Last week, Mike Elias traded Dean Kremer to the Minnesota Twins. On Monday night, the Baltimore Orioles couldn’t manage to get a hit out of the infield against him. Are the Birds really a playoff contender? Don’t ask Luke Jones or Nestor…

The discussion focused on whether Dean Kremer‘s immediate success with Minnesota reflects more on the Orioles’ offensive collapse or on deeper organizational problems in evaluation, development, and leadership.

Kremer Debate

• Luke said Dean Kremer raised his release point, threw more four-seam fastballs, and reduced his two-seam/sinker usage, leading to seven one-hit innings against Baltimore.
• Nestor viewed that outing as a bad look for the Orioles after treating Kremer as expendable, especially because the lineup has continued to struggle.
• Luke pushed back on drawing a large conclusion from two Twins starts, noting the Orioles have hit very few pitchers recently other than Kumar Rocker and Jordan Montgomery.
• Open question: If Kremer keeps pitching at this level for the rest of the season, does this become an Orioles-style Jake Arrieta failure in player development?

Front Office

• Luke divided the Mike Elias era into two phases: an early rebuild that modernized baseball operations, analytics, the farm system, and international infrastructure, followed by a more disappointing phase since the club became competitive in 2022 and 2023.
• Nestor argued any comparison with Dan Duquette must account for the Angelos-era ownership constraints that shaped decision-making, but said current losing still reflects poorly on the organization from the top down.
• Both agreed the Orioles were deeply broken when Elias arrived in late 2018, but Luke said that explanation has limited value eight years later.

Playoff Stakes

• The Orioles remain in the wild-card mix largely because competing teams have also been mediocre, even though Baltimore has been under .500 since early May.
• Luke questioned the value of backing into the playoffs at roughly 82 to 80 or 83 to 79 if it allows leadership to frame the season as acceptable.
• Open questions:
  • Can the offense recover during the upcoming stretch against Tampa Bay and New York?
  • Would a low-end wild-card berth hide larger issues in roster construction, hitting development, and overall direction?

• Inform Luke Jones about the Baltimore Positive 28th anniversary rock-and-roll plans after already briefing Leonard Raskin. (@Nestor Aparicio)
• Arrange for Luke Jones to attend and cover a Baltimore Orioles game at Fenway Park next season, subject to league and ownership approval. (@Nestor Aparicio)

Dean Kremer and Minnesota

• Discussion centered on Dean Kremer‘s strong start against the Orioles after being traded to Minnesota.
• Luke highlighted specific pitch-mix and release-point changes.
• Nestor argued the quick improvement reflects poorly on Baltimore’s handling of Kremer.
• Luke said it is too early to call it a systemic failure because the Orioles’ offense has been poor against almost everyone.

Orioles Player Development

• The speakers compared Kremer’s case with broader concerns about identifying and developing pitchers.
• Luke cited examples where the Orioles have improved pitchers, including bullpen reclamation cases.
• Nestor emphasized the lack of visible player improvement and questioned coaching communication and adaptation.

Elias Versus Duquette

• Luke said Mike Elias deserves credit for modernizing baseball operations early in his tenure.
• Nestor said Dan Duquette operated under severe ownership limitations and should be judged within that context.
• Both agreed the Orioles’ present failures matter more than the original condition of the franchise in 2018.

Wild Card Race

• The Orioles remain mathematically alive because the American League wild-card field is weak.
• Luke argued that barely making the playoffs would not validate the current organizational path.
• The group questioned whether a mediocre finish could mask deeper problems ahead of a likely labor fight and future playoff expansion.

Near Term Outlook

• The upcoming games against Tampa Bay and New York were framed as decisive.
• The biggest immediate issue identified was the offense, not just the pitching.
• The discussion ended with uncertainty over whether fans are still enjoying the season or only following it out of habit.

Nestor Aparicio 0:01
Welcome home. We are WNST AM 1570 Towson Baltimore. I’m in a good mood today. It’s Baltimore positive. I’m just for no good reason. I’m going to try to pretend I’m in a good mood today. It’s all brought to you by our friends at the Maryland Lottery. I have the Ravens scratch offs. I’m going to Ocean City. I should be in a good mood, but I’m going to be a convention in a convention hall all day. I’ll be at Mako this week. All of it brought to you by our friends at GBMC. I wear my walk a mile in their shoes because Zach from Far and the Dermer had me wear the bowling shirt, dude. I got to lose the bowling shirt for football season. I got to do something about that. We got to talk to them about it. We appreciate them putting us out on the road. Next Wednesday we’ll be at the Fishmonger’s Daughter in Catonsville. I’ve already got people signing up for that. I’ll be at Koco’s on the 26th. I’ve already got people signing up for that. So some old sports writers, old friends, community activists. I’ve had one of our two senators chasing me around all week, trying to find me in Ocean City. So Chris Van Hollen’s going to join me in Ocean City. I think Brooke Learman, our controller, is going to join us. And I like to say comptroller, but it’s really controller. So we got things going on around here. If there’s any breaking news, you know the deal. I’ll be I’ll be hanging with Bill Cole somewhere near Fager’s Island on Wednesday night. Cole Roofing and Gordian Energy they put us on the road, and we’re very, very appreciative of all of our sponsors. And I’m making a big stink about our 28th anniversary around here. We’re trying to get down with having a little bit of fun and some rock and roll. I’ve been breaking the news to Leonard Raskin. I’ll break the news to Luke later, but he knows about all my rock and roll stuff after this Brian Adams thing. But I’ve been inspired. Nothing inspires like getting traded on the trading deadline after seven years to the Minnesota Twins, and then having an opportunity to face said team oh eight days later. Luke, this is going to be the Dean Kramer hour. So for all of you who love Dean Kramer, who ever loved Dean Kramer, my man bun respect sends big game to the man bun, and my wife didn’t think Paulie did a very good job. Paulie didn’t do a very good job of my hair. Apparently, he didn’t cut enough of it off. But it is summertime, and I don’t know, dude. I mean, they figured Dean Kramer out. We weren’t using him the right way. I don’t know, man.

Luke Jones 2:23
Well, I mean, I would say this. I mean, this Orioles offense, other than Kumar Rocker and Jordan Montgomery on Sunday in Arlington, they haven’t been hitting anybody. So it’s kind of tough to to make too much of it from that perspective. But I did find it interesting that Dean Kramer goes to Minnesota. His release point is a little bit higher, and the broadcast even showed that he is throwing more four-seam fastballs and fewer two-seamers. You know, kind of ditching the sinker a little. He threw it a little bit on Monday night, but yeah, seven one-hit innings, and that one hit was a tapper in front of the plate that Kramer should have let his catcher field. Quite frankly, and I think probably gets what was I think it was Jackson Holiday at first base. So

Nestor Aparicio 3:09
Jim Palmer, oh my God, just the way he fielded the position and what I’ve seen and me unloading on Brandon Youngless. But it is it. I mean, even Alonzo skating a fair ball and getting away with it, and then he gives up a double anyway, right? Oh yeah! I mean, it just-it was just one of those nights. It’s one of those months, one of those years, one of those multi years. I’m having one of those lives right now, and you know, in the 20th anniversary of Free the Birds, I’m glad at least Dan Duquette’s still getting his two cents in here before it’s all over with, but um, the Dean Kramer thing, there is where the two cents comes in because like nothing’s normal, okay? Like, so I’m not I I’m not going to pretend there’s no strike next year. I didn’t sit at the bar with John at at Costas and Timonium and discuss this as I saw the lineups come up, and I looked up at the lineup, and I thought Rutschman’s exited, and I still see Holiday, Henderson, Kowser. I still see all these names that are of Michaelia’s, and then I think, well, Kramer’s pitching on the other team, and then I see the Machado trade brought up again, and I’m thinking, well, they had a lame duck general manager make that deal. Now look, that thing could have been done a year before. We talked about Ruchman. We talked about trading Gunner Henderson. Your conversation with me sparked a conversation with my wife at Costas and Timonium, just about Gunner Henderson being dead man walking, as you saw it. For he ain’t signing here. He’s getting traded, and we’re all like, “Well, there is no off season. Well, how do you fire a general manager? Who’s going to run it? Like all of that. It’s weird to hear Duquette speak out a little bit and then have Kramer like go and pitch like this. But it really starts to indict all of this. And I don’t know that Rubinstein and Arigetti or anybody’s awake to any of this in the way that Baby Ben McDonald and Kevin Brown and Jim Palmer might be, or people. Inside the industry, who can’t get to these billionaires to say maybe Mike Elias isn’t the right guy? I don’t, I don’t know what they’re thinking, and we’re never going to know what they’re thinking. But they sure are doing a lot of losing, right? And they sure have a lot of failure scattered through all of this. That the last thing they need is Dean Kramer kicking up dust on them, or Tyler Wells going on and being a really good pitcher the next three or four years. I mean, all I could bring up with mixologist John at Costas the other night was Jake Arieta, and and me running into Eduardo Rodriguez at the All Star game two weeks ago. You know, like there there is an identification issue, and we’re across a couple, but Duquette got them to the Promised Land with Miguel Gonzalez and Wayne Chen and all of that. And Elias is trying to figure this out, and is been given not just latitude, money as well to try to figure it out. I don’t know, like it’s a bad look for the Orioles on top of a bad look for the Orioles when Dean Kramer goes and sticks the bats up their ass, one hit seven, one hit, one hit. Sorry, go ahead.

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Luke Jones 6:08
Yeah, I mean,

Nestor Aparicio 6:09
I’ll say this: they’ve pitched really well since late May. You know what I mean? Like their starting rotation was so expendable. Can you speak to his expendability? Well, I mean, they weren’t independent race. Well, and then they say they are independent race. What they got back for him, whatever. Let’s also

Luke Jones 6:26
let’s also not pretend that I mean, Dean Kramer was pitching horribly. And look, has he pitched well in his first two starts for the Twins? Yes. Does that mean he’s going to continue to pitch like that? I have no. It looks

Nestor Aparicio 6:36
like he tried to pitch his way out of here. I mean, I mean, I’m not saying. I’m just saying. You know. I mean. I mean.

Luke Jones 6:43
I mean. Look. If the Twins unlock a new, different Dean Kramer that that pitches like a top half of the rotation kind of guy, then we can revisit this Dean Kramer in isolation. Like just looking at him specifically. It was time for him to. I’m not ready. I’m not ready to be up in arms about that, right? And it’s it seems like the return they got for him, an interesting young outfielder that that some people in the industry seem to really like. We’ll see what that looks like two or three years down the road. But point is, this organization’s

Nestor Aparicio 7:16
so great at developing hitting projects, right?

Luke Jones 7:18
Right. Well, I mean, well, I mean, there you go. For me, that’s for me. That’s a much bigger problem, right? So it’s funny though. The the Duquette thing. I guess the the the origin of him reaching out. I guess the the son had written something along the lines of of talking about the mess that Michaelias had inherited. Look, two things can be true here, and you know I’ve talked a lot about Mike Elias and what his legacy is going to end up being, and I will continue to say early on in his tenure he did a lot of things that absolutely were necessary for this organization in terms of modernizing, in terms of gaining and some kind of presence internationally, which they did not have, and as you know, Pietrangelo’s actively fought against that for years and years and years. So my point is, I think two things can be true. Dan Duquette did a good job amidst circumstances that were less than ideal for him. Whether we’re talking about ownership, whether you’re talking about as the years went on, less and less of a kumbaya with Buck Showalter, and I think you know that was chronicled at the time and and all that, and and things were not great at the end, right? I mean, the idea that they sold Manny Machado as a rental rather than a year and a half before he hit free agency, right-the exact opposite of what they’ve done with Adley Rutschman, right? So, so you can acknowledge that. You can acknowledge that yes, there ended up being some minor league prospects that were left in the system that Michaelias inherited. However, in fairness to Michaelias, he finished developing those guys. I mean, Anthony Santander wasn’t a 40 home run guy when Michaelias walked through the door. He was a Rule Five pick who had been nothing but hurt, right? So, and they also

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Nestor Aparicio 9:11
with Chris Davis and the sunk money and where John Angelos was and where the old man was, which was just out at that point, right? And John not knowing what the hell he’s doing, throw COVID into that, right? And in a general sense, to feel like you couldn’t compete, but to sell this boujourd to sponsors and local people who are still here, I I gotta say, man, it’s just been it’s been a disastrous development for the new ownership, as pointed out by the owner himself last week when he said he’s embarrassed by it. Dude, you’ve been here two weeks and you’re embarrassed. I’ve been on a freaking radio 35 years trying to shine this turd up. So is Jim Palmer. You should. Kissing his ass, mine too. Like, but in a general sense, like this is. I just think it’s really top down in a lot of ways that the Angelos mess and Elias’s part in that and their decision to tank, right? Like literally, because they didn’t have enough money to chase Pete Alonso, and they didn’t have any cachet to sign Pete Alonso. I mean, they signed Chris Davis, they signed Adam Jones, they had Mark Aiken for for a minute till they let him go. They let Nelson Cruz walk. I mean, they just decided to, and they were never going to sign a pitcher, like Peter Angelos without Lloyd’s of London was never going to put $100 million arm around here after Ebaldo Jimenez and whatever else it was. Like, so I don’t know. Just philosophically, they were so broken to begin with, Luke, that I just need to interject that Duquette and Showalter should have never have had any success here just for taking the job because nobody wanted the job. I mean, I’m literally the McPhail thing, Mike Flanagan. Just it was a really dark, dark place that Duquette and Showalter shepherded, so I’m not. But in a general sense, I cannot talk about this mess without talking about the people who owned it and were really controlling the ideologies of why Dan Duquette had to operate the way he did. In the same way that you’re saying the modernization of Elias, it’s not like Duquette wouldn’t have had that idea. He couldn’t even execute it. I mean, he was always all these dudes are playing with two hands behind their back for long stretches of time until this moment, right? Where Elias, over the course of the last year, year and a half, has been able to try to modernize it, and they’ve had a Katie Griggs the modern. I mean, that’s what they’ve been really trying to do, and it’s been the baseball part of it hasn’t caught up to that. I’ll let you take the baseball part on because I do think it’s one and one a to where the philosophical God is on all of this, like the country being run under Barack Obama and the country being run under Trump. Two totally different philosophies from the top down. It’s very apparent.

Luke Jones 12:20
Well, when I mean modernized, I really meant in terms of baseball ops, in terms of analytics, in terms of the farm system, in terms of opening an academy in the Dominican. All of those things that needed to be done had not been done for whatever reason, right? But then you do them,

Nestor Aparicio 12:35
and can you do them well? Then you have to go compete with the other 30 teams doing

Luke Jones 12:39
it. I will always say, I I view the Michael assuming the Michaeliahs era is going to end at some point in time in the not too distant future. Whether it’s two months from now, whether it’s next year, right? I will always kind of view it through two parts, two two major, you know. And I guess technically you could see three if you wanted to, but really for me it was building them to the point where they got in 2022 and 2023, and then what’s happened since then, right? And for me, the first half of that, the former, I give a thumbs up, and I will to this day because they did have to do a lot of work to get to a point where they were starting to win in 2022. Now, and you mentioned it with the the tanking part. Look, whether it was going to be as over the top and deliberate kind of tanking that it ended up being, or whether it was going to be a reap, just a more conventional rebuild. Michael, only

Nestor Aparicio 13:37
an Angelos could oversee something so sort of ill-fated, and then fully

Luke Jones 13:43
broken when he arrived here is my point. Like they were, there was never a scenario that made any sense whatsoever for how they were, like what Michaelias walked into at the end of 2018, like that November. There was never a scenario where even if they were a a big market team, where they would have where they would have been smart to spend a ton of money that first off season, there was no path to winning whatsoever right away. So my point is, there was building that needed to be done. Now, did they need to tank to the degree that they did for three years in a row? That’s certainly that’s certainly up for debate, and I oh, and I

Nestor Aparicio 14:22
spoke about how it could ever recover after all of that when it had already been a tank job for about 20 years, by and large. Even when they were trying, they were they were you know mr. Magoo about how they went about it, which is the Chris Davis thing, which is letting Machado out the side door, just and Duquette and Buck too souring whatever that was instead of good leadership. Larry Lucino could have brought those guys together. I’m just saying, man. Like this is the difference between good and shitty, and it’s also the difference between having a lot of money and not having any philosophy, which is where they are right now. And everybody trying to figure out who’s responsible for it, and then they’re getting piled on by Dan Duquette at a time where it feels to me like Michaelia’s is dead man walking, and all of those names that come back for Dean Kramer and well and and Ruchman, those are names that are going to bloom under General Manager Z that is hired by Rubenstein and Aaragadi and Cal Ripken, I guess, and Ryan Rip. I don’t know. I mean, yeah, maybe whatever that the the the the brain trust will be of this when all the war is over and the labor’s over and all of that’s done. That they have to have a baseball person. That person’s going to have Alonzo’s contract and Bradish of his armfall. Like all of that is going to bake into this, but it feels like these people want to run it differently financially, at least, and that’s a whole different thing than what Duquette dealt with before he writes anything.

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Luke Jones 15:55
But but I guess the greater point I’m trying to kind of get to here is: look, you can look back at the beginning of that of the Elias era, and Dan Duquette can point out players that Elias inherited. Dan Duquette, I mean, in the midst of saying that, I hope I sure hope he mentioned. Well, I inherited a lot of really good players from Andy McPhail in the system at that point in time, right? There’s always that. If Jesse Minter wins the Super Bowl with the Ravens this year, you know there are going to be things that were already in place, right? As I’ve said to you, you know there’s this you know this narrative that everything that was wrong about the Ravens was all John Harbaugh’s fault, all John Harbaugh’s fault, all Todd Bunkin’s fault, and we know the truth. For crying

Nestor Aparicio 16:40
out loud, they hired John and Jim’s little brother for crying out loud. So at least in that case, it’s not total different philosophy. Where Michaelias came in and said to John Angelos and Brady Anderson, “You’re doing this wrong. This is not this. We’re going to redo. We’re going to start this from scratch like AI or like the day they discovered the internet or something, you know, analytics and all of this. I mean, it was an awakening for you as a media member when we started to see it seven or eight years ago, and it’s also been an educational thing for an old fart like me along the lines of why they think the way they do. And you know what? After the body of work, I’m not so sure that it’s good to manage the game at two in the afternoon on a spreadsheet and push that down to your man. You know what I mean? There’s a lot of this that when I get in a room with a bunch of old farts and they tell me the ways things used to be, I look at it and say, “Well, that’s the reason they can’t hire Buck Showalter right now, right? I mean, I I think right. They couldn’t go back to dinosaurs at this point, right? I’m

Luke Jones 17:45
well. You shouldn’t go back to dinosaurs at this point, but is there more of a hybrid model that makes sense, right? Where where you blend some of those elements, and certainly having more major league coaching experience. When I say that, guys that have played in the majors, or guys that had more extensive professional careers, and you blend that with the methods you’re using today. Look, there is not a a successful team in baseball that’s not relying heavily on analytics and things of that nature. That it’s information. Analytics is a boogeyman. Analytics literally means more information. In what walk of life, when you’re trying to make decisions and you’re trying to manage and you’re trying to run a business, would you say, “Oh, nah, I don’t want it. I don’t want information. You know what I mean? Like, so, so part of it is understanding the stigma that that can be attached to that. However, there are different ways of interpreting information. There are different ways of filtering that information, right? So, but I guess the greater point that I’m kind of trying to get at here, you know, because and this is a lot to talk about. I mean, we’re Dan Duquette arrived in the fall of 2011, right? The 15 years of Orioles baseball, let alone going back over the last four decades of futility for the entire franchise, but I think you you just look at it for me anyway. I don’t want to hear Michaelias referencing the state of affairs when he arrived. That was eight years ago. How about this? How about where where things were four years ago, or or or two years ago, right? I mean, we don’t even have to go back that far. What’s happened since then? And for me, that-that’s why I don’t want to-I want to hear what the state of the franchise was eight years ago. Like, okay, nice job eight years ago. So what? What have you done for me lately? Right? That’s yeah. The

Nestor Aparicio 19:38
ballsy move would have been trading holiday for Scouble two years ago in the playoffs when they needed. You know what I mean? So sure, like right? I mean, you know,

Luke Jones 19:45
Garrett Crochet. I mean, like what the Red Sox gave up for Garrett Crochet. Now he’s hurt right now. No, I’ll say that they went in on

Nestor Aparicio 19:51
birds and they got themselves a dude. He was a dude. They had a dude here for a minute, right?

Luke Jones 19:55
I mean, they they did. I I and I will say, even knowing how it played out, I I make that. 150 times out of 100. Well, they looked

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Nestor Aparicio 20:02
like a serious outfit when that was going on. All of a sudden, it looks like an issue right now, right?

Luke Jones 20:07
Well, I mean, the their their pitching is in their their starting pitching is in decent shape. So good that they

Nestor Aparicio 20:15
could dispatch Dean Kramer and watch him stick the bats up the back.

Luke Jones 20:18
Yeah, right. So, well, I mean, by the way,

Nestor Aparicio 20:20
Luke Jones is here. Just I’ve reset. Anybody that’s on the podcast knows that. Anybody out in the radio land, I want to make sure we’re resetting here. It it also helps our our our transcripts to know who’s saying what. But back to Kramer, and just in a general sense of what they inherited with him, what he became. To your point, he stunk. I mean, I joked that he tanked to get out of here or whatever, but they did make an immediate change. And part of the look, I don’t know any of these guys, so again, I only know like I know some people that know Dean Kramer through Team Israel and David Warschowski, and some people that locally have been attached to that. But I’ve never met Dean Kramer. I’ve seen him interviewed. You know, I like the man bun. I get the deal. I I pull for Dean Kramer, but I I often say I don’t trust Dean Kramer. And as I was watching the game of Costas and Timonium, as I’m watching it and thinking about errors being made behind pitchers or pitchers making the errors, which has been going on, you know, Palmer wouldn’t allow that from Quayr and McNally. He’d be out helping them. So would Bamberger, by the way. But that’s another generation. I I watch this and I see the Kramer thing and I see the the the the angle and what you would say. Look, dude, you’re throwing too much of this, not enough of this. Have you thought about this? Have you thought about that? He’s obviously watched these guys from the dugout for from the beginning of time. Some of these Gunner Hendersons and some of these guys, Kozler, he’s seen them for years and said, “I can get them out, or maybe get them out once, or get them out twice, or whatever. The notion that he was expendable and contractually and money and innings and where it is and we have younger guys and we have things are going okay for our pitching without him. I’ll hear all of that, but there is something about a guy that I thought, judge me wrong, might have been a hard guy to communicate with inside of there, and obviously the Alonzo thing was just horrific. They ate on it. The fan got ratings on it last week on it, and I said getting himself out of here. I’m sure there’ll be some phone calls from you know wherever about that too, but in reality, the fact that he would go somewhere and they would give him new information, he would internalize it and say, “Yeah, I can do that. I’ll try that for you. I mean, hell, what I was doing wasn’t working. Or tell me why this is going to help me, and then let’s go out and execute it and get success with it. That’s, dude. You and I do a lot around here with the press passes, and I kid and I joke and or whatever about any of this, but that’s really the missing ingredient for me as a journalist and sitting and talking to these cats about this stuff because I learned so much from Ben McDonald and Rick Sutcliffe and Mike Messina and Jim Poole and Todd Froeorth and Mark Williamson and Ray Miller and just down the list about how these guys think, and I don’t know the modern guy, and they didn’t have the kind of information that really smart guys would have, like Messina Williamson, really smart smart humans, the guys that sat and did crossword puzzles all day in the locker room, and you know had Mensa sort of thoughts about things in life and the things they read, I would think they would just eat that information. the The right guys, the Maddoxes, the Glavins, they would have even better. And I would just say the new information and part of it. And I’m a rockhead from old school. Ask anybody that’s ever worked with me, including you. I’m 57. I’m a different kind of rockhead in how I listen to things. But how someone would pull me up and tell me to do radio when I was 28, and then someone else would pull me up, and then I would go to Chicago and have somebody in the national thing say, “Move closer to the mic. Use less of this, more of this.

Nestor Aparicio 24:06
And I give him double middle fingers and say, “I’m going to do it my way, and my I’m going to win or lose my way. WNST is going to work my way. The Kramer thing. This is the shocking part for me, is that he’s gone there, and within a week, not just that he’s having some success against guys. He we can go through that and how long it lasts. We’ve been through Kyle Stowers and you know and Connor Henderson at this point and Adley Rutschman to do it for a week or a month. But in the case of Kramer, just the fact that he’s decided to do something differently, they’ve eased that in, and within five minutes he’s like, “I’ll take it on. I’ll try it. Let’s maybe that’ll work, you know. But let’s-that’s the-that’s the part of it for me that’s a real indictment of all of these cats. That

Speaker 1 24:48
to some degree,

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Nestor Aparicio 24:49
you know, because they haven’t had a lot of guys working on stuff that I see getting better. Maybe Brandon Young, you can you can point to that on the pitch. Yeah,

Luke Jones 24:57
Brandon Young. I mean, like, look. The Orioles have done that with a lot of pitchers. I mean, like, go look at how their bullpens. They’ve had guys that have come in that were on on the way out in terms of their career, or guys that were kind of regarded as broken. Like, look at someone like Yannier Cano. Like, he was considered an absolute failure in Minnesota when in the Jorge Lopez deal, like go look at what his numbers had been in limited major league experience. Like there, there was a lot of talk that whether the Orioles were even going to keep him on the 40 man roster that winter, and the Orioles made adjustments with him, and he became an all-star reliever. So, as much as I can criticize this team for a lot of different things and a lot of different things that are wrong. I’m not going to make a mountain out of Dean Kramer having a good start against the Orioles when Grayson Rodriguez just had a good start against them. And then guess what? Grayson Rodriguez did his last time out. He gave up four runs in four innings and was out of the game. Right? I mean, some of this is just dude. I can’t

Nestor Aparicio 25:59
make a case for either one of those cats, in a general sense. Nor did I make a case the day after they were dealt. So I

Luke Jones 26:04
some of this right now. I’m more

Nestor Aparicio 26:06
complimentary of Dean Kramer, as I guess what I’m saying. No, that that was my fine.

Luke Jones 26:10
Look, and I have nothing. Look, I even think the thing with with Alonzo that was so odd. I think Dean Kramer’s a peculiar guy, and I don’t. I’m not saying that to be disparaging. I just think his personality is a little bit different than how he’s perceived. I also have talked to people within the organization that have very nice things to say about Dean Kramer. You know, I know what that looked like in the moment, but I would also say Pete Alonso’s kind of a you know has a an interesting personality as well. I’m not sure that was as big a deal as it came across in the moment. Is what I’m saying, and I haven’t necessarily heard anything that like that there was like a anything private that went down where you would say, “Oh man, that was you know. So I think I think sometimes when we see something happen that that’s front facing, and

Nestor Aparicio 27:02
then a guy’s traded four days later and sticks the bags up their ass a week later. It is it’s quite a narrative, right? No, I understand

8

Luke Jones 27:10
that. What I’m saying is, I’m not convinced that that necessarily was as big a deal as some took it and ran with it in the way they thought. I think it’s as simple as this. Dean Kramer was their number five starter. He was set to to get a raise in arbitration in the last year. They have a number of pitchers at Triple A right now that you know we’ve already seen Trey Gibson, for example. Chris Bassett is going to be back. Kay Povich, you know, just made a start and was optioned. So I think they viewed it through the lens of Dean’s not going to be here for the long haul anyway, and hey, Minnesota, you got to

Nestor Aparicio 27:48
go beat him when he pitches against you the next week. But that’s

Luke Jones 27:51
they’re not beating anybody, is my my broader point is their offense right now is horrible. They’ve beaten Kumar Rocker and Jordan and the pitching corpse of Jordan Montgomery on Sunday afternoon, you know, first time Montgomery had pitched in the major since 2024, you know, because because he had the elbow and all that. So they’re not beating anybody right now, is the point. So yeah, Dean Kramer and I, I tip my cap to him. He pitched well, like he he pitched very well. I’ll I’ll give him full credit. That said, I don’t know if necessarily these adjustments that he’s made early on, two starts in with the Twins, are necessarily this stinging indictment of the Orioles’ pitching program because we’ve seen the Oriole. Like, look at where Trevor Rogers was when he arrived in Baltimore and what he’s become since then. Right? I already mentioned someone like Yannier Cano. They’ve had other bullpen arms where they’ve turned something that looked like you know why do you want this guy into something useful, right? So, as much as I am not at all high on this organization at the moment, I can’t make too much of the Dean Kramer thing just yet. Now, if Dean Kramer pitches to a one ERA these final two months, and it does look like a Jake Arrieta scenario. Scenario, then we can absolutely revisit that, and then we can absolutely ask more questions. Same thing. We’ll be

Nestor Aparicio 29:12
revisiting Grayson Rodriguez for sure too. And that’s

Luke Jones 29:14
the thing. But until these guys sustain that, you know, it’s baseball, right? And and Dean Kramer just had a lot of success against his old team that isn’t swinging the bats against anybody right now. Right, I mean it’s just that’s how bad. I mean look at their offense the in in August so far. I mean since that win against the Phillies that Friday night, you know Gunner had the triple and the comeback win, and you’re thinking, oh hey here we go, they’ve just stopped hitting entirely since.

Nestor Aparicio 29:42
Oh, hey, here we go. How we’ve been on that for two years, right? Literally. Yeah,

Luke Jones 29:47
you’re waiting. You’re waiting for. You

8

Nestor Aparicio 29:48
spent all last summer beating up the hitting, and here we are. It’s you know, it’s August, and they’re like really independent race. I mean, Earl Weaver would have loved the opportunity to have a. Ragtag bunch like this and coach him up and get him to play, you know, 650 ball for six weeks somehow,

Luke Jones 30:07
or he would have liked the opportunity to have three wild cards, right? I mean, that’s really what it is. I mean, this is, but then you get

Nestor Aparicio 30:13
in the tournament, anything can happen if you have a pitcher. I mean, literally, yeah, and

Luke Jones 30:17
to a point, to an extent, yes. But I mean, it’s just they’re not they’re not hitting. They’re not hitting. I mean, even just look at how that game played out. Now, obviously, the bullpen. You know, Cam Sanders actually pitched pretty well, but then Rico Garcia comes in. Yeah, a little bit of bad luck for Rico mixed in there. But Wolfram was horrible, right? I mean, Wolfram give gives up what six hits in an inning and two thirds. I mean, and after a while, he was just wearing it, right? I mean, the game got out of hand, and then it’s like, look, we don’t want to completely torch our bullpen in the first game of the series. But you know, Trevor Rogers was not very good on Monday night. I mean, that was a grind for him to get through four, and he was pretty fortunate to only give up two runs. But they didn’t. I mean, they didn’t swing the bats. They had a tapper in front of the plate as their only hit off Dean Kramer. And okay, yeah, they finally scored some runs then when it was out of hand. And you know, God bless seven and nothing. Some stat padding at that point in time, but but you know, I mean, it’s Dean Kramer deserves credit. And yes, I’ll be very interested to see how he does. To to your point, just like we’re all looking to see what Grayson Rodriguez does. I mean, you know, I didn’t have the problem with trading Grayson Rodriguez. I didn’t like the return. I mean, it was light philosophically. It was light for me because Grayson Rodriguez still has three more years to hypothetically turn his career around. If he does, my goodness, that trade’s not going to look very good at all. So, but but in terms of Kramer, I understand why they did it. He was not pitching well whatsoever at the time of the trade. Yes, he has pitched well in his first two starts with the Twins. We’ll see what that looks like. If if he if he’s a big reason why the Twins grab the third wild card spot, and hypothetically, if the Orioles hang around enough and they miss by one game, then yeah, you’ll kind of look at that and say, well, that was dumb. But let’s also let this play out. We’ve Dean Kramer pitched good games for the Orioles in the past, and sometimes really good games, but then he’d also go through some stretches where you’d say that wasn’t all that competitive. It’s a league average starting pitcher. I suspect at best he’s going to continue to be a league average starting pitcher. If the Twins unlock something more meaningful than that, other than just Monday night, then we’ll revisit that. Then we’ll look at that and say, oh, this might turn out to be Mike Elias’s Jake Arieta. Then, so well, they better find their wood

Nestor Aparicio 32:45
before they get down to Tampa on Friday. I mean, that’s all I’m saying. I mean, Tampa, New York, Tampa. The Ravens are playing this lousy preseason game on Saturday night. You know what I mean? I’m at Mako this week. We’re going to be doing the Fishmonger’s Daughter on the 19th. We’re going to also be on the 26 back at Koco’s. We’re back at State Fair later on in the month as well. I’m getting that date out. By the time Rush hits Philly next weekend, they might be in a world of hurt six games into the Rays and the Yankees. I don’t know, digging themselves out of this thing. But the focus on them, yeah, like Raskin came on this week. We talked about rush and travel experiences. His kids going to college in St. Louis now, and the Orioles play out there in two weeks. He’s like, ah, I’m going to go out and see a game and check out Busch Stadium. I’m like, I don’t know what version. I mean, the Orioles going to be nine under 500 then, and then you can’t make any case for them at all. Are they going to putter around and play 500 ball and be five and four against the Yankees, and the well, they got 10 games. I mean, five and five, six and four. Something that would at least allow them to stay within two or three games. That when my wife’s acosta’s waiting for the Mushroom Caps on Monday night, she’s pulling the standings up on her phone because I’m trying to explain to her like how the Orioles can still be in it and be this lousy. Like literally, I’m trying. I’m like everyone

Luke Jones 34:00
else is lousy. Well, she pulled the real

Nestor Aparicio 34:01
standings up because she’s old like me, and I’m like, now pull the wild card off because that’ll show you like why they’re philosophically. And then she sees the bunch of teams in there, three, four teams, you know, five teams really that are hanging around, and she’s very elated to hear that the Red Sox are doing well, even though she can’t name three of them. And I had trouble. This all began when the Twins lineup came up, and I’m like, Kent Herbeck. When’s he Gary Gaetti? When I know Puckett’s dead, but you know, literally, sometimes unless you’re paying attention to the game, when these teams come in once or twice a year, they helicopter in. She did think it was nice to see Dean Kramer. She always liked Dean Kramer.

8

Luke Jones 34:43
Well, and she knows Adley Rutschman plays for the Red Sox now, which, by the way, he’s at he’s active. He’s going to be activated in Toronto, and we’ll see what that starts to look like, right? I mean, my wife didn’t

Nestor Aparicio 34:53
bother to watch the one minute and six seconds of Adley Rutschman looking at me like I was a Martian. Now, now she’s like, “Go Red Sox! But if they’re playing the Yankees in October, I, you know, I guess I’ll hate on the Yankees. Why wouldn’t I? You know, it’d be fun, right? What are you going to be doing? Mowing your lawn? No, you’ll be watching Ravens.

Luke Jones 35:13
I’ll be watching. I know you’ll be

Nestor Aparicio 35:15
watching. What do you do when you have no rooting interests? When you hate both the teams? What do you do?

Luke Jones 35:21
Um, I I would say pray for lightning, but now that would have been the younger Luke Jones. See, if you felt better

Nestor Aparicio 35:28
about Adley Rutschman, you’d be rooting for him the way that I felt good about Messine, and I could actually root for him when he lost Game Seven against the Arizona Diamondbacks and lost the chance to win. I mean, let me be

Luke Jones 35:39
clear. You know, I I don’t want this to feel like I have like this vendetta against Adley Rutschman. I mean, but my overall point through all that last week, and and still what lingers-you have no emotion

8

Nestor Aparicio 35:50
involved with him. There’s

Luke Jones 35:50
one, one. There’s that, and two. Adley Rutschman’s a big heart, a big reason why they got to this point, right? He was not not good for two calendar years, basically, or hurt. Right? He was better this year, but he was hurt. So, but but to answer your question, I love baseball, and even if I don’t have a rooting interest, I I just I love the theater of the game. I mean, I do. I mean, especially in the pitch timer era, right, where that these postseason games aren’t lasting four and a half hours. Oh yeah,

Nestor Aparicio 36:23
baseball is fix itself in that way. Yeah, I think you know

Luke Jones 36:26
totally. I mean that. I think the ABS system. I mean you and I haven’t mentioned it a whole lot specifically since early in the year. I I think that’s been more of a positive than not. I mean I think they probably could still tweak that a little bit. Maybe add another challenge. I don’t know. I mean I don’t want it to be every other pitch is being challenged, but but I

Nestor Aparicio 36:42
think you can helicopter into

Luke Jones 36:45
point is they Braves

Nestor Aparicio 36:46
Phillies game on a 2o’clock on in October and watch the sixth inning of a two one game where there’s a lot of strategy and a lot of drama because that’s what really ramps up and that’s why I don’t want to piss on the wild card thing that’s why my wife and I are. I’m saying, like, look, they’re not really out of this. They’re really not like Gunnar Henderson, zero for four, zero for four. But Alonzo, two home runs on Sunday. You know, like I’m looking at. We’re watching the pregame. I was watching Rob Long and having an orange crush. It was perfect. And my wife was asking me about the meaning of life, and and literally said to me, the last thing in the world you’d want to be is Rob Long tonight, sitting there in Minnesota having to do this, right? And I’m like, yeah. She’s like, but when you were when you started the radio station, that would have been your dream. And I’m like, yeah. And then I guess. And then I I said to her, well, you know, I did offer Luke a chance to go to Minnesota next week and and go to practice. Just talking practice that they’re going to be practicing in Minnesota next week, and I was the first one to say I would want to go back to Minnesota when it’s not 12 below like the last time you and I went, and you then like gave the downgrade to the Juicy Lucy Burger, like you know right away. Was not good, dude. You

8

Luke Jones 38:02
know it wasn’t good. You’ve

Nestor Aparicio 38:04
already blown up a trip that that was a perfectly good trip. You

Luke Jones 38:09
you certainly love the Boston. You love the throat. Tell everybody

Nestor Aparicio 38:12
how that trip worked out. Would have worked out if we would have done it my way. What would that day have looked like?

Luke Jones 38:17
We would have sat through rain. The game got banged, and then we would have flown home the next morning and not seen any baseball. That’s how it would have turned out. So I was, my vision was great on that. So I’m

Nestor Aparicio 38:30
gonna, I’m gonna trust you on this, but I’m looking to see. I’m on the Major League Baseball schedule, and these freaking man, I hate these people that want all my information. All I want is the Twins’ schedule for next week. No, I don’t want to sync my schedule. No, don’t.

Luke Jones 38:47
I think they’re. I think they’re on the road. Okay, because

8

Nestor Aparicio 38:50
like, if we could have gone in and like shot some hoops at basement park, and then this is my point to you. And I said this to my wife because she did not go to Minnesota on the baseball tour in 15 when I did the 3030, it’s one of the ballparks she still hasn’t been to the baseball ball that she hasn’t been to Seattle, she hasn’t been to Coors Field. There’s a handful that she hasn’t been to that I went to all of them, and I said to her, Target Field is the one that I like the most that I have only been to once. Like I get to Dodger Stadium Royals. I mean, lots of people really like it.

Luke Jones 39:24
Yeah, I’ve seen that being under. No, what what would have been great would have been if this Orioles series had been next week, right? And and Orioles twins had coincided with the Ravens practicing with with the Vikings. Like that would have been, hey, let’s do that. I even know

Nestor Aparicio 39:40
people with the Vikings, so like we would have had a good time, dude.

Speaker 1 39:43
Yeah,

Nestor Aparicio 39:44
I mean, maybe Billick would have put us up on the boat. I mean, dude, Billick would say, “Yep, you’re welcome to come up, but it’s six-hour drive, and you got to come up to the Canadian border, and you know, you got to be quiet. It’s dark around. Don’t bring that rocker. We got to cut your hair. Yeah, you know. So that-that’s what would happen. But I got friends in Minnesota, man. And like I would have gone to Minnesota, so I said the I said that it all turned back to Rob Long staring at me, sitting there at first base with his press credential. By the way, Free the Birds 20th anniversary coming up next month. I’ll have some things on my mind about all of it, just what I’ve witnessed and lived long enough to actually see, which is including Rob Long doing the pregame show and thinking I would go to Minnesota. I go to Target Field. I go as a media member. I would go play Paisley Park. I would drop you off at practice and let Chad Steele welcome you in, and I would hang out at the Mall of America or do whatever I would do. Go fish with Billick or whatever. I wouldn’t golf with him, but I would fish with him, and we’d have a really good time. But like, I don’t know that I want to be on the pregame show. So that’s just me out loud from the heart where I am. Like I would do all of that, but I wouldn’t want to host the pregame show. Especially, I used to feel bad for Tom Davis and Rick Dempsey, right? Like when they’re losing, it’s not a great gig for me. I mean, it’s not a great gig for you and I to sit here and have to watch them lose and talk about it every day, but at least it feels to me like in the modern vernacular, I can make them go away in a couple of weeks, and you can. We can. Everybody can if they’re going to go lose a bunch of games. I would just if baseball were the only thing I loved, and this is my way of being kind to you and doing a little promotion here, but I had Randy Moss on, not the other Hall of Famer, Randy Moss, the horse racing Randy Moss. You know, I didn’t know him well, and through all these years in his horse racing background, dude, this Triple Crown thing for him-I mean, Donna Brothers won’t come on. She just doesn’t want to talk, and she’s a journalist. She’s so angry and heartbroken about them breaking the Triple Crown and stuff like that. And I think about traditions, and I think about all of this stuff, and what holds baseball together. And this baseball, I was explaining my wife the baseball strike and why a lie. I mean, we only had a baseball conversation for an hour and a half at Costas on Monday night, you know, over crab cake because she’s going on vacation with the family, and like just trying to explain how people stay with it and why they stay with it, and why I was out sweating in the sun last week. But the horse racing thing, dude, I had Gerardi on, I’ve had Randy Moss on. Like this is like when the golf people got broken up by Liv, and it’s just sort of the fracturing or college sports where I can’t even hate my North Carolina buddy last week at a Rush concert because they don’t matter anymore. But we both agree we hate Duke, you know, so we can do that. But I just think like the tradition part of all of this and interleague play and these games and me not knowing the Twins and me not caring so much and me only caring about the Orioles when they fall out, I’m out and all of that to watch this happen to horse racing for 35 years on my watch, and now we’re at Code Red, and they’re going to bust everything up. The baseball thing, I really worry about, dude. And I know how much you love it, and you love football. You have you have God, your nieces. You have a lot of things in your life you love. I do too.

Nestor Aparicio 42:58
Music, which I’m about to accentuate for our 28th anniversary, but the baseball thing-it is unbelievable to me to think about the experience I had last Thursday with my buddies going down and being there and nobody there and they’re losing and me trying to sell it here publicly for 35 years and being treated mistreated every by the second group now for no good reason. It’s just a weird thing for me, baseball at this point, and I’m not rooting for them to go away. I’m kind of, I’m still major league. Like I still am watching them because they’re close enough. And I was trying to explain this to my wife, like she’s going away. Like I’m going to be watching them because they’re playing the biggest games of the year the next 10 days. If they go eight and two the next 10 days, you and I are on fire by the time the Ravens get to Minnesota and have to play next weekend. Like it really is incredible in that way how close they are to grabbing the brass ring, no matter how lousy they are. They want to hit off Dean Kramer on Monday night, and I’m still kissing their ass, and they still won’t let me in. And if Wendy calls me, I’ll still go down with free tickets and take somebody. You know, it’s weird. That’s all.

Luke Jones 44:05
It weird is the is the perfect word for it because and I think that’s part of where I’ve really struggled with this season. And you know, obviously there was so much discourse at the trade deadline and what they ultimately did, what some fans wanted them to do, what you thought they were going to do. I know people want

8

Nestor Aparicio 44:21
to go to Boston and watch him play for free. I mean, like you were just sort of like, nah, nah, you know, like, and I’m, and I’m like, that’s heartbreaking that to have season ticket holders to have Alan McCallum say he doesn’t have his tickets and he’s giving up his books and other people giving up their season books and then I got I went to a baseball game with Alan this week. It’s the first time in 25 years. Like I’m trying to get the feeling like Barry Manilow. You know what I mean? But God,

Luke Jones 44:46
I’ve been crying around,

Nestor Aparicio 44:47
love us back a little bit. All this them in general. That’s all I’m saying.

Luke Jones 44:50
I guess for me, and this is where I’ve really, really struggled to embrace-not even embrace-to even. Play along with where they are right now because I said this to you probably about a month ago. I said, “Do you really think they’re selling more tickets if they make it in as the third wild card and they go 83 and 79 to do it?

Nestor Aparicio 45:14
They’re going to have a lot of empty seats that day for a game. Well,

Luke Jones 45:17
they they well they’re not. I mean, even if they make it, they’re going to be on the road, right? The wild card round is all three games at whoever has home field advantage hosts all three games. There, they would be on the road, dude. I actually

Nestor Aparicio 45:27
forgot. I’m sorry. Thank you for clarifying that because I’m not sure if the host didn’t really realize. Like intellectually, I’m thinking playoffs. Just like yeah, right. But

8

Luke Jones 45:40
but my greater point here is, I don’t want this current regime. What regardless of what happens with them and what ownership decides to happen, going 83 and 79 and sneaking in as the third wild card, and let’s let’s make it, let’s make it more dire than that. Let’s say it’s 81 and 81. Like, let’s go nuts here. Is that

Nestor Aparicio 46:06
even mathematically possible?

Luke Jones 46:08
I mean, was it sure? Because mathematically, I mean, look what we you would have asked the same thing as far as where it is right now. I mean, as we’re talking on the going into action on August 11th, and as you and I are speaking in real time, the third wild card team is Texas at 60 and 59. So I guess for me, is if they sneak in at 82 and 80, and all these other teams continue to be just as mediocre to bad as the Orioles have been,

Nestor Aparicio 46:42
and declare it a successful year,

Luke Jones 46:44
and that’s that’s kind of where I am, right? Like that’s not what the the selling point was supposed to be about this five years ago, and so that’s that’s where it is for me, and that’s where we get into the CBA, the work stoppage. They’ve already expanded. That’s where my

Nestor Aparicio 46:59
heart’s broken too, because anytime I bring up real baseball conversation, we shut it down. And you know when we’re really going to shut it down? The minute this is over with,

Luke Jones 47:07
shut down. It it will literally be shut down. You and

8

Nestor Aparicio 47:09
I will not be talking about billionaires and millionaires three times a week pissing on each other all winter long. We’re just going to move on, and I’m going to talk about rock and roll here. You know what I mean? Like literally.

Luke Jones 47:20
You know what’s going to end up happening. They’re going to get on the other side of the work stoppage because they will figure it out eventually. Now, whether it’s they miss all of spring training, or whether they miss the first month, or whether they miss the first half, or whether we’re talking about them resuming in 2028, who knows? But you know, owners are going to be looking at pumping up revenue. What’s one of the fastest ways they look at that? Let’s expand the playoffs. And when we have a season like this, where we’re talking about the Orioles, who have been below 500 since the beginning of May, and yet we’re still talking about them as a playoff contender in this wild card. You’re now in the

Nestor Aparicio 48:05
NHL Norris Division, 1987. 16 to 21 teams make the playoff because we need to play hockey in April. We need to have big games. We need that national

Luke Jones 48:15
TV money. Yeah, I mean, we need to put a tournament

Nestor Aparicio 48:18
on TV in April.

Luke Jones 48:19
So that’s where, like that, that’s the curmud. That’s the baseball curmudgeon in me. Like there aren’t many things I’m a curmudgeon about, but playoff expansion is one of those things where it’s just like I don’t want this to become the norm. And again, if the Orioles make it at 82 and 8083, and 79, and then they get bounced and hey, hey, let’s even say they win a game. Let’s say they lose two out of three in the first round to Boston, or you know what? Or I guess it would be the third division winner. I mean, is that is anyone inspired that they’re on the right track? Then no. So that’s where I kind of look at this, and it’s just okay. I get it mathematically. I I’ve been laying out arguments. I mean, remember, I was the guy who said go on a winning streak right before the All Star break. They did. Problem is, since then they’re under 500 again. So, I just I just kind of look at it and I just say this isn’t good enough, and this is not you know they can talk all they want about a playoff race. This is not what this is not what the vision was. I had to explain to my wife that it

Nestor Aparicio 49:24
was a playoff race. So sell it to her. I mean, like you know, the whole story happened because I was yelling at Brandon Young. I’m like, we’re in a playoff race here, pennant race. I yelled, and she’s like, they’re in a pennant race. I’m like, yeah, they are. And Adley Rutschman’s on the other side. Hey, last thing for you, man. Did you ever see The Shining?

8

Luke Jones 49:42
Yeah, of course.

Nestor Aparicio 49:45
Jack Nichols, like at this is going to be me the next couple of weeks. But all work and no play makes Nestor a dull boy. This is where, like, I even said this to you off the air the other day, and people hit me about Brian Adams and Barry. Analo, who came through for the last time, and my rock and roll this, and the rush that, and I talked to Raskin about this, and I’m thinking like this is where I’m getting my juice at this point, and kind of like having a good time and all of this. But like, I ask you when I got back from Machu Picchu, what was on your bucket list for like work, and you’re like covering a game at Fenway Park, and I tried to make it happen. And it, you were absolutely right. Let that be known for all time that Luke knew.

Luke Jones 50:27
I knew there was going to be a rainstorm all

Nestor Aparicio 50:30
day, and it would have been the worst day in life to been in Boston. Fairness,

Luke Jones 50:33
I had also just gotten back from the beach two days, and the Orioles had just won seven games

Nestor Aparicio 50:37
in a row. They

Luke Jones 50:38
had. It

8

Nestor Aparicio 50:39
was your mother’s birthday. Toto was in concert that night with Christopher Cross, and I’ve never seen Christopher Cross, so I was going to ditch you at Fenway anyway, unless Charlie Steinberg found a way to leave me a ticket on behalf of the late great Larry Lakino, Hall of Famer Larry Lakin. So, nonetheless, it didn’t happen. But in my mind, I’m doing with you what I’ve done in my mind with the 2010 World Cup. I spent so much time researching, going to Africa, and looking at all of it that I almost feel like I went, and then it rained the whole time. It was lousy, and they stunk. And I looked at it and said, “Well, maybe my wife will go with the guy who saved her life and do the safari then, because we didn’t get it done. So, dude, I’ll God willing, Rob Manfred willing, David Rubenstein, Michael Arriggetti, willing. I’ll get you to Fenway Park next year, just like our chances to win the world next year. But there might not be a next year for the Triple Crown. So we have Dick Girardi around this week. Randy Moss. There will be a next year on the Crab Cake Tour. There’ll be a next one. I have the Maryland Lottery scratch offs with the Raven Kiss Face bird that they’ve been trying to bury ever since David Modell screwed this up back in 1999. Somewhere he’s laughing because he knows he knows he screwed it up, and I shouldn’t have gone to Jamaica that week. I’ll have these at Fishmonger’s Daughter on the 19th. 26 will be a Koco’s Pub. I’m not dragging Luke out because he’s got a ball cap and he’s using that SPF station they got out there at Owings Mills, and navigating the traffic and trying to avoid Sashi Brown, who wants no questions about any of it. We have football season. We’re going to be tackling and stuff in Minnesota next week. Downtown against the Eagles or the fake version of the Eagles-it’s fake football. We’ve already done an hour and a half on that over at Baltimore Positive this week crab cake tour out on the road. If you know some places into the fall that like I’ve been studying this, there’s some new places I still want to have a crab cake, and some places just opening up like the Fishmonger’s Daughter. Throw me a note nestor@baltimorepositive.com. I’m going to be in Ocean City, Maryland, talking to politicals, electeds, community people, good stuff going on around here. All of it brought to you by the Maryland Lottery, GBMC. I’m sure I’ll see the Maryland Hospital Association down at the beach as well, as well as our friends at Farnan and Dermer, who are always around the corner if you get hot and bothered with their HVAC and help on plumbing as well. Luke, did I get it all in? I feel like I didn’t give you a parting shot. Are you? You you are. Are you on to Tampa?

Luke Jones 53:04
Yeah, I guess. I just this season is not fun, and that’s kind of my. At this point in time, here’s my question. This is a, you know, just for anyone listening right now. Is anyone enjoying watching the Orioles at this point, or is everyone just watching the Orioles right now because

Nestor Aparicio 53:26
they feel that’s just what you do,

Luke Jones 53:27
right? And that’s just fandom, right? And I understand that, but this is just not

Nestor Aparicio 53:33
well. The worst part is they do have a chance, and we’ve just spent 50 minutes talking about them having a chance, which makes they have a

Luke Jones 53:38
chance for better, for worse, just like the Rangers, just like the Twins, just like I mean, go down the list. Hey, oh by the way, the the the Blue Jays are right on the Orioles’ heels once again. So right now they’re they’re staving off falling into last place again. So you know the worst

Nestor Aparicio 53:53
part about my wife going on vacation for a couple weeks now is I brought her completely up to speed on the soap opera, and now she’s not even going to be here when I start screaming at the television this week. You know what I mean? Like, like literally. He is Luke. I am Nestor. We’re Baltimore Positive. Stay with us. We’ll have more ahead, including the 20th anniversary. Free the Birds. I’m sure you can’t wait for that.