Less than two weeks into the season, it’s been a mixed bag for the Baltimore Orioles. Luke Jones and Nestor discuss the disappointing Pittsburgh series and ways a better bullpen could support some frosty bats of the early Orioles campaign.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
batista, talking, game, bullpen, point, pitcher, play, bats, year, orioles, pitching, season, runs, throw, ball, sunday, kimbrough, score, week, pittsburgh
SPEAKERS
Luke Jones, Nestor J. Aparicio
Nestor J. Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home we are W n s t Jasper Baltimore. Baltimore positive we’re gonna be doing the Maryland crabcake Tour presented by the Maryland lottery conjunction with Liberty pure and Jiffy Lube. twice this week we’re gonna be Costas on Tuesday from 11 until two I’ve got some confirmed guests. We’re gonna be talking about key brewing over there. We’re going to be talking about life on the peninsula. We’re also gonna be talking about the baseball season. Orioles play at two o’clock against the Red Sox. Hope to see you out for that. Also on Friday, Luke will be joining us at Bally’s will be live and families from two of the five first time we’re going to do this this season. We’re going to do it each and every Friday that the Orioles are home so if you are making a Friday Oreo homeplan plan to join us at the new fate Lee’s election and market stop by say hello take selfie have a crab cake. It’ll be delicious. Also a good selfie mirror lottery scratch off. I’ll have the PacMan scratch offs by Friday. What Jones joins us now after you and I’ve had some really crappy weekends in Pittsburgh, right with bad weather. You know, warm beer, you know? I look I go back to 79. With this and interleague placed a little weird that we actually play up there a little more often than maybe we used to play up there, which is once a decade or whatever. Once we did, you know, we talk cold weather we talk all you want bats, throwing the ball around kicking the ball around, you know, created for a sloppy weekend. And it is amazing how fans, baseball fans specifically they sit around and they pine all winter, lose a couple of games and everybody’s freaking out. And everybody’s Norfolk’s got to come up now and we got to get rid of everybody, we can half into the season Look, they’re not undefeated. Imagine that.
8
Luke Jones 01:41
Now they’re not undefeated, and there’s nothing to press the panic button over at the same time, they got swinging the bats better. I mean, I remember back to opening day, and you were almost dismissive about the idea that, you know, they’re just gonna score a lot of runs, they’re gonna hit the ball this year. And I didn’t disagree with you. But since those first two games where they scored a total of what 24 runs, they’ve scored 23 over their last seven since then it’s not good enough. I mean, it’s just not. And the juxtaposition of that with what we are seeing at Norfolk right now, which is incredible. Some of the numbers are video game type numbers, that the league
Nestor J. Aparicio 02:19
numbers when I looked at it, I mean,
Luke Jones 02:21
Heston curse that already has, he has like 26 RBIs already, or something like that. I mean, it’s crazy. It’s like Chris Davis,
Nestor J. Aparicio 02:27
8they’re gonna call him up may 5, and he’s gonna lead the league and RBIs to the All Star game.
Luke Jones 02:33
I don’t know about that. But, but this does speak to the talent, they have a triple way. And I think while certainly I’m not of the mindset to start making changes right now, although certainly, you know, if you want to tell me, you want to bring up Jackson holiday, I’ll listen to that. But it speaks to the overall level agent
Nestor J. Aparicio 02:51
would agree with? Well, you know, that’s the one on two, right? Oh, yeah,
Luke Jones 02:57
it is. But we also we know what’s going on here, and they weren’t going to bring them up the first week of the season when they do that. But the point I’m trying to make is there’s a lot more competition in this organization. And if you’re someone like Austin, Hays or remote areas, or Jorge Mateo, know, guys that aren’t necessarily being viewed as long term mainstays in this organization, at this point in time, you gotta play you got to perform. If not, then we will be having a different conversation in the coming weeks and months. So you know, it. Look there, five and four. It’s nothing to be overly concerned about on that front. I think the big picture concerns for this team are the same that they would have been two weeks ago when we talked about this. We’re still talking about the depth in the starting rotation. We’re talking about the depth in the bullpen missing Felix Batista, wondering if they have enough guys that can miss bats in the back end of the bullpen and we saw a young year Cano work his way into a major a major jam and Gunnar Henderson almost made a spectacular double play to win it but throws the ball away and they lose. But you know, overall, five and four, nothing to panic about but they do have to start swinging the bats better and more specifically, gonna start swinging the bats better against left handed starters. And I know they’ve had an unusual run of lefty starters that they’re they faced here over the first three series of the season, but you’ve got to you’ve got to perform and certainly some of the guys in this lineup that you expect to perform. Okay, but other guys where there’s someone at triple A knocking and waiting for an opportunity. Hey, you gotta get going. I mean, it’s not just a case of Ramona Reyes has a really bad batting average. It’s not hitting the ball hard even Austin Hey, same thing. He’s bad batting average and the exit V Low and all the other peripheral numbers look really bad too. So, you know, it’s it’s a bad start for some guys. That’s, you know if it’s the first week and a half of the season or this sixth week of the season, you know, everyone goes through a slump, everyone’s gonna go through that at some point, but it’s a little more magnified. Early on to your point. After an entire winter of waiting for this to start, it’s almost like we need to retrain our brains every year to say, okay, small sample size, just a few series. Yeah, things could be better, no doubt about it. You kind of look at how the first series win against the angels. Great, right when two out of three first two looked awesome. against Kansas City. They stole a series. I mean, if we’re going to be totally honest about it, you know, to walk off wins to win two out of three. And then you go to Pittsburgh, and, you know, they just think they have to swing the bats better. Yeah. six innings? Right. Yeah, I mean, you know, I mean, you’re talking about the b&o hit, you know, the first four or five innings of some of these games are being in that territory. You know, you look at what happened Saturday, I mean, you can’t swing the bat a little bit better Sunday, they get an outstanding performance from Dean cream Kramer on the heels of their bullpen happened to work on Saturday. And they scored two runs. So I’ll hear it and it wasn’t just the offense to your point, you know, a couple of those runs were unearned on Sunday. But at the same time, I’m looking at the aggregate here, I’m looking at the end result and they’re not swinging the bat. I mean, they’re just not scoring runs. If you take away those first two games of the season, they the offense is really bad since then. So think about the defense. They
8Nestor J. Aparicio 06:25
flashed some leather, and then they’ve kicked the ball around. I mean, they’ve made some great plays. Yeah,
Luke Jones 06:30
yeah, I think the defense overall has been fine. I mean, it’s been but it’s been choppy at a couple points. There’s no doubt I mean, Dean Kramer was guilty of it on Sunday threw away a double play ball, right? And they end up scoring an unearned run as as a result. So you know, you’re gonna have some of that. I don’t expect the other areas of the game to be perfect. But when you’re barely averaging three runs a game over a week’s time. Yeah, I mean, that’s gonna be the big focus. For me, that’s gonna be where you need to get going. And you look at this lineup right now, once you get past the top three or four guys, and you know, Connor Henderson, cool, little bit of a slide here over recently, but he’s gonna be fine. But once you get past those top four or five games in the lineup, it’s been a struggle. And it’s been ugly. I mean, like I said, I mean, Austin, Hays. It’s not just the balls, not finding grass. He’s not hitting it hard, remote area, same thing. It’s not just that the ball isn’t finding grass. He’s not making hard contact. So and you know, it’s those two guys right now. I’m not trying to pick on them. But at the same time, you do have all these players at Norfolk who are doing what they’re doing and putting up numbers, albeit it’s triple A pitching, I get it. But it speaks to the overall level of competition. And there are very few guys on this roster. Even though it is a team that’s coming off a division title, and 101 wins. There are very few guys on this roster that I’m going to look at and say well, they’re on scholarship, whatever it happens, they’re like you just shrug your shoulders right? I mean, so guys need to pick it up. The weather hasn’t been all that cooperative, but the other team has been dealing with that with that as well. So you know what we’ll see what happens is as they go to Fenway Park, and typically Fenway can be a place where your offense can get well. But the Orioles certainly need to be ready to play and go up there and finish this road trip on a high note after a disappointing weekend in Pittsburgh.
Nestor J. Aparicio 08:25
Look, I want to talk bullpen with you because the Kimbrel signing in the offseason, he spent a lot of money very out of out of the norm for the organization, right. I mean, just against against their salary cap. They’ve spent 20% of their cap on it, close it in use on Sunday, because it was the third day in a row. I’m not a guide to run guys out there and have their arms fall off. I mean, we’ve talked for a decade about buckshaw Walter renting Matt Wieters knees, you know, at various points and you’ve mentioned about outfielders. Yeah. 130 games for Austin. 130 days. I mean, Austin Hays might not be on the on the team. You know what I mean? Like you got to hit the ball, because to your point, these aren’t footsteps. These are, you know, the Sasquatch is chasing you at Norfolk at this. At this point. You’re running through the woods, and you’re trying to stay in the big leagues and trying to stay you’re a badass, because if he got pined here, who’s dealing for him? Where do they put him? Do you put a slumping guy he becomes Aaron Hicks, right? He becomes sort of damaged goods at some point with a much less salary than Aaron exact last year. But he becomes that he moves into that category of guy, especially if you’re bringing the dude up. You’re gonna bring a dude up he’s gonna play five days a week is gonna replace him. You’re gonna have a lot less at bats. We Kimbrough. There’s no replacing him, right. They gave him a lot of money. They brought him in. I’m not saying I didn’t think he would be out there on Sunday because I was forewarned about a couple of days and pitches and all of that. But there is a point where you lose a game, when you’re closer doesn’t blow it and you find out that it Last year, as anyone knows, not this year, it’s closer. And we all fear that I mean, even at the All Star game we didn’t. We saw what it was it was a month, month and a half of exceptional. And then he’s got to go back and be a regular reliever and get figure a way to get three outs when he comes in figure a way to throw strikes. And last year is a long time ago in that case, Kimbro the closer situation in your mind, what were you expecting to happen here on the third day you expected, you know, to move into that spot? And yeah, yeah, obviously shut the door. Right.
Luke Jones 10:33
8Yeah, I mean, it’s that simple. But I said the same thing last year. I’ll say the same thing next year. You can’t throw the same two guys at the end of games every especially if you’re playing really close games and you’re not scoring runs like they aren’t at the moment. You’ve got to have multiple guys that can give you meaningful late inning contributions. And you know, Saturday. People can you know, well, why didn’t they use Cano? Well, they use the rest of the bullpen. They wanted to have Cano fresh for Sunday in case they had a safe situation. And they had it and you didn’t get the job done. But you need for you need at least three or four guys that you can really trust in those spots. And yes, you have a de facto closer, right. I mean, last year, it was Felix Batista, it’s going to be Kimble this year, Kimbrough out his absolute best at this stage in his career is not going to be Felix Batista. I mean, the crazy thing is you look at Saturday’s game last year prior to the Batista injury, that’s the kind of game we saw Batista would go to winnings, right? He might pitch the ninth and he might pitch the 10th. I mean, that’s kind of how it would work. And maybe that’s in a big picture sense. Part of the contributing factor for the arts is elbow, but pitchers break. We’re seeing that across the league. We
Nestor J. Aparicio 11:45
could do a whole segment I mean, everybody else in the world’s doing a segment on that. Yeah, baseball falling apart and Otani betting and the Oakland disaster that we’re gonna see in a couple of weeks out there like it’s baseball getting the black guy here this week. I mean, it well deserved if your star player a year into this is betting you know, four and a half million dollars on the game with his with his bookie translator like baseball’s got. We have our own issues. We sit here every day. And I’ve talked to everybody the last week, how do we get people back to the games? How do we get people excited, really excited about yours? excited enough to spend $180 million on players? Right? Let me get all of that. You know, there’s just a lot of things going on with baseball. But this thing where young kids arms are falling off. I mean, it’s not like it hasn’t come to our hometown. We didn’t have a closer on Sunday because of it right? It’s not like he has come to our hometown, where the dude who was our Cy Young candidate last year, and we’re waiting on him to take a knife. So it’s you know, it’s for Little League. It’s for kids, it’s for surgeons to talk about, it’s for everybody to talk about because my dad always told me you can’t throw a curveball to you’re like, 1617 don’t do that. We don’t want kids throwing curveballs,
Luke Jones 12:54
right? Yeah, I mean, I was just seeing over the weekend, and I did not see the source of it. But I saw quote that and again, it’s the internet. So take some balls on that. But you know, it was James Andrews just talking about and I don’t know if it was this
Nestor J. Aparicio 13:08
year, that same quote, yeah.
8Luke Jones 13:11
We think about it so much in terms of Major League pitchers. But the rise in recent years. And again, this isn’t new to 2024. I mean, this is something that’s been happening and it’s been happening more and more for a while now. But the rise in Tommy John surgery for youngsters, you know, and when I say youngsters, I don’t mean 23 year olds, I mean, 14 year olds, 15 year old 16 year olds where we’re talking about some before they even get the high
Nestor J. Aparicio 13:35
school. Yeah, you send your kid by pitching camp when he’s 12 years old, when he’s 15 You’re gonna be sending him to the doctor.
Luke Jones 13:41
Right? Well, well, and I think what we’re seeing his I think there was at least a mindset, and then we’ll get back to you know, I know I’ve kind of changed the subject here. But since since and Felix Batista, his absence is so massive for the Orioles right now, for 2024. And it doesn’t mean they won’t overcome, but it’s a major challenge for them. And that was magnified over the weekend. But I think there was a mindset for the longest time that and we talked about this a little bit with Bradish. And, you know, whatever is going to end up happening there. The idea that you’re not going to just jump to get Tommy John surgery because it’s not a 100% return rate and success rate. But there was a thought that when a pitcher would have Tommy John surgery, long term, they would be okay then Right? You know, assuming you completed the rehab, and you did everything you needed to do and you miss the requisite amount of time, there was a thought that all right, your ligament, you know, reconstructed should be okay. And now what we’re seeing is more and more pitchers having to get Tommy John surgery a second time. And we’re seeing it in some cases where pitchers had it five years ago, and then they’re going under the knife again. And you’re thinking about that timeline. I mean, that’s scary. You know if we’re talking about you ACL reconstruction only lasting five years. And then someone’s having to go under the knife again, go over the history of guys that have had Tommy John surgery multiple times that that’s not a good return rate. That’s not the kind of percentage where you’re feeling good about someone getting back to where they were before. So, you know, I mean, Spencer Striders, the most recent, obviously, the great, great pitcher, you know, great arm for the Atlanta Braves. And, you know, some of these guys were, they didn’t have Tommy John surgery all that long ago, and now they’re having to go under the knife again, potentially, but bringing it back to where we’re talking about with the Orioles and Batista. This, this reinforces the point I was trying to make even more, you need multiple guys because you can’t keep sending the same guys out there who take game in and game out and expect them to hold up and I mean, I think back to last year and I’m not even this isn’t even a suggestion or an accusation that the Orioles overused Felix Batista let me be clear about that. But how many times over the course of the first five months of last season Nestor when Batista would be unavailable? Fans will be saying, you know, and not not all fans, but fans who were maybe a little overzealous to quit very quick to criticize Brandon Hyde, where they’re saying, Why isn’t he thrown Batista? You know, why isn’t police Batista out there? Well, you see these pictures break and this is why when you have an eight man bullpen you need at least four or five of those guys that to give you high leverage and late and and contributions over the course of 162. I think we’re seeing that early on. It really feels like they’re trying to see if Mike Bauman can be one of those guys. We
Nestor J. Aparicio 16:42
8saw that on Saturday. He hasn’t looked up to the day. They brought Fuji into some situations last year when they asked you know, they wouldn’t got up and they had a 15 game lead. They’re like tonight tonight we can blow the two or three times he did in July or August. Right, literally. Yeah.
Luke Jones 16:57
I mean, that’s right. So I mean, part of it is you have to find out now on the flip side, I think Keegan Aiken early on. And again, we’re going off of a little over a week worth of a sample. It’s very, you know, weather guys are pitching really well pitching really poorly, hitting really well hitting really poorly. You know, that’s still very, very, you know, there’s a lot of noise there in terms of what’s real and what’s fake. But kickin Aikens looked good, you know, feels like he stepped into the CNL Perez roll, at least for the time being it has done a good job on the flip side, like Dalman, who had feels like they’re really trying to see if he can be a guy that contributes to them for them in the late innings. It hasn’t gone so well, you know, walking guys and putting putting themselves in peril. So look, we talked about this. Throughout the offseason, we knew as admirable as it was that the Orioles held on the way they did without Batista over the final month last year, doing that for a month as opposed to navigating an entire season. Without a pitcher without a closer a potential multi inning option as Batista could be on occasion. That’s that’s a lot to navigate and it goes beyond Craig Kimbrel or how hard he’s throwing or how well he’s pitching. I mean, that’s a collaborative effort. And it’s why even two months, three months before Batista got hurt last year, we were talking about them still needing more bullpen arms. So, look, I mean, it’s I think it’s very clearly something that Mike Elias probably already know not even probably he knows that they’re going to have to add, and that doesn’t mean it needs to be right now or next week necessarily, but certainly by the trade deadline and getting deeper into the season. You’re going to need another high leverage arm or two. And I think because we you mentioned Chronos specifically, you look at how he profiles overall is he that flame throwing strikeout guy that Batista is or what Craig Kimbrough was for most of his career, and you know, still is to some degree, I mean, he still struck out a lot of people last year is connote that kind of a guy not really he’s more of you know, he’s gonna throw the changeup so he’s helped Miss some bats but that sinker ball ball into the ground Yeah. Which is good most of the time, but when you leave off usually right but but when you get into some positions well, and let’s be clear, I mean, I get it Gunnar Anderson made an error and winning run scored as a result that that wasn’t a routine double play either, though, you know, that was a tough that would have been a spectacular double play. Let’s call it for what it was. Surely you put the ball in his pocket probably but you’re still talking about a tie game. Their point is some guys get on base. If you’re not a pitcher that strikes people out. Yeah, that’s where you’re, you’re at the mercy of the batting average ball balls put in play Gods at some nerdier baseball fans might call it the babip guy Luis Gonzalez. Gods is. Exactly exactly. That’s right. But It’s a truth yeah I mean it’s yeah well so I saw a few people make this comment on Sunday afternoon and I thought it was a fair comment amidst some of the more irrational thoughts but flat out said the Orioles probably need another bullpen arm or two that can miss more bats get more strikeouts you know, how do you get out of jams the best way to do it is to be able to strike people out you know Felix Batista got into jams but then he might strike out the next three guys and leave the bases loaded so you know it’s just but out but I’ll continue to come back I’ll continue to come back and say score two runs on Sunday didn’t Kramer was great and they didn’t score enough runs you know I mean it’s that simple when I get it the defense let down a little bit pitching let down with Cano a little bit late. But where did they let down a lot it was on the offensive side it’s much easier to try to score more than two runs then to expect your defense and your pitching to be perfectly in the game. So you know that’s that’s where it is and nothing to panic over by any stretch of the imagination but at the same time, New York Yankees are off to a heck of a start and you don’t want to be in a position where you’re gonna say give away giving away games but letting some games that you have a chance to win slipping through your fingers as was the case so over the weekend for the Orioles we
Nestor J. Aparicio 21:20
all talked about the soft schedule in the royal showed up with like an actual pitcher and like a world class shortstop and and then we’re like it’s Pittsburgh. Oh, they’re good all of a sudden the Red Sox Yeah, they stick Oh, we gotta go see them there. They play well, the first week and Luke Jones is here I will be accosted zones on Tuesday. Prior to first pitch I two o’clock against the Red Sox. Then on Friday, we’ll be together down a fade leaves in the new Lexington market. You have not been fading these in your life yet. Because you haven’t made that a new family limit a week and a half. All new equipment, all new everything. It’s beautiful. Going to have an all new co host with Luke Jones. We’re going to be doing it live which is all new. To amplify. We’ll be giving away the PacMan scratch offs. I also have the 10 times the cash the leftover from our cup of Super Bowl. The 25th anniversary documentary is coming out a little later on in the month Greg Landry has been hard at work trying to figure out how to make sense of my 40 year media journey now on the air over 32 and a half years and now 25 going on 26 years here at wn st as the narrator says in the 25th anniversary documentary no one listens. everyone hears we must be doing something right around here. We’re gonna continue the baseball conversation as well as some football they still play that around here. We got liars luncheons, we have all sorts of things in addition to an eclipse. We are wn st am 1570, Towson Baltimore. And we never stop talking Baltimore positive
