What are the realities of Orioles summer playoff chase possibilities?

As spring turns to summer, we turn once again to our longtime WNST baseball insider and pal Allen McCallum to reset the Baltimore Orioles expectation and realities as the sub-.500 start has required a lot of questions about a lot of departments in Birdland.

Nestor Aparicio and Allen McCallum discussed the Baltimore Orioles’ performance and future prospects. They noted the team’s recent improvement, with a 7-3 homestand, but highlighted ongoing issues such as inconsistent offense, poor defense, and bullpen fatigue. They praised the starting pitching, particularly Bradish, Baz, and Rogers, but criticized the management’s decisions, including keeping Trevor Rogers in a critical game. They debated the future of Mike Elias, questioning his strategic approach and willingness to trade key players. The conversation also touched on the need for the Orioles to be more aggressive and angry on the field.

• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Book weekly guests (use Sunday nights to organize and confirm upcoming week’s guests), maintain weekly guest schedule and confirmations
• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Prepare Maryland Treasures giveaway and coordinate Maryland Crab Cake Tour partners so giveaways are ready for return on June 10
• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Set up and maintain a monthly check-in meeting cadence between you and Allen (monthly friend check-in)
• [ ] Find and schedule a mutually agreeable date in advance for attending a baseball game with Nestor (coordinate and confirm date ahead of time)

Orioles’ Recent Performance and Upcoming Games

• Nestor Aparicio discusses the Maryland Crab Cake Tour and the upcoming games with the Orioles.
• Nestor mentions the Maryland Lottery, GBMC, and Farnon and Dermer as sponsors for the tour.
• Nestor and Allen McCallum joke about their busy schedules and the challenges of coordinating baseball game outings.
• Nestor reflects on the Orioles’ recent performance, noting the team’s inconsistency and the need for better decision-making.

Orioles’ Starting Pitching and Offensive Performance

• Allen McCallum highlights the improvements in the Orioles’ starting pitching, particularly Bradish, Baz, and Trevor Rogers.
• Nestor and Allen discuss the importance of the Orioles’ offense, including the contributions of Alonzo and Gunner.
• Allen mentions the need for the Orioles to focus on hitting line drives and getting base hits.
• Nestor expresses frustration with the inconsistency of some key players, such as Cedric Mullins and Grayson Rodriguez.

Challenges with Defense and Bullpen Management

• Allen criticizes the Orioles’ outfield defense, particularly the play of Taylor Ward and Colton Cowser.
• Nestor and Allen discuss the challenges of managing the bullpen, including the overuse of certain relievers.
• Allen emphasizes the importance of having long relievers in the bullpen to cover innings.
• Nestor and Allen debate the decisions made by the Orioles’ management, including the handling of starting pitchers and relievers.

Orioles’ Division Rivalries and Future Outlook

• Nestor and Allen discuss the upcoming series against the Red Sox and Blue Jays, noting the importance of performing well against division rivals.
• Allen expresses skepticism about the Blue Jays’ performance this season, citing injuries and underperformance.
• Nestor and Allen agree that the Orioles need to improve their consistency and approach to be competitive.
• Allen suggests that the Orioles’ future will depend on their ability to make adjustments and improve their overall performance.

Criticism of Mike Elias and Front Office Decisions

• Nestor and Allen discuss the performance of Mike Elias and the Orioles’ front office, including the decisions made regarding player development and trades.
• Allen criticizes the Orioles’ approach to roster construction, particularly the lack of long relievers in the bullpen.
• Nestor expresses frustration with the team’s underperformance and the need for better management and strategy.
• Allen suggests that the Orioles need to be more willing to trade prospects for pitching and to let go of successful players to bring up the next generation.

Orioles’ Future and Potential Changes

• Nestor and Allen discuss the potential changes that could happen with the Orioles, including the possibility of trading Adley Rutschman.
• Allen emphasizes the importance of having a strong farm system and being willing to make tough decisions to improve the team.
• Nestor and Allen agree that the Orioles need to find a new approach to winning, including better management and player development.
• Allen suggests that the Orioles need to be more aggressive in their strategy and less afraid to make bold moves to improve the team.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Orioles, starting pitching, bullpen, offense, defense, Mike Elias, Adley Rutschman, Jackson Holiday, Taylor Ward, Trevor Rogers, Bradish, Alonzo, American League East, trade deadline.

SPEAKERS

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Allen McCallum, Nestor Aparicio

Nestor Aparicio  00:01

Welcome home. We are W N S T A M 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore Positive, positively doing the Maryland Crab Cake Tour all month long, taking a week off from Memorial Day and the early part of June. We get back after the Sorrento of Arbutus next week on the 10th, we’ll have the Maryland Treasures to give away. The Orioles be coming back home by then, and we will be getting out with our friends at the Maryland Lottery in conjunction with GBMC and Farnon and Dermer. They are the comfort guys. They keep us comfortable on the 100 degree days that are coming. So, if you’re getting your AC, you haven’t had it checked in a while. 410 36777 call my dude Zach, he will get someone very cool and compete, like Sean, out for your also do plumbing, my God, my plumbing mess I had back in April. So haven’t had Alan on in a month, and I, you know, it’s really weird because Alan and I are like close in the real world, and we text back and forth, and he’s got things, and I’ve got things, and Sting was in town a couple of weeks ago, and it rained, it was 50 degrees, and it didn’t do it, and the rush tour begins next week, and I’m running off to do all of that, so and I invited you to a baseball game, you couldn’t go, and then, like, we haven’t been to a baseball game since, like, Jeffrey Mayer, I think, maybe I don’t know if you and I’ve been a baseball game this century, maybe not, maybe we’ve taken a picture on opening day or something, so you’re, you know, I don’t know.

Allen McCallum  01:24

You always call me at the last minute and say I’ve got tickets you want to go, and my life just.. there’s somebody

Nestor Aparicio  01:28

else always calls me at the last minute. What do you think, Daddy? How do you think this happens?

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Allen McCallum  01:32

My life doesn’t really work that way for me. So, if we find a date, plan in advance, I went on Friday, and the reason I went is because I had friends in town, and that, so this date, that date was picked like a month in advance, and so you

Nestor Aparicio  01:47

call me, you know, you don’t want to go to the game with me, I’m miserable,

Allen McCallum  01:53

when we

Nestor Aparicio  01:54

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miserable,

Nestor Aparicio  01:54

so I am, when

Allen McCallum  01:56

we get off, we’ll find a date, schedule

Nestor Aparicio  02:00

it off, eating cheese, I mean,

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Allen McCallum  02:02

dear God. Well, watching the Orioles, sometimes you don’t know whether you’re eating cheese or eating caviar, I guess. So, you know,

Nestor Aparicio  02:09

sometimes it smells like Limburger,

Allen McCallum  02:11

sometimes it looks like Linburger.

Nestor Aparicio  02:14

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Yeah, sometimes it looks like Swiss. Yeah. All right. Well, look, man, I, I thought of you Sunday night, because I often think of you. Sunday nights are when I book my guests, no Willy Wonka moment here, but like I get organized for the week, and I’m like, who I want to talk to, who wants to talk to me, and you know who’s running and who’s got something to promote, and Ken David off got his book, he’s here, Robbie and Spokasie was here last week, Babe Ruth Museum’s book and book guest, and I have Politico’s on. Everybody’s reaching to me because they’re running for office. We have Stanley Cup, I got Jerry Bembry doing NBA this week, but I reached you and I’m like, I don’t want to have you on too much because you’re busy. I don’t want to have you on too much because I love what you have to say, but I’m like, it has been literally one month to the day since I reached you, and so we’re like you and I are now on the monthly check-in, the way good friends are, you know, check in once a month on everybody you love, and so here I am, and we put the dipstick in, we pull it out, had I checked in on you 1012, days ago when I’m writing Fire Mike Elias, and they’ve lost their eight games under that, there is this, is the patient alive or is it dead when it comes to the Orioles, right? Like, yeah, and just the fact that we were talking about them being on life support in May is not a good sign for them, but the fact that the rest of the American League’s on life support, fine. I just, there is a season, and at least as I reached you today, I can say there is a season if they get swept again in here and there and everywhere on july 1, there won’t be right when I reach back to you, Fourth of July, but at least as I reach to you, I am heartened by the fact that as we speak and they go on the road to Boston and Toronto, they’re watchable again, right?

Allen McCallum  03:58

Sure, sure, look, I was there on Friday, and I, you know, having a good time. They’re up five nothing, and a friend of mine texted the group and was like, “Hey, you guys must be having a good time, and I literally wrote back, “Can you just shut up? This can turn on a dime, and within five minutes, Rogers are giving up the two home runs, or right

Nestor Aparicio  04:24

around the time I put the game on after I got off the yoga mat. Yes,

Allen McCallum  04:28

I put Friday squarely on on Albernaz, but I’m sure we’ll get to that. Look, a month ago when we talked, I said out loud that by Memorial Day that we didn’t know who this team was, and by Memorial Day, will know, and it’s past Memorial Day, and I guess you could say we still don’t know. They’re certainly playing better, they’re certain they are watchable, but as you said, the part of the reason we don’t know is because everybody else in the American League’s pretty mediocre too. Even the good teams, I mean, you say what you want about the Yankees and the Rays, the. Yankees have been rice, Aaron Judge, Cody Bellinger, sometimes, and then they have other guys in the lineup who are, who are good, they’re okay, they’re not spectacular. What they have is great starting pitching. The Tampa Bay Rays are basically three guys, Aranda, Yondi Diaz, and, and their third baseman, and a bunch of guys who just know how to play baseball, and they pitch really well. So, I mean, that those are the things that really accelerate them. Cleveland’s much the same way for the Orioles. The thing that’s made the biggest difference, and I think we all know it is that they finally start their starting pitching has kept them in the game now for the first time in about for about two weeks now. Bradish, who we were all waiting on, who just looks completely out of sync for the first five weeks of the season, has really found himself, and Baz has gotten to a point where he can go out and keep you in the game, Bassett, same way, and Trevor Rogers is, you can see him working. I mean, anybody who doubts the man’s heart isn’t paying attention. Brandon Young looks like he looks like he can pitch in the major leagues. It’s early, we’ll see. So the starting pitching has sort of gotten itself righted, and then you talk, and then you look at the offense, and you know it’s catches catch can, it’s a club, when they, before they signed Alonzo, I told you they, I told you I wanted them to go hard after Bob, a shed, and when they signed Alonzo, I told you I wasn’t in love with it, in part, and what I said to you was he was a sort of symbol of exactly what the team already is, that these guys slug, they’re trying to slug, not for, they don’t, they haven’t hit much for a high average, and I think that they need to focus, this team needs to focus on hitting line drives and getting base hits, and they all started out really cold, and they’re, they’ve come along, they’ve come around, Alonzo’s starting to drive in runs, Gunner looks like he’s trying to get off of life support.

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Nestor Aparicio  07:18

Well, that would be the biggest thing for them, right?

Allen McCallum  07:20

I mean, they call them aircraft carriers now, and Gunner is supposed to be the aircraft carrier, and

Nestor Aparicio  07:28

we said that about Ruchman in the off season, like him lifting, thinking Gunner’s, and is Alonso’s will be, like, as I see it, Jackson Holidays, we sure hope so,

Allen McCallum  07:41

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right?

Nestor Aparicio  07:42

You know, and even though cows are hitting these three, you know, prodigious bombs and walk-offs, and all this stuff in the last week. I mean, the consistency part of some of these guys, and the availability part of the Westburgs, and before that, the Grayson Rodriguez’s, you know, the guys that were coming to save this thing by being premium players, being solid, pretty good already, giving them a second contract before they’ve had an at bat in the major leagues, which is what they did with Bisayo, and that he’s been their best player, but the notion that Bisayo could be this good, Ruchman could be this healthy and right, and the rest of it to be a mess, I could get a buy-in even when I’m writing ‘Fire Mike Elias’ for a million reasons. I’d fire Michaelias. Part of it is I’m a new owner, I didn’t hire you, and I think on the face of that, that’s an issue, a huge issue at the top of it. When you’re in last place for the second year in a row, and the stadium’s empty, and they’ve already made bobbleheads themselves and don’t know where to turn, and Jordan Westberg and whoever else might be on the injured list, but for me the notion that Bradish had it in him to be better, and that Rogers’ opening day starter, the two stars of August and September in the twilight of last year, that those guys could be better, and that Boz could be better, and the best friggin should be better.

Allen McCallum  09:05

Yeah,

Nestor Aparicio  09:06

right. Or that Brandon Young could get better, right, and have an opportunity. Or that Dean Kramer could even get better when he comes back, although that’s further harder to believe, given the body of work. But or that Rico Garcia could find himself and be what he’s been, those little niceties of your guy Jeremiah Jackson playing well for three weeks in April, or Leoti Tavarez being able to get a bunt down, or being a nice fit player in all of this, to me Henderson’s Awakening, Radish’s Awakening, Roger, high ceiling guys, all of that, including Ruchman, including cows, or to some degree, to not be Mendoza, send them to Norfolk, he’s has to curse that, like he’s not going to participate in this at all, that, and to me, holiday, whatever the block. Something that you see of Bisayo right now, holiday should be even better than that. Once the seasonings all in and the stew’s made, he’s a friggin one one, same thing watchman. So all of this potential I could buy into all of that, that this team could play. Dare I say 92 win baseball, because that was my prediction for stretches. If they get all of those pieces right, they have things that the Orioles didn’t have when Rio Ruiz was manning Thurb, you know. They have, they have ceiling here, right

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Allen McCallum  10:33

on paper. Everybody on this team should be better. I mean, you look, I mean, clearly Elias went after pedigree, right? I mean, almost all these guys have that pedigree, whether it’s one one or second round, or what have you, and it’s.. it’s not.. I can’t continue, I can’t.. to come back to this time in 2024 when they were tearing through everybody in baseball, I mean it was a revelation. And then about six weeks from now, in 24 mid July, it all collapsed, and we’re sort of living through the aftermath of that collapse right now, and they’re trying to find their way back. Nestor, why would you ever throw Colton Cows are a fastball, why? And they’ve thrown him three fastballs in, in the last 10 days, and he’s won two games in a walk-off, and put essentially put a game away on Sunday against the Blue Jays, and that said, you know, he’s he’s gotten his average up from 180 to 220 with more than just those three hits, but you know a lot of them are infield hits that he beat out. Hey, great, I’ll take it. Well,

Nestor Aparicio  11:46

that’s part of this game, is the tools.

Allen McCallum  11:48

Sure. Look, Mark Messina texted me after he hit the first walk-off home run and said, you know, that home run really may may hurt the Orioles because he didn’t think he was a major league hitter, and my response was, and he said he should, he should be in the minor leagues, because he’s not a major league hitter, and my response to him was, they, the reason he’s on this team forever, however many home runs is it, he hits, it’s because he’s the only corner outfielder they have that can play, that can play defense, Laodice, I would have told you, was a quality center fielder, and then he’s really misplayed a few balls here in the last week, that’s hurt them to some degree, but their outfield defense is atrocious, and Colton Kauser is one piece that actually helps them, but they’re playing in right field when he should be in left, because they apparently can’t put Taylor Ward anywhere else. Well,

Nestor Aparicio  12:38

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I know they’re going to misplay a ball in Fenway Park, just whether it’s going to cost them an inning, a run, or a game, or whether they misplace something, and you know, get a couple of strikeouts and don’t get injured by it, because they just, they don’t play. I tell you, what the last week or two, it’s been better, yeah, a little better since Alberna, since they went eight games under an album, and everything was going wrong at that point, but more than that, just the way decision making, I mean, and then I saw Tampa play defense, I mean, even over the weekend, the Blue Jays went to the wrong base, you know, throwing home instead of the second base, letting guys take an extra bases, given extra bases, given extra outs, on just all tick tock, tick tock, all the way through, playing Jackson Holiday at third base for the first time in his life, and just dumb stuff. I mean, you know, thinking anybody can play right field. Literally,

Allen McCallum  13:35

on Saturday, the Orioles were in the middle of that huge comeback. They tied the game, Pete Alonso comes up, the bases are loaded, it’s five five, and the Blue Jays bring their entire infield in. Okay, this is one of the things that drives me nuts about the way the game’s being played today. If you tell me that I’m bringing the infield in for Leonie Taveras, great, fine, I get it. You’re trying to, you’re, you’re hoping to cut off the wind when you bring the infield in. You raise your, the opponent’s batting average by 100 points statistically. Okay, Peter Alonso is at the, is it at the plate? He hits a ball that, if they’re in traditional double, there’s one out tied five five. He hit a ball the right to the right side, that if they’re in traditional double play depth, it’s a double play, and they get out of the inning tied, and they probably end up beating the Orioles in extra innings, because the Orioles aren’t really, haven’t been geared for that a lot. Why are you playing the infield in with Pete Alonso, and you have a chance to turn the double play? It’s the kind of stuff analytics is supposed to be, as I said to you, the issue with me with analytics is the interpretation. Why does that lead you to believe that the best play in that situation, instead of trying to minimize the batting average to play the infield in anyway? The game is the game is bonkers, look. Up this club offensively, I started with the premise, why would you throw Colton Cows or fastball, and then you start to realize some things that even in 23 and 24 when the Orioles were tearing it up, often not always they were coming from behind and winning games, and you start to consider that you look at the way they play now they have a lot of trouble even getting hits, I mean, if you look at the top pitchers in baseball, everybody has trouble hitting them, but even getting hits off of them, how many times a week seen them get no hit or one hit through 567, innings against some of the upper crush pitchers, I mean that is that’s pretty tough, and then they end up scoring a lot of runs, even when they lose late in the game, and a lot of it starts to make sense that relievers in today’s mold throw more fastballs, they’re trying to throw 100 miles an hour, and this team hits fastballs, they hit fastballs, so in the early innings, when starting pitchers throwing sweepers and sliders and curve balls and changeups, and they’re, they’re flailing as they get into the late innings, even on the sort of upper level relief or relievers, they tend to throw more fastballs, and this team can hit fastballs, so I mean it, you start to analyze how is this team in this situation, it to me, it reads like that. Maybe the data will say something a little different, but that seems to me to be a big piece of this. Even when they were, they were really good in 2324 and I think part of what happened is that the league start stopped throwing them fastballs, and I think this, we’ve started to see this team suffer over the last essentially two calendar years because of it. My concern is still the consistency of the of the offense, certainly the quality of the defense, particularly the outfield. You’re right, they’ve got, they played better. I saw Taylor Ward make a play in left field, probably the best play he’s made is Norio, running down the, you know, to the line and diving to make a play on Friday night. They have, they seem to have solidified some things. I think Jackson Holiday coming back is going to help stabilize the club a little bit. Sam Bisayo, I mean, he’s exceeding my expectations at this point in his career, I, I’m rooting for the kid, obviously, but I would have expected him to be more sort of 222 30 striking out, but he is, he seems to have learned to cut down on his swing a little bit, sometimes he takes the ball out to over the shortstop to get to get balls to get

Nestor Aparicio  17:38

well, but he’s 21 years old and is making adjustments, and there’s always going to be adjustments, right, but it feels like he, he has some it in, but look, I would have said that about Ruchman three years ago as a one one, I think there’ll be a point where Jackson Holly, the light goes on for that kid, based on the pedigree and his father, and you know, the injury he had, and all of that, where even just seeing him for a week, week and a half, here there’s a version of him that’s a wet dream for Mike Elias as an 18 year old kid to think like what it’s going to look like when he’s 22 or 23 but we’re here, you know what I mean, like when you, when you draft a young guy like that, you’re like once we get some meat on him and we get this and that, we, you know, work with him, that he’s going to blossom. This is the blossoming period for holiday, and I’m really watching that, and the same thing, it’s just the money period for Henderson, and it keeps going back to that. To me, they can only be so good if Gunner Henderson’s hitting 213 and has 34 home runs and 52 RBIs, or something. You know what I mean, like, like Nestor, the game is about

Allen McCallum  18:41

adjustment. The game is about adjustment and approach. You come up, Jeremiah Jackson, you mentioned him. You watch Jeremiah Jackson, Jeremy, Jeremiah Jackson to me. I think Jeremiah Jackson could be a good hitter. Last year, when he came up, he was hitting balls, line drives, and then he started to hit some home runs, and as soon as he started hitting home runs, he went into a major slump. This year, in April, he’s carrying the club, he’s hit, he’s hitting home runs, and then as he comes out, he goes to a major slump. I think part of his issue, which is the case, I think, with a lot of these guys, is that they spend so much time trying to slug the ball that they lose sight of making contact and hitting line drives, so I think Jeremiah and Jeremiah Jackson, the difference is he doesn’t have the pedigree, so he’s not going to get the same runway as some of these other guys, and he’s also, you know, he wasn’t a Mike Elias guy, which I think seems to matter a little bit, but look, I mean, Jackson Holiday, there’s no question when you look at Jackson Holiday that you think this guy should be, this kid should be hitting 280 when he’s healthy and right two years from now, he should be hitting 280 he should be getting on base 34% of the time and hitting 25 home runs and hit hitting four. He doubles, I mean, that that’s what Jackson Holiday, that’s when you look at him, it, that’s not a, that shouldn’t be a stretch for a guy like Jackson Holiday. Um, we’ve seen the version of Gunner Henderson, the high ceiling player, um, Adley Ruchman, even when he was, when he was really good, didn’t look like a superstar, he, he looked to me like the Mike Greenwell of the Boston Red Sox in the late 80s, the guy who was always consistent and always in the lineup, and always drove in, you know, the runs sort of quietly behind the Sluggers, and Ali Rutschman looked like the guy that was going to get on base all the time and hit line drives and be that player, and he fell out of it for a while, and you know, he got off to a hot start. He’s, he cooled off a little bit now, he’s walking a ton, and you can see him sort of trying to find his way back, which is, I think, is exactly how Ali Rucksman should be fine. So many of these guys have high ceiling, and maybe it was unfair to put those kinds of expectations on them, but they’re certainly underperformed. They have underperformed for a year and a half, and only in the last month or so have we started to see them try to sort of make their way back as a club collectively to being the kind of player, the team that content, that can contend again, that said the only reason they’re in contention right now is because the rest of the league is so mediocre or below average, but if you say to me in August, can I see in August that this team is five to 10 games over 500 because Gunner woke up, Alonzo woke up, Adley went, you know, kicked it into another gear.

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Nestor Aparicio  21:42

They all fulfilled their potential, whatever that potential

Allen McCallum  21:45

is, building their potential. It’s the reason so many people said, I mean, and not just people in Baltimore, but pundits around baseball said this team should win 90 games is because this team should win 90 games. They should, they, their talent should be at that level, even in the vaunted American League East, and they’ve underperformed, so you know the reality of the situation is, and you look at a seven and three homestand, having, having after 10 games, and say it’s a why do I feel a little disappointed, because I do, because you look at the games, so many games that they’ve squandered early in the season, and even on this homestand, there

Nestor Aparicio  22:26

were games they’ve

Nestor Aparicio  22:26

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gotten their ass kicked a lot, they’ve gotten blown out a lot, Alan and Dave had been like walk off skin of their teeth, I mean, like it just, it hasn’t looked good for any stretch of time other than maybe now on a seven and three home stand, where to my point in leaving you for a month, by the way, Alan McCallum is our guest here at Wentz State, like

Allen McCallum  22:50

they got swept by the Yankees, they got swept by the Rays. Their

Nestor Aparicio  22:53

optimism should be added zenith right this moment, because they look better this minute than they’ve looked at any point, literally

Allen McCallum  23:00

they seem to struggle against clubs that they seem to struggle against teams when they see them for the first time that have good pitching, and then after they come back and see them a second time, they’re better, and that to me is a market, like I said, of a team that’s that’s approaches is poor and that whose adjustments they’re making adjustments at the second time they see them great, but approach is poor, and that’s why you end up looking the way you do against some of these clubs. Yeah, they came back on this homestand and they looked better having seen the Rays for a second time, and the Blue Jays also sort of underachieving from what the expectation for them was, but this team should, this team should be better, and they have, they have given away a lot of their, you know, atta boys will get them next time opportunities if they’re going to, if they think they’re going to contend in 2026 they need to turn it on at some point, you know. When and when eight in a row, have a couple of six game win streaks, and not, and not, you know, fall, fall eight games, falling eight games under 500 is over. If they wanted to, if they want to say they’re, if they want to be contenders, they need to start booking series, winning two out of three consistently, and throw in a six game, seven game, eight game win streak in here a time or two going forward. Um, look, if Bradish and in Baz, and it’s certainly Rogers, I mean, it’s just it’s the times they’ve gotten blown out, they’ve gotten blown out largely when Trevor Rogers came out and gave up 10, you know, some seven or eight runs, and then the bullpen has to cover, you can’t have your number ones, your opening day starter just get blown out like that, you just can’t, so they. Have to, they have to get their pitching to stay right, and then they need the offense to be better with consistency and approach, you know, and the bullpen started off really well also, and they’ve struggled now largely because they’ve had to cover, so excuse me, so many innings for the starting pitching,

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Nestor Aparicio  25:21

well, also Housley missing, and you know various points, Kittredge, you know what I mean, like they’ve had arms out, Kramer, not to mention Eflin, picking up those innings comes from the bullpen, right? So, because you’re getting shorter starts, theoretically, although Brandon Young hasn’t been bad to me, you mentioned Rogers, and you mentioned him being better. You and I have had long chats about modern baseball, and whether managers really manage anymore, and the way that Earl Weaver would talk about managing, or whether this is a consortium, or whether the computer’s spitting it out, or whether Elias is just saying this is how we’re doing it. You work for me, your middle management, Craig Albernaz, or Brandon Hyde, or Tony Mansolina, right? That the orders are coming down. I found it interesting, and I know you, you said earlier you wanted to talk more about it, about Rogers staying in long enough to give up two two run home runs in the seventh inning after having finally a clean sheet through six innings and struggling a little bit, and maybe only at 80 pitches, 81 pitches, wherever it was at that point. There’s a lot of second guessing going on, and at that point they still had to play Saturday afternoon and Sunday, and the weather looked good enough that they were actually going to play, so it wasn’t like any question about whether we’re stacking up rain delays or any of that kind of thing. Look, man, it’s, it’s complete 2020 to say they should have pulled and would help his ERA, would have helped his morale, would have helped this and that. I don’t know where they are with him, but I do know this: the manager took responsibility for it, said I probably should have gone, I should have gone, I should have gone, not we should have gone, not there’s somebody you know, there’s a Martian in my ear from upstairs telling me what to do, but managers still do manage, right, like in that way, let’s you know, for better or worse, I’m not looking to throw Albernais under the bus, the record does what the record does, and he’ll stand on whatever he is, as Lee Mazzilli went into the Mets Hall of Fame over the weekend. By the way, I talked to Ken David off about that, but you know, managers managing that was a point where shoot the manager, the pitcher, he left the pitcher in too long. Well, he’s still managing. That was news to me on Friday night, right?

Allen McCallum  27:39

So look, the origins of that game start in the weekend before they get rained out. They have to play double header on Sunday against the Tigers, and that messes up your, your, your pitching staff, basically, until you get enough, get to another day off.

Nestor Aparicio  27:55

Then they

Nestor Aparicio  27:55

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played all night Tuesday, right? They played 13 innings, right, 12 inch.

Allen McCallum  27:58

So I get that you’re Albernaz and you’re looking at your pitching staff, you’re like, I’ve got to get some length out of this guy, but you’re also trying to rebuild the confidence and ability of a pitcher you need to get work out of. I’m not saying he shouldn’t have started the dead inning, but once he gives, once he, the first hitter smokes a ball, and then he gives up a two home run to a two run home run to Okamoto. That, that, that’s a sign. I mean, at that point, you could, you know, he had been hurt, even sick before, with apparently a flu that absolutely crippled him. And what I think this is his third or fourth start after coming back, and had been knocked around in the first couple of outings, so he hasn’t gone deep in a while. You’ve got to figure, you’ve got to factor that in as well. And,

Nestor Aparicio  28:49

oh, just how good you feel about a clean sheet entered his seventh inning. Why, you want to, you know, like,

Allen McCallum  28:55

but quite frankly, you also need the win, right? You need the win. Um, yeah,

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Nestor Aparicio  29:00

did you really need him out there in the seventh inning that bad? Was he your best option at that point, especially after he labored the first two batters? Yes.

Allen McCallum  29:07

So then, so I mean, if he walks off the mound for

Nestor Aparicio  29:10

so then that is criticism for the manager, the one thing the manager had to make a decision on, he didn’t do a very good job on.

Allen McCallum  29:16

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Well, if he walks off the mound five to two after he gives up the two run homer, even if he gives him the next guy, I get it, and then he brings Wells comes in, and then you bring in Cano, who just barely avoided the injured list, right? In a crucial situation, you’re up by a run, and I mean, he gets, he gets roped, you can’t take him out until the third batter, and that that’s left at third batter, and that, that gave away the game, but you know, there, there’s some, there were some decisions there that, while I understand the logic, I mean, just we’re a little questionable in a situation where you’re up five nothing, you know, you need to win this game, look, I understand on a 10 game home. Stand, when you’ve got the kind of innings coverage you’re trying to, you’re trying to cover, there’s that, that’s a thing, but I mean, again, so this brings up roster construction, and you’re talking about a team that had, that’s not getting, that had not been getting a ton of innings out of their starting pitchers, and just quite frankly, again, you look at a situation where the game in Major League Baseball, modern Major League Baseball wins don’t matter anymore. You hear this all the time. Well, why? Because teams do not want their starting pitchers to face a lineup a third time around, which you know, Jim, Jim Palmer, and and Jack Morris and Roger Clemens, I mean, they’ve just got to roll their eyes when they hear that stuff, right? But, but teams don’t want their, their starting pitchers to face lineups the third time around, because the statistical average goes up, which I think is more of an indictment of of the quality today than than anything, but ultimately that means that you have less opportunity to go deep into a game, and then they rely on bullpens. Great, fine, you’re going to rely on bullpens. So now, how do you build your bullpen if you know your starters are going to go fewer innings, even when they’re good? Why wouldn’t you have, why wouldn’t you build your, your bullpen, so that you have two or three long men in the, in the bullpen, so that you have the Arthur Rhodes of it? Right, Arthur Rhodes was not a starter, but the Orioles brought him back and built him up as a, as a reliever. Well, that’s

Nestor Aparicio  31:38

where they thought they were with Wells, right?

Allen McCallum  31:41

Right to cover three innings one time around, in the best case scenario, you’ve got three of those guys in your bullpen, so that even if you have to throw one guy for three innings, you don’t have to send him down after every time he does it, because you need to cover the innings, but that’s not what teams do, certainly not what the Orioles do, they everybody turns failed starters into one inning flamethrower throwers, so every all these teams have guys that end up having to pitch every day or every other day, because everybody only throws one inning, and it’s a, it’s a design, a blueprint for catastrophe, even on good clubs, you’re going to wear your bullpen out, so you’re the Orioles, you’re underachieving, you can’t, haven’t gotten a lot of innings out of your starters, and you’ve got Garcia and Nunez, and you know, Helsley goes down, but these guys are throwing every day.

Nestor Aparicio  32:36

I would agree with you, if somebody gets in trouble in the fifth inning, you’re going four deep in your bullpen every night you can’t, there’s not much you can do about that, especially when the schedule backs up, right? There’s,

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Allen McCallum  32:44

there’s just no way to sustain that Nestor, right, because despite the fact that their guys, you know, every day, Eddie Guardado, I can throw every day, no pitcher can throw every day. Period. Um, I feel really bad that this kid Nunez, because as good as his stuff looks, he’s clearly been overexposed. I’m sure he’s probably exhausted, and there’s no way for that to get better until he doesn’t pitch for a week. We’ll see, we’ll see if that opportunity presents itself, but so the bullpen construction of the Orioles, even with Helsley going down to Kittredge, and I mean, God knows the thing that we haven’t talked about this time is just that so many guys have gotten hurt for this club, I’m sure Michaelias would would pay whatever the gods wanted to have had Jordan Westburg healthy and ready to go for the last two and a half seasons, right, but that said, you still have to anticipate that you’re going to have injuries on your club, and I’ll ask the question again. In the era of modern baseball, why wouldn’t you build your bullpen on every team in the sport to have three, at least three guys in the bullpen who can cover three innings at a time? It’s just one of the things that confound me. It’s a problem for the Orioles, even if they get on a hot stretch. The reality is, if they were to truly be in contention, and we talked about this before the season, I said to you, I didn’t have a problem with the way he built the bullpen, assuming that his goal, if they were in contention, was to make trades in July to bring in guys from other teams that were having great years out of the bullpen that they could make trades for and help finish the roster. They’re certainly, if they’re, if they’re going to be in contention, that’s there’s no question they need to do that, because these guys are going to be exhausted by the time we get to August, the dog days of August. So I said to you a month ago, by Memorial Day week, no, we still don’t know, there’s still work to do, but for me, the Baltimore Orioles, this season will. Be told by how they adjust and how they approach both at the plate in the field and from the pitching staff, and I mean that’s give the kid $1 because he just said something profound, maybe not, but there’s a reality here. This club has so much pedigree that is underachieving that they need to find new approach to way they do things,

Nestor Aparicio  35:23

or that cost the general manager, the manager, and all them their jobs, and Peter Alonso will be here, and Boz will be here, and Besaiah will be here, because they’re under contract to be here. The rest of it would be torched, and that would start with Ruchman at the trading deadline. I’ve talked at length, and I don’t want to go down that door with you with labor disagreement, and how that affects business, and how that affects new ownership, and how they will assess risk management in regard to contracts, money paying their employees when the doors are shut next may 1, and there’s no revenue if it comes to that, and you and me and Luke and anybody else listening and knows anything about baseball would not have bet against that, Alan McCallum is here. Last thing for you is, they go to Boston and Toronto, and the division, where you know they clearly struggle with the Yankees and the Rays, until the Rays came here. The Rays kicked the ball around a lot. Red Sox and Blue Jays, the Blue Jays were perceived to be the big bad wolf for coming on like that, haven’t been yet. Red Sox spent money, they got pitching. Young talent hasn’t come along. They don’t seem obsessed with winning there from an ownership perspective. And the Orioles will travel to these places right now and measure themselves, continue to measure themselves. If they’re going to get better and stay better, it’s going to be against the American League East, and that bodes well.

Allen McCallum  36:43

If you can’t play well against your division, you might as well not even bother. Yeah, look, I told you before the season, I didn’t think I thought the Blue Jays were being overvalued. I think Bob, a sheet, losing Bob Ashet was a huge piece for them. I think we knew fairly early in spring training that Anthony Santander wasn’t going to be, wasn’t going to play for them during the year. Okamoto, who certainly has pop, was new to the league, and we didn’t know what he was going to be. They’d gotten a lot of guys come out of nowhere late last year, and they needed to prove it, and I felt like their pitching staff wasn’t quite what what it was going to be in what it was in 25 Now Dylan Cease is having a really nice year for them, great, but I think injuries have also hurt them, and a lot of things have come to pass where they, they aren’t the same team they were in 2025 and we’ll see if they can, they can renew that magic again. I, it’s certainly not impossible, but I think it’s a tougher road to hoe for the Blue Jays in 2026 The Red Sox have no offense, I mean, Jared Durand has been carrying them recently after being awful for the first five weeks, but you know they traded Rafael Devers and Alex Bregman, you know, who was supposed to be the new savior, is playing in Chicago for the Cubs, who are as streaky as any team I’ve ever seen.

Nestor Aparicio  38:09

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Division’s playing good ball nationally essential, every team over 500 never happened. That’s

Allen McCallum  38:15

crazy, and the Brewers, who lose big pieces every year, continue to find ways to win, I mean, they’re

Nestor Aparicio  38:21

the Tampa of the National League, they’re

Allen McCallum  38:23

the Tampa of the National League, and if any team should be fashioning themselves in the models of those clubs, it should be the Orioles. Look, the Red Sox, the one thing the Red Sox can do is pitch, and that could be the thing that confounds the Orioles. I mean, against their offense, I would be fine to say let’s take your chances, but the Red Sox, the Red Sox can pitch, and it will see what what comes of it. I’ll tell you, if left field in Fenway is built for Taylor Ward, that’s exactly where I want him playing defense, the club we we’ve said this over and over and over again. They haven’t been able to sustain positive momentum in 2026 and

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Nestor Aparicio  39:12

that

Nestor Aparicio  39:12

all begins with starting pitching, by the way, and that’s starting to wake up.

Allen McCallum  39:16

Yes, and after a seven and three home stand, which, which you have to see as positive, and feeling like they, they’re in their one game out of the wild card. Unbelievably, they need to transform that into momentum that will carry them into the all-star break. This is the.. I’ll say this is the moment again, you know, before Memorial Day was the moment, we’re past Memorial Day. This is the moment they’re playing their division. Nobody’s really taken the reins in the wild card hunt. The Orioles need to play well over the next two or three weeks to. Be in his position to make some trades, where hopefully some of the league, and right now it’s not the case, have dropped far enough out of contention that they’re willing to give some things up, and if they don’t, then you’re absolutely right, and the biggest question on this club in July will be, Should we trade Adley Ruchman, that the two versions of the Orioles at the trade deadline are simply this: do we trade everything we can to get Tauric School from the Detroit Tires to take a run at this thing, or do we trade Adley Ruchman at the trade deadline because we stink and the club and we need to get some draft picks, and Adley is having a more than serviceable offensive season, while half, while really improving his defense, at least on paper for Major League Baseball, and all the answer, which question gets asked, and what the answer is, will be determined, quite frankly, by the next two or three weeks of what they do in baseball.

Nestor Aparicio  41:03

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Any confidence that Elias is the right guy to be making these decisions, he’s going to have going to run another draft in a couple of weeks. He’s going to run a trading deadline. I know that that is the job. Boy, oh boy, it really feels like he’s dead man walking while this team is under 500

Allen McCallum  41:19

Sure, look, I wouldn’t go as far as to say I’ve defended Michaelias, but I thought that the calls for his head came very early, came very viciously from a lot of places, and unfairly at a time. We are deep into this process now. He’s been here for almost a decade, and after watching them stink on purpose out loud for half a decade, and to see the exaltation of 23 and 24 even at 22 when they finished above 500 I mean to watch that and to be where we are right now is really confounding, and even as I was

Nestor Aparicio  42:03

mismanaged in that way,

Allen McCallum  42:06

absolutely. And look, even as last year, as I said to you, I don’t think I would have fired Mike Elias based on what was happening at that point. When the Nats fired Mike Rizzo, I said to you, in fact, if I can get Mike Rizzo, I fire Mike Elias tomorrow because Rizzo built a world championship team, tore it apart, and then started to put it together again, and you can see them, a lot of what’s happening in Washington right now are is the are the plans that Mike Rizzo started to lay out before they fired is Michaelia Elias the right guy. Mike Elias, we’ve talked about adjustment and approach for the team on the field, and I think it is more than fair to say that one of the big issues with this front office is that they have been inflexible in their perspective and that they have looked, the way they approach this thing is, is not, does not adjust to the realities of what’s happening in front of them. You can debate all you want about whether or not they value defense. This team has played defensive, since they traded, since they got rid of Hayes, Mullins, and Santander, who were a really positive outfield at one point, and I’m not saying Mullins should still be here, I get it, or any of them, for that matter, but those guys, two of the thirds of those guys played great defense, and the other one was a great clutch hitter that solidified the middle of the lineup since those guys left this team’s been floundering, particularly in the outfield, and they have their infield defense for the overall product has been poor. Their approach at the plate needs to be re-examined.

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Nestor Aparicio  44:00

Well, you’re firing Elias, dude. I mean, like, every.. I’m not gonna put the name to it. You’re literally pointing out what a team that was a last place team last year and a team that’s been swept at Pittsburgh, New York, and Tampa would look like this year. Like, literally,

Allen McCallum  44:14

just look, I’m saying, if almost a decade in, you can lay out the argument. I mean, I’m not going to try

Nestor Aparicio  44:22

to, and I

Nestor Aparicio  44:22

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did, and I did. Yeah,

Allen McCallum  44:24

do I do? I think Michaelias, I think Michaelias is a, would be a, is a great farm director. I think his value as a not even necessarily the guy who should be, who should be

Nestor Aparicio  44:37

baseball evaluator, but not a strategist in the organizational way, correct?

Allen McCallum  44:44

If you, if I had, if I was pinned to the wall with a gun to my head, I think that’s what I’d have. I think that’s what I’d have to say at this point.

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Nestor Aparicio  44:53

Not a

Nestor Aparicio  44:54

leader of men or women or people to me, no,

Allen McCallum  44:59

there are. Efficiencies in his general manager pedigree that are worthy of paying attention to, and

Nestor Aparicio  45:07

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communication style, and arrogance, and just a lot of things that he’s been accused of that that stick to him, and they stick to him a lot more when they’re last placed than when they won 101 ball games, and you know we’re in the middle of it, and I’m not saying, like, I get how unorthodox, but once if I’m convinced he’s not going to be the guy in the off season, why am I going to let him run the draft? Why am I going to let him deal the trading deadline? And then someone says, well, you know, there’s going to be a labor stoppage at the end of the year, it’s not going to matter, and I’m thinking to myself, yeah, okay, you know, okay, and if I’m a billionaire, that’s David Rubens, that doesn’t know anything about baseball’s checked out anyway. Then the firing cycle is October, then we ride it out.

Allen McCallum  45:49

I believe in his general approach. I mean, people will tell you that you, that he needed to draft more pitching early on. Look, the hardest thing to direct to develop in any sport on the planet is pitching, period. And for some reason, there’s some clubs – Cleveland, Seattle, Tampa, the Dodgers – that seem to be able to do it, but for a lot of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh is, I mean, they rarely keep them, but you look at the guys that have left Pittsburgh and become Cy Young or close to Cy Young Award winners. They’re these little pockets of clubs that do it, that can do

Nestor Aparicio  46:26

it. Burnett, the

Allen McCallum  46:29

Orioles haven’t been that club in 40 years.

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Nestor Aparicio  46:31

So, if

Allen McCallum  46:33

you tell me I’m gonna draft all the offense I can find and be the stockpile offense for major league baseball to develop and bring up on our own, and but to trade guys, and this is the key, because if you don’t have pitching, you can’t win. I understand that you then need to be willing to trade your guys to get the pitches you need, and not only has Mike Elias not been willing to trade prospects enough for pitching, although he has, I mean, Shane Boz is here, and we’ll see what happens.

Nestor Aparicio  47:07

Hey, Corbin Burns gave him, I mean, that deal was brilliant, especially once Bradish got injured.

Allen McCallum  47:14

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Garrett Crochet should be an Oriole. Period. Garrett Crochet should be in that. I blame Michael Ias for Bobby Witt and Garrett Crochet. Bobby Witch should be playing shortstop for the Baltimore Orioles, and Garrett Crochet should be an Oriole right now. That they, if they’re, if you’re going to approach that, and I like the approach, you have to be willing to trade your players, and more to the point, much like Tampa and Milwaukee, you have to be willing to understand that as much as people in Baltimore will file you for it, that you have to be willing to let guys go, even when they’re successful, when they’re, because Baltimore is not New York, it’s not Los Angeles, not even a place like Texas or Toronto, for that matter, where if you’re the only game in town, in theory, that you could, you can spend that kind of money, you have to be willing to let guys go and bring up the next guy, which means your, your Ross, your, your drafting needs to continue to be great. You need to be able to find pieces, and you have to be willing to trade players to bring in the pitching that you need. And there is a, there’s a stop gap in there for a lot of the things Michaelias has done or not done, and yes, Corbin Burns and Kyle Braddish, I get it, but you can’t win with one guy, you need to be able to do that all throughout, so yeah, there’s certainly a case for Michael Isles not being here, and if there are guys out there that I would much rather see in the seat right now, yeah, I mean it’s it’s, it’s, it’s a complicated, tangled web nest. I don’t know what else to tell you.

Nestor Aparicio  48:47

Lean in for me, as is that the angry, pissed-off bird? Oh,

Allen McCallum  48:50

yeah. Let me tell you something, Nestor.

Nestor Aparicio  48:52

Everybody talk to me here.

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Allen McCallum  48:55

Everybody loves the smiling, happy cartoon bird. Screw that. I want my Orioles to be angry. I want them to go out with bats and batter people. I want the Orioles to be, to be annoyed and have a chip on the shoulder, and go out and, and instead of building Legos, help, help their opponents with Legos, the proverbial Legos on the field. So, more often than not, you’re either going to see me with the angry, an angry face bird, or the script, or I really like the ornithologically correct bird, the first one, not the large, not the bolder-breasted one. I have the smiling cartoon face bird on a lot of things, because I’m an Oriole stan, but generally you’re going to find me wearing one of those, because I don’t have any use. I have very little use for the smiling bird. I want the Orioles to be angry and offensively violent on the on the on the playing field, and ready to destroy people when they have the opportunity,

Nestor Aparicio  49:57

and throw the ball and hit the guy in the glove instead of the. Look at Allen McCallum, is here. He’s been our baseball insider for more than three decades now. We are celebrating the 31st anniversary of our friendship, including the Jeffrey Mayor Days. You know, the pissed off bird. I love the pissed off bird. I do. I mean, I put him up on the website the other day, but that the pissed off bird used to be in the little corner on a one at the paper when they lost, so the pissed off bird was the day after the Yankees beat them seven to four. That’s the bird you would see, bird you’d see with the little umbrella the day after it rained, or the happy bird after the victory, or whatever. There’s nothing happy about the bird on Alan McCallum’s head, because it’s been 43 freaking years, and we need to win.

Allen McCallum  50:43

I want to see the happy bird when they win the division, when they win the American League, and when they, when they raise the crown. That’s when I want to see a happy bird

Nestor Aparicio  50:51

that looks like the bird that assaulted me out in center field back in oh three. He is Allen, I am Nestor, we are WNST AM 1570 Towson Baltimore, and we never stop talking, Oriole baseball and Baltimore positive. Stay with.