always worried about them doing to everybody for football, which is I don’t want to go to the gets too great at home, baseball’s now, especially when Palmer and McDonald are, I mean, I’m sure Bader will do something stupid to make it awful at some point, but at least the broadcasts, I mean, they tried to chase Kevin. I mean, the fact that Kevin Brown still works here is John, it says a lot about Kevin Brown, honestly, but I don’t know, I’ve never spoken to Kevin Brown, but the presentation of these games keeps people away, and then there’s a Wednesday afternoon where that was the game you could watch, right? You’d have to stay up till two in the morning to watch it. So I guess more people were watching, because everybody I got lit up like a Christmas tree, including by you Wednesday afternoon at what people are witnessing when they put a game on before the Fourth of July, and say, ‘I want to love this team. My God, there’s nothing else for me to do this summer. I want to love this team, and yeah, back to the field for you. I’m sorry, right? No, no,

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Luke Jones 23:28
it’s okay.

Nestor Aparicio 23:29
Rambling today,

Luke Jones 23:30
I, but you just mentioned it. I mean, back to the field on Wednesday. I mean, there was a lot to unpack about that game, beyond the embarrassing fashion in which it finished. I think you go back to the fact that the Orioles played at five runs against Jose Soriano, who’s been the ace for the Angels. I mean, they chased him after three innings. I mean, Pasayo hits two home runs. I mean, it’s looking good. Trey Gibson got off to Rocky start. I’m not going to sit here and say Trey Gibson was phenomenal, but I’ll go back to Albert has pulling him after four innings, I get it. The bullpen was rested, I understand that, right? And they have an off day on Thursday going into this series against the Nats coming home, all of that, but it really to me reeked of, and I’m going to say something that I typically don’t say, it reeked of sabermetric auto programming, right? I mean, it was.. it felt like it was an instance where they were going to do that regardless of what Trey Gibson looked like in that fourth inning, which was easily his best inning. He hit 97 miles per hour a couple times, he was strong, got a couple strikeouts, and don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying because he was at 66 pitches that I automatically send them out there to throw 105 right, that’s not what I’m talking about here at all, but what I am talking about is you have a starting pitcher who at that point had just really seemed to find his stride, and I get it, top of the order a third time, but it’s the Angels, man. And this isn’t a juggernaut of an offense. In fact, they were resting a couple of their best players on Wednesday afternoon. I mean, the Angels did not have their A lineup on the field, so I don’t see the need to rush to pull him from the game, because it’s this simple look. This bullpen’s not horrendous, but it’s not elite or great or even good, I think. Open up the door to try to get five innings out of teen outs, right? 15 outs, that is an extremely long chain to willingly to willingly go out of your way to try to do that right now. If Trey Gibson was struggling big time in the fourth inning, or if he comes out in the fifth inning and gives up a lead-off single, and then walks the next guy, by all means pull him. But when he had just come off his best inning, he’s at 66 pitches, his velo is ticked up

Nestor Aparicio 25:57
three run lead, right? He has

Luke Jones 25:58
five strikeouts and four innings to five two, then you’re up five to 252, and you know, I hear what Albernaz said, you know, he had Wolfram ready to go, Wolfram ready to go against, you know, the top of their lineups, lefties there, he also pulled him after he got two outs, and then an error was committed, right? I mean, I just, if you’re counting on six or seven relievers to navigate the final five innings, and in this case, six innings, because it went to extra innings, because the bullpen couldn’t hold the lead, man. That’s just, you play the odds there, right? What is the probability that all of those pitchers are going to be quote on that day? Right, there’s a good chance at least one or two of those guys, even if your bullpen is much better overall, there’s a pretty darn good chance that one or two of those guys are going to be, yeah, they’re not going to one ball to flicking right, and that’s what we saw, right, we saw even though Wolf Run was fine, Tyler Wells came in and got four strikeouts and an inning and a third, I actually thought you could have maybe pushed him a little bit longer, canoe struggled, he walked a couple guys, but they avoided trouble there. But then they turned, you know, he turns to Rico Garcia again. And look, I’m hopeful and optimistic that Rico Garcia will get back on track, but he’s now allowed runs in five of his last eight appearances. So you had to count on him, and then you had to count on Andrew Kittredge to clean up Garcia’s mess, and Kittredge hasn’t been very good. So, my point here is, if you have an elite bullpen, if you have a lockdown bullpen, like, think about what I’ve used Cleveland as the example a lot. I always use the

Nestor Aparicio 27:33
14 Royals, but,

Luke Jones 27:35
yeah, well, no, but Cleveland recently, the Royals 10 years ago, yes, I mean, like the Orioles 10 years ago, right, with Zach Britton and Darren O’Day, and go down the list there,

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Nestor Aparicio 27:44
but

Luke Jones 27:45
I don’t, I don’t see enough trustworthy high leverage depth in this bullpen to try to do what Craig Albernaz did yesterday, or, sorry, Wednesday, and

Nestor Aparicio 27:56
basically to rescue his quad, a pitcher, you know, I mean to say, yeah, I mean, we got four out of you. Let’s think it was necessary. Give him a base runner with a three run lead, yeah. Let that right, like the first guy. All right, you know what exactly, but to you he was going lefty with though,

Luke Jones 28:13
like I felt like it, you know, it looked better in the fourth inning. I mean, again,

Nestor Aparicio 28:18
we go back to, is that his feelers that a lie is telling him this is what we’re going to do today. I mean, yeah, I mean, I will never know the answer to that, right?

Luke Jones 28:25
And Elias hired him, right? They’re going to be in lockstep on on a lot of things, right? And that, and that’s kind of like the cynical way of looking at it, even if you know, even if Craig Albernaz has more license, right? And I think bullpen management is something that the field manager still truly does have a little more, you know, a little more clout with, rather than talking about pregame preparation and lineups and things of that nature, but yeah, I mean, Trey Gibson had a, it was a two strikeout nine pitch fourth inning, and I get it, it’s the top of the order coming up, if you’re playing the Yankees, and maybe that’s a bad example right now, because Aaron Judge is out, even though they haven’t had many problems without them, even, but if you’re playing an elite elite offensive club, I’ll hear that, I guess, but the Angels, I just, that to me was over managing and way too much of trying to be the Rays, quite frankly, because I’ll say that the Rays do that kind of thing all the time, right, with good, bad, or indifferent, and you know they’ve had plenty of success over the last 20 years being more of that mind than you typically would see, but I just don’t see the justification of looking at this bullpen right now, statistically, or just the eyeball test, and look, plenty of the eras look okay, right? You look at the box score from Wednesday’s game, well, from three six, Wells is three two, Cano’s just over two, they’re

Nestor Aparicio 29:56
off Thursday, so he’s probably like, well, everybody, a little bit of work. To get a three run lead, that’s what it was, right.

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Luke Jones 30:04
But I just, I was in the game. Well, sure. And look, I’m not – this isn’t me saying Trey Gibson needed to throw 100 pitches either, but I just saw a guy that, man, really like it was impressive how he looked in the fourth inning, and to just be quick to pull them there, I just, and, and for anyone who’s listening, you know, for me, I don’t give a, you know, what about the win in modern baseball, right? Meaning, like, the win to your right, get his fifth, like, like, right? I don’t mean that, like, I care about the win, meaning winning the game, I don’t care about the pitcher getting the win, it has nothing to do with that for me, I don’t care about that at all at this point in time in my life as a baseball writer and fan and observer, but I just saw a guy that his stuff kicked up in that inning, it looked really good, and I just, that seemed, but I’ll also say this, you know, the in the bullpen they walked guys, however the offense, which had chased Soriano after three innings, from innings four through nine, they had a total of three base runners. How much would another run or two help to their cause in protecting a lead? Add on, show some killer instinct. I mean, my goodness, we’re talking about playing the second worst team in the American League, and was worth the worst than until they won the last two games of this series. I mean, the Angels are a bad club, like playing bad. The Orioles are below average and trending towards bad, you know, one week and trending towards decent the other. But the Angels are playing bad. We’re

Nestor Aparicio 31:36
around the corner from this trading deadline in the real future of the organization, and the fact that this team probably isn’t a playoff team this year, either way, and what money bags thinks owners might, yeah, and that’s, I mean, you said it’s

Luke Jones 31:49
purgatory, I mean, it’s look, you can make it,

Nestor Aparicio 31:51
imagine if they trade Gunner Henderson on july 25 I don’t, I don’t think,

Luke Jones 31:55
I don’t think they’re going to do that, I mean, because,

Nestor Aparicio 31:59
well, then they’re not going to sign him, so we’re in the Machado territory, right? We’re getting there,

Luke Jones 32:04
but there’s two more years of Gunner after this, right? Ruchman has one more year after. No, I’m just

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Nestor Aparicio 32:09
saying, if you gutted a team’s, you know, you got their farms, but this is where Elias starts to manage assets,

Luke Jones 32:16
sure,

Nestor Aparicio 32:16
or or money bags and Araghetti come in and say we’re not throwing a towel in, because we’ve already got pissed off fans. We have to go all in, go further. Here’s more money, here’s more resources. Let’s go buy a third baseman, let’s go buy a pitcher, let’s go buy a bullpen arm. Let’s come on. I’m just completely on last wild card. We’ll be that last wild card, and we’ll shock the world. Like,

Luke Jones 32:38
I’m just.. it’s you, what you mentioned that could happen, right? It’s baseball, man. I’m not going to sit here and say that I mean the Orioles mathematically are still right in the thick of the wild card race, as mediocre as bad as the American. They will be the first. What’s the truth that

Nestor Aparicio 32:53
out to you?

Luke Jones 32:53
Sure, sure, but I guess for me it’s just I am so unenthused about any of the options, right? I don’t want to see them sell from the standpoint of what that, especially if it’s a full extreme tear down that you would just.. and I’m not saying you’re suggesting they need to do that, but you know, is there a non-zero chance suggesting that Michael I

Nestor Aparicio 33:15
shouldn’t be the guy doing it if he’s not going to be the guy doing it, and if I own the team, that’s what I would be thinking about, but I would also be thinking about a work stoppage at the end of this year, and where I want to position my franchise with Michaelias as the general manager going into Burger, going into hell. I don’t.. I let’s just.. there’s no X. It really is complex.

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Luke Jones 33:36
There’s no option right now that’s appealing to me whatsoever, right? There just isn’t. I don’t. They’re not good enough. They’re not really so bad. Where you would definitively say sell, sell, sell, like you know. And we’re not talking a fire sale here. And I would still say, even if you’re going to entertain trading Gunner Henderson, okay? Adley Rochman’s a little bit of a different story, because he’s a free agent after next year, but anything like that, I would still like, even if you’re going to do the extreme thing and say we need to talk about Gunner, that to me would be more of a winter thing anyway. But to your point, there’s a work stoppage, and who knows what’s going to change. I mean, mate, maybe you come out on the other end of this of a work stoppage and there is a salary cap, and Scott Boris is now having to talk in different terms with his, that’s the way they

Nestor Aparicio 34:27
feel, then they wait, that they will purposely not make those sure, but I guess,

Luke Jones 34:31
but I guess for me, like there’s no path here at this point in time with this team, with this organ, with this leadership, with this club, with the farm system, which has good depth as it pertains to like solid prospects, but there aren’t like elite guys that are in the top 15 in all of baseball at this point in their farm system, because so many of those guys graduated, right? I’m not, I’m not even blaming them for that, but like I just look at all of it and. Any of these options, including doing what exactly what a lot of fans want to do right now, which is fire Michaelias, clean house, all of that. You also know what that probably means, right? That probably means another rebuild going through, maybe not as extreme as this most recent one they went through. Yeah, but you’d hope I’ll be

Nestor Aparicio 35:17
five games under 500 next year.

Luke Jones 35:19
Yeah, I mean it’s just, but, but, like, does anyone.. I don’t have the.. I’m at the point. Well, under a

Nestor Aparicio 35:26
rudderless ship, I mean, when it comes to Araghetti and Rubenstein, who are zeros, and Katie Griggs, who’s off on the farm, and Elias, who fires his manager and hides for four days, and a year later hides, it’s pretty good. Um, a year later, same price, same, same accountability problems, emptier stadium, emptier soul, just more tick tock, tick tock on Ruchman and Henderson, and all of these guys, and it’s funny, I, I just want to be a glib and be mean for a minute, but you know, you mentioned that there, you don’t know whether to buy or sell whatever there is. Do they stand pat? I wouldn’t sell Henderson, I wouldn’t get rid of Ruchman yet. I would come back, I would do all of that stuff, and it’s like none of this is working. So,

Luke Jones 36:13
like, what’s the path that’s actually going to lead to what you want? And I don’t have

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Nestor Aparicio 36:17
any confidence in the humans at the top of this to and that’s Mike Elias, but I guess for you to pick on their talent, and then to say, well, we’re so talented, we’re so talented to me. The flipping part of that is Gunner, maybe they’re not that talented, or Adley Ruchman saying, Do you know how bad this team had to be to get someone of my talents? How many games we had to lose in 2018 and 19 and 20 and 21 so that I could be here and hit 220 and strike out three times a night. I mean, I, that really is the booja of all of this, which is we’re going to burn it down to the ground and we’re going to build it back up, maybe if it works out, maybe if these guys are stay healthy, maybe because we can’t draft pictures because their arms fall off, so let’s not do that, so all of the philosophical things about where we started 30 minutes ago, which is they don’t draft defense, they don’t value defense at all, and in circumstances like, like Wednesday, that cost their pitching, their offense, their defense, their manager, their face, and ultimately where they are in the standings.

Luke Jones 37:19
Yeah, I mean, it’s just, and you just touched on it. Nothing’s good enough. The weaknesses are very glaring, right? The strengths are not that strong, right? To the point you just made, I mean, they valued drafting hitters, and more so college hitters, right, and you still look at what their offense is. I mean, they had Leody Tavares hitting third on Wednesday afternoon. Now, I don’t mean that as a jab at Leoti Tavares, you know, he’s been a nice story this year. You know, he, he’s not a center fielder anymore. My goodness, they had to play him at third base on Monday night. I mean, there you go again with another thing that that has mystified me over the last few years. Their insistence on playing shorthanded, and I get it, holiday pinch hit on Wednesday, I guess he’s okay, but

Nestor Aparicio 38:10
you’re a major league team putting an outfielder third base, here go get him, especially

Luke Jones 38:14
hours earlier, Nestor, they had activated a third catcher on the roster, Chadwick Trump was back on the roster for, and hasn’t played yet. They had Leody Tavares playing third base on Monday night in an emergency situation. I mean, if holiday was unavailable, that’s fine, but make a move to make sure you’re covered there, that if you have one injury, that you’re not throwing up your hands and you know, pulling something in bear, you know, it worked out. It was humorous, because they won the game, and Bradish was great, and the offense was really good. But that could have been another instance of their defense. Cody

Nestor Aparicio 38:49
Tavarez is playing third base in the 10th inning on Wednesday, and they lose because of it. Yeah, and I don’t think we’d be any more mad than we already are, but I mean, we haven’t talked about the actual play late in the game that cost them, the, you know, just what can go wrong, and where the decisions are, and Alonzo, and Bisayo, and all these guys that, that they’re really counting on. I mean, yeah, I mean,

Luke Jones 39:10
I would say this, for me, the truly damning play was the play that tied the game, right, the Bisayo play, the dribbler down the line, that should he have tried to go to first instead. Yeah, I think so. Do I am I going to sit here with full conviction, saying he was going to get them a tough play like that. That’s not the easiest play in the world for a catcher, but it’s it was the one two punch, right? It was the fact that the previous play happened, and then that happens right now, you can see

Nestor Aparicio 39:41
the frustration in his soul with holding the ball there, like, right.

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Luke Jones 39:44
So, I mean, it’s just, it’s just not good enough. And I’ll go back to, you know, what we were just talking about, as far as looking at it from 30,000 feet, and where they go, and how I’m just unenthused by. Just about any possibility, the only one that I hold out some semblance of hope on is if you do make a change at the top and you bring in someone that is able to salvage this, because we all see there’s some level of talent, whether it’s overrated, unrefined, underdeveloped, whatever. There are some level

Nestor Aparicio 40:24
Colton Kauser and Hess curse that, and go

Luke Jones 40:27
back to the top of that draft, that Colton Cowser year. Go back to the top of that draft and see what his stats are compared to some other guys that were drafted in the top 10, and you’ll see. Okay, maybe it was, you know, it was kind of the best option of not so great options, right. And, and look, you can go through any draft, and you’ll find someone drafted in the 20s that becomes an all-star. We all have to understand that hindsight is 2020 big time, with that kind of, especially in baseball, right. I mean, it’s one thing to talk about the NFL or the NBA, where you draft guys that are ready to play right away. Baseball’s not that, right. We know that even the best prospects, you know, even the Paul Skeens of the world, who probably could go right to the majors, are at least going to be in the minors, at least for a little while. But, man, I just.. I just look at this thing right now, and I’ll use a poker analogy. It just feels like they’re drawing dead. Like, I feel like any of these paths, it just doesn’t feel good enough, like it just doesn’t, and you’re seeing the same maddening display of, you know, defense breaking down, or pitchers walking too many guys, or the bullpen giving it up, or I mean, we haven’t even talked about it Tuesday night, I mean, look at that matchup, you and I haven’t given any oxygen to the fact that the Orioles were facing an Angels starter who, what, had a 12.83 ERA, and he took a no hitter into the sixth inning. Right, I mean that was your chance to win four in a row for the first time all year, and your offense, no shows, and Boz wasn’t very good, right? I mean, like that was the latest five nothing, pretty quick. Well, not to the what he gave up the two two runs, I think it was three nothing. And then point is the offense completely no show, though, man. You know that. I mean, they lost five to one. It’s not like they gave up 13 runs in that game either. It was two nothing, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t five nothing till the bottom of the fifth, I mean, they’re, you know, it’s two nothing into the middle of the game, that’s not an insurmountable, especially if you’re facing, you know, some guy named Ryan Johnson. I was going to say Ron Johnson, and then I remember that was a Ravens wide receiver, but point is that was the latest look,

Nestor Aparicio 42:38
by the way, man, he looked at, he had that intimidating glasses, think he had that thing. I give him

Luke Jones 42:42
credit, he pitched well. I mean, like, I, he stepped off the mound like everybody after

Nestor Aparicio 42:47
he struck him out. He did, yeah.

Luke Jones 42:48
But, but again, this guy had an ER, even after Tuesday’s game, he’s got an ERA of eight eight. I mean, that was just the latest example. Palmer

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Nestor Aparicio 42:57
hazes him at that point. I mean, Palmer, you know, Palmer, even from the booth is like, come on, how big? Get a hit, we get a hit this sitting. I’ll buy, I’ll eat a chicken wing. I psych, one of my

Luke Jones 43:06
friends on social media said this, probably 20 minutes after Wednesday’s game. It was those

Nestor Aparicio 43:12
cookies, it was a cookies that Melanie was eating, is what it was. Yeah, that’s what it was. It

Luke Jones 43:16
was 20 minutes after Wednesday’s game, and he made this comment, and I, I laughed out loud, his, his tweet was the Orioles are going to make Jim Palmer say the F word on air, I just, I lost it, because it’s just all you can do is laugh at this point, and look, I don’t, I don’t say that at all, to you know, just people are bad, I almost said the F word in this segment, I’ve talked first

Nestor Aparicio 43:41
time in a long time. I caught myself because I thought he’s talking for a minute. I

Luke Jones 43:45
talked to a couple friends after, you know, just just friends in my life for Orioles fans, and a comment was made that the Orioles have had worse teams by a lot, right? I mean, we all sat through the rebuild 1988 2018 all that, but the comment was this might be the least favorite Orioles team of my lifetime, and I just think it’s the way they play it. It is the baked-in expectation of thinking there’s some talent here, and I still think they’re – I don’t think they’re devoid of talent, but I think it’s woefully underdeveloped and just I’ll go back to Brit Aroly writing in The Athletic a few weeks back. There was a scout for another team that compared the Orioles to a showcase team, and you know what I mean by that is anyone who understands the high school and college baseball circuit at this point in time, they had these showcase workouts, and boy, the Orioles have guys that, I mean, look at the ball that by Posio ripped for his second home run on Wednesday afternoon, look at the home run that Mayo hit earlier this week, right? I mean, they have guys that do really impressive things, there’s no doubt about that. Now, in terms of like raw skill. But you know, and I’ll pick on Mayo here, just for as an example, right? But Kobe Mayo, yeah, he’ll hit the tape measure home runs, and the exit V low is unbelievable. Guess what, Kobe Mayo splits are right now going into Wednesday, so this is, you know, will be updated, you know, I haven’t looked at it, but going into Wednesday’s game, so just one game off here against left-handed pitching, his slash line is 304-360-1750 He’s got a more than 1000 ops, you know, over 1100 ops against left-handed pitching, which is great. His slash line against righties 141 212 225 I mean, you will not find a more extreme splits, you know, platoon splits for someone than Kobe Mayo. Don’t play

Nestor Aparicio 45:48
him against right-handers ever, and then you’ll never get better, and he’s 24 years, whatever he is, but you start him

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Luke Jones 45:55
against lefties and you don’t have an endless bench, and then you know a right-handed pitcher comes in. Okay, you’re gonna take him out right away, probably not, but then it’s an automatic out. They have the same issue with Cowser against left-handed pitching, right? I mean, like, you just have such flaws with these players that it makes it difficult to overcome, and then you take into account the defense, or then you take into account the pitching, which has been better overall over the last month, but you know, even with how good it’s been from an ER ERA perspective, they don’t strike people out, so then you’re relying on your defense again, and then the defense doesn’t make plays, and it makes the pitching worse, right? It makes the run prevention fall down, and then you go back to the offense, and yeah, they’ll have some games like what they did Sunday afternoon in Chavez Ravine against the Dodgers, and you say, “Wow, it’s really impressive. And then what happens a couple nights later, some guy with a 12 VRA takes a no-hitter into the sixth inning against them. Right? I mean, there’s just no consistency. There’s nothing that this team can truly hang its hat on. All the talk back in the winter about signing Pete Alonso and trading for Taylor Ward and fantasy lineups, and thinking about what it would look like, and

Nestor Aparicio 47:04
spending money on Basic, finding Boz, for him, like all

Luke Jones 47:10
the offense specifically, right. We, we debated whether they needed to do more for the rotation, and I think you and I both thought you would have liked to have seen more, right, whether it was one of the

Nestor Aparicio 47:20
holiday getting 600 quality 23 year old at bats, I had there was getting 600 I mean there was just things in my mind that I thought were more solid than they are, and certainly we went down with the defense, and I’ll go back to the defense, that’s the part on the read on this that when I watch it on a nightly basis, when they’re giving the other team 3032 outs every night, like literally every other inning, something, even if it’s not an error, they’re doing things that good, even adequate average major league baseball players’ decisions, errors of my arms not good enough, and I’m Tyler O’Neill, and they put me in right field, and I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here. I don’t deserve a glove, or Kobe Mayo, they’re trying to turn into a third baseman, or Jackson Holiday. I mean, how many of these guys that they tried to hide at third base? I mean, we have Brooks Robinson here, Cal Ripken, you know, hide people at third base, Leoti, who wants to play third. Well, it’s just like Walter Matthew. Now, in the bad news, I mean, that was

Luke Jones 48:27
that was a little more extreme, but to me that was just poor roster. That’s

Nestor Aparicio 48:29
roster management, right? Exactly. Yeah, yeah, I’m rambling. I’ll let you get the final shot in here, because we’re, yeah, we’re going into the.. and

Luke Jones 48:37
I’ll leave you with something I wrote in my 12 Orioles thoughts coming out of this series. You can check it out at Baltimore positive.com I’ve rehashed a lot of it, you know, it’s some ranting, but also throwing some numbers in there and everything. And I’ll go back to a point that I’ve made a lot, really going back the last couple years. I mean, let me be very clear, I do not think an elite defense is required to be the kind of team the Orioles want to be. I’ll give you a perfect example right now. Philadelphia, who, my goodness, you and I haven’t talked at all about playing the Nats this weekend. Look at what the Phillies just did to the Nats the last couple nights, where literally the Phillies were down to their last strike on Tuesday night and on Wednesday night, and they won both games. I mean, they were down to their last strike, literally won both games in DC, mind you, but the Phillies are bad defensively, like you look at their defensive metrics, they’re worse than the Orioles, even. But so this isn’t me saying that you need to have an elite defense, but unless you do some other things at a really high level, and you look at the Phillies, you know, they’ve got Christopher Sanchez, they’ve got Zach Wheeler back and healthy, and looking like Zach Wheeler again. You know, go through the list of everything that, man, look, the Phillies aren’t elite, but look at their record now, compared to when they fired Rob Thompson, that is, is climbing out of a hole, not what the Orioles have done, you know, being a couple games over 500 over the last couple. Over the last three or four weeks, right, the Phillies look at what they’ve done from the moment they fired Rob Thompson and made Don Mattingly the interim manager, but point is going back to the defense with very few exceptions, and I just named one: you’re not going anywhere if you can’t make the routine plays and you can’t make the plays in the biggest moments, right? I’ve said it tongue in cheek, but it holds true. This Orioles defense makes the routine play look difficult, and the difficult plays look impossible, and that is just such a damning indictment of what this team is right now. Again, it doesn’t have to be elite defense. I can give you all kinds of teams over the years that weren’t elite or great defensively, but if you’re horrible defensively, unless your offense is amazing, and unless your pitching is amazing, where you strike a lot of people out, you’re not going anywhere. And once again, on Wednesday, which, by the way, was the second time on the road trip, a road trip that was four and five, that was the second time their defense directly cost them a game, so right there, that’s the difference between a four and five road trip and a six and three road trip, and they very nearly cost them the game Saturday night at Dodger Stadium, right with Tavarez just dropping a ball in right field, that would have ended the game. They still won that game, but when you see that man, it’s disappointing. Because I will say, and I’ll leave, leave it with this: their defense had played better for a time. It was playing better. If you go back to probably the second week of May, until this road trip, I’d say their defense was trending upward, not not to be good or above average or great, but it felt like it was getting closer to average than poor. This road trip, if beyond just going four and five and knowing what that means in the standings, and their need to get back to 500 If there was something that was incredibly disappointing, it was how horribly their defense took a back, you know, backsliding big time with, you know, some plays that, plain and simple, cost them ball games, and they are not in a position where they can afford to absorb that.

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Nestor Aparicio 52:21
Here’s Luke Jones. He’s Baltimore Luke. We’re into the weekend this weekend. I hope to see you down at Heritage Fair, enjoying the good weather. Our friends at Farnham and Dermer put us out on the road. You’ll hear Zach Dermer here this weekend. All things HVAC 410 36777 Our friends at GBMC have gotten us out on the road on the Maryland Crab Cake Tour. I’ve been giving away the Maryland treasures. The horses have been popular lately. As we get to the beach next weekend, as well, the Orioles are home this weekend. We have sale 250 around. Be safe out there, take care of everybody through the holidays, and we will see you on the other side of the Washington Nationals. I’m Nestor. We’re WNST AM 1570 Towson, Baltimore. Plenty of great conversations they had right here at AM 1570 and Baltimore positive.

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