The Baltimore Orioles finally won a series, beating the New York Yankees twice at Camden Yards this week. The obvious pitching problems and mostly silent bats continue as the Birds look to take another series from the Kansas City Royals. Luke Jones and Nestor discuss the overall bad look of scuffling Baltimore Orioles.
Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discussed the Orioles’ recent series win over the Yankees, highlighting Felix Bautista’s strong performance and the team’s need to focus on game-by-game improvements. They noted the Orioles’ 12-18 start and the importance of players like Ryan O’Hearn and Cedric Mullins. Jones emphasized the need for better starting pitching and defensive play. They also discussed the lack of communication from team management, particularly Mike Elias, and the need for a clear plan and accountability. The conversation concluded with a look at the upcoming series against the Royals and the importance of winning series to improve the team’s record.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Orioles series win, Yankees, Felix Bautista, starting pitching, bullpen, offensive performance, Mike Elias, Brandon Hyde, player injuries, team morale, fan engagement, Baltimore positive, baseball operations, playoff hopes, roster management.
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Luke Jones
8
Nestor Aparicio 00:02
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore, positive, happy. May to all of you the Orioles remain home this week. We had a great time at Cocos in lauraville on Wednesday. It’s a great guest. Gave away. V Back to the Future, scratch offs had a chance to visit with Jamie Costello, which was fantastic, as well as Senator Cory McRae, my pal Howard Perlow, came over to talk about the Las Vegas party that he throws for Maryland folks. And the SIG came by to try to fix the Orioles, and he had some very pointed words about the drafting of Mike Green for the Raven. So you’ll hear all of that, as well as our crab melt residue. All of that can be found out at Baltimore positive Luke Jones can be found in Oriole Park at Camden Yards. He was there for the defeat of the New York. Yeah, they won a series, Luke. I mean, barely there. Hey, one run victories. I’ll take them. I’ll take them by fractions at this point. But a win, another win, and I don’t know that it washes out what happened on Tuesday night. But, I mean, series wins, a series win is what you wanted on Monday morning. I
Luke Jones 01:09
mean, that’s how you have to view it. At this point, you can’t climb out of a seven games under 500 hole by winning one game by 15 runs, right? I mean, there’s that doesn’t exist. I mean it, it certainly would help your run differential. But hey, they won a series for just a second time all year. They did it against the first place Yankees. They did it with Felix Bautista earning two one run saves and looking really good doing it. Hit 99 miles per hour on Wednesday night. So that was good to see. Look, I mean, they’ve got, they’ve got work to do, and we’ve talked about this, and I think we’re past the point of pointing to one victory, or even one series win, and saying, oh, okay, everything’s fine, but that’s what you need to do, and that’s how you need to approach it. There is no looking at this and saying, well, we need to win 12 straight, because if we do that, then we’ll we’ll be five games over, and Everything’s peachy. You know, that’s not realistic. You need to view it through the lens of, what about tonight’s game? What about this weekend? What about the next three game series? What about the next week of baseball? Right? And you have to be able to compartmentalize as much as you can. And I think that’s been a challenge for this team, even going back to the second half of last year, of not letting things snowball. But I think the difference is at least specifically to Wednesday night. Okay, povidge wasn’t great by any means, and certainly gives up a home run to Aaron judge very early, and you’re thinking, here we go again. But he was at least competitive enough that it gave them a chance. Right the bar is very low from a starting pitching standpoint, we understand that, other than Sagana, there’s not a whole lot of confidence in anyone going out there at the moment. But if you can get into the fourth, fifth, sixth inning, and you’re not down six runs, you haven’t, you haven’t given up eight runs or anything like that. You’ll take that right now and it was good enough, and then the bullpen was mostly good behind him, and Felix Batista slammed the door. And if we’re looking for signs of things that you like about this club, you know, we’ve talked a lot about Mullins and Ryan O’Hearn. We’ve talked about Ramon Arias, who hit a home run on Wednesday night. It was good to see Mount Castle finally hit a home run. But Felix Batista, he’s looking more like himself. That doesn’t mean that he’s going to start throwing two winnings or pitching back to back nights, or three out of four nights just yet. I don’t think we’re going to see that for a while, but when he’s out there, he’s looking sharper and the velocity is ticking up. I think the splits been really good. I mean, Brandon Hyde even said that. Thinks his slider might be better than it was a couple years ago, which that wasn’t a major part of his repertoire at that point. So that’s good to see. It’s good to get a series win against the Yankees. It’s good for them to bounce back after how hideous Tuesday night was to get a win, but they’ve got a lot of work to do. I mean, when you’re 12 and 18 at the end of April, season’s not over, and I’ll continue to stress that I even went through and looked at some of the Orioles historic playoff teams, or teams that were really good 1982 where they took the Brewers down to the last day, they were eight games under 500 in late April, right? So there’s, there’s a very easy comp, right there, which, in today’s system, that 1982 team would have been in the playoffs. You know that with wild cards and
Nestor Aparicio 04:36
what have you? 1980 when they won 100 games, they were five games under 500 the third week of May. So we tend to forget that when teams play better the rest of the year, they have to play better. And the question is, are they capable of that, right? And that’s the big question. I mean, you’re mentioning teams with hall of famers and teams that I grew up with and stuff like that. And, you know, in a different way, the body language I had seen mount Castle smile. This last year, I’m sitting here Cocos, and he smiled, and I’m like, Oh, well, that’s the energy we’re talking about, where we sit here and it’s somnambul, and they get their ass kicked, and whoever the announcers McDonald they have to make excuses or push it the other way in the pregame and the like, the whole presentation of it is morose. When they’re losing, they hit home runs. They’re hitting the the water fountain, and they’re having a good you know, like, that’s what started this thing two years ago for all these guys, was, you know that that energy that comes with winning, high fiving, smiling, getting the fans excited, getting each other excited, being excited to come to the ballpark, feeling you can win. The last two weeks, that’s been absent. It really has been, yeah,
Luke Jones 05:42
8and really for most of the month of April. I mean, it wasn’t, it was very fleeting. There were a couple stretches there where, you know, they won the Cleveland series, and you say, Okay, well, there you go. You’ve won a series. Finally, could check that off. You could exhale about that, and then move forward, and then they didn’t play well after that, right? I mean, where the Reds did what they did the demo on Easter Sunday. Well, when
Nestor Aparicio 06:02
you’re losing, get up 20 runs once a week, you know? And yeah, know your pitching is not good enough. And you go out there, there is a defeatist kind of feeling of we’re not good enough. We can’t be good enough. I feel that way sitting here about their pitching, for sure, but I do feel like they could score 10 runs tonight, 10 runs tomorrow night, and maybe less than that, when I see, I don’t know about curse that. I don’t know about loriano. I you know, I feel like I knew more about westburg, and I feel like I still believe in rushman, to some degree, that there’s going to be point where he hits 400 for a month and just becomes that guy again. Maybe I’m wrong. I always thought that about weeders, too. Yeah. You know, once you see it, you feel like it’s like Batista. I mean, the same with Batista for me, that we sit here and bitch about all that they’ve mismanaged, least it feels like they’re managing him, right? You know? So from that perspective, these are my little observations that I have after three games against the Yankees, yeah, and
Luke Jones 06:53
that’s how you have to approach it. I mean, you’re looking when you’re 12 and 18, you’re looking for signs of things that can help you moving forward. And Batiste does a good example of that. Now we know he’s not pitching back to back days. We know they’re not going to toss them for two innings at a time like they did pre elbow injury. I mean, who knows if we’re ever going to see that element, you know, the back to back days part. Maybe we’ll see that later as we get deeper into the summer and he’s feeling good and he’s further removed, and the Velo looks good, and all the mechanics look good, and all the tracking and data and all that suggests that he’s doing fine. I don’t know if we’ll ever see the Felix Batista that’s going two innings at a time, like he was not every time out, but going out semi regularly and giving them five outs, you know, six outs, pitching the ninth thing, and then it goes to the extra innings on the road, and he’s pitching the 10th inning as well. I mean, you know, so that part of it, you don’t know, but it’s good seeing him pitch like this in one run games. You know, early on they were there. They brought him in a couple times when they had a lead by four. It’s a little bit of a safety net for him, which was good. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 07:59
you don’t want him blowing a game against the Yankees, a one run game at home when you’re not doing well, when you have
8Luke Jones 08:05
to win those right? You have they. They are not in a position now, especially with the start that they’ve gotten off to, they have to win winnable games. Saves are not, I mean, you talk about and that’s not that wouldn’t be a dig on Batista specifically, it’s a dig on just the state of affairs, and knowing that you’re going to have games where you’re you’re starting pitching is not competitive, and you’re going to get blown out. I mean, that’s kind of just where it is right now. You hope that can get a little bit better as the year goes on and, you know, you get f1 back, and you know, you’ll see about some of the other guys that are longer term injuries. But, but, but this is just where it is right now. So when you get competitive enough outings from your starting pitchers, and you know, I’m not sitting here singing the praises of Cape COVID, but it was at least competitive to the point where you can get to your bullpen with the lead, you’ve got to find ways to hold on and and that’s even where I will say with the offense. I mean, they had an opportunity to tack on a little bit more than they did as the game went on. I mean, they had bases loaded, nobody out, and they got one run. You know, that’s generally speaking, when you’re facing this Yankees lineup, that’s not what you want to be doing. So, you know, there’s still, there’s a lot of work to be done with this baseball team.
Nestor Aparicio 09:18
I can speak to that I’m in Coco’s early watching the game, I looked up they had four runs, seven hits and three left on. I’m like, Well, it’s a second inning. They’re still leaving players on, yeah? And, you know, at that point, I’m like, that starts to stack up at the end of the night, and at least there’s hits, you know, I mean, I’m trying to find great spots. I mean, sure, Jackson holiday is a, you know, a major league second baseman, all of a sudden, he said 240 he’s gonna, it feels like he’s gonna be okay. He’s gonna figure it out. Hit 280 at some point, right? I mean, that’s how I look at it. It’s not, he’s not having uncompetitive at bats. And, you know, they curse that at a couple hits too. So, I mean, I’m trying to figure out how to awaken these young guys and make me feel about them, the way westburg made me feel about him, and the way that the. Cows are made you feel better than me. I was I you’re more cowser than I am. I’m not convinced I’m not in love with him as an all star major league baseball player. Yet I’m not
Luke Jones 10:08
ready to say he’s an all star for me. They’ve missed cows or so much just because, not just what he can do with the bat, but he’s a really good defender. It gives you more flexibility in your outfield. I mean, on any given night now, loriano gives you better defense as a corner outfielder than some of their other options, like kerstad and Tyler O’Neal but I think with cows or just gave you more flexibility, it gave you a chance. And this obviously doesn’t this play as much now, because Mullins has been so good, but going into the year, there were a lot of questions about how much Mullins would play, specifically against left handers and cows, ability to play center field give Mullins a day off. So that was my point. You know what?
Nestor Aparicio 10:46
8To your point there, right? If there’s no cows, or at least Mullins is hitting the ball the way you want a cow.
Luke Jones 10:51
Well, look, you prefer having both, but just think about, and we’ve talked about this, and you know, it’s not like Mullins had a great game on Wednesday night. You know, he’s one for five or two strikeouts, but just imagine where they’d be without him, without Ryan O’Hearn doing what he’s done, you know? I mean, oh, Hearn, oh, for two on Wednesday night, but drew two walks. I mean, he has a 292 average and a 378 on base percentage. I mean, he’s slugging well over 500 those two guys have been their best hitters. So you made the point about rushman, and it’s spot on. I mean, there is no one else, and you’re not sending six guys back to the miners, because they’re off to a bad start. I mean, most of these guys are in a position at this point where there’s nothing to accomplish a triple A. Anyway. They’ve all proven they can play a triple A. So what are you really accomplishing there? I mean, what I’d like to see Kobe Mayo up here at some point in the mix. Sure, either that or trade him for a start for a starting pitch, or whatever you’re going to ultimately do with him. But these are the guys that you’re going to sink or swim with. We can talk all we want about the starting pitching. And this is kind of in the crux of my argument with you at various times over the month of April, it’s like, look, the starting pitching is not supposed to be very good. And we can put that on Mike Elias, but on a night by night basis, you can’t, you know it is what it is. But with their offense,
Nestor Aparicio 12:13
with mechanic 222, 28
Luke Jones 12:17
these were your these are your cornerstones. This is your foundation, and if it’s going to be this, then, yeah, they’re not going to go anywhere, and it’s not going to be a good summer, and it’s not going to, heaven forbid, I mean, I mean, forget about 2025 if those guys aren’t as advertised, then the next few years look much more bleak than the way we were thinking about it. So you just have to keep trotting them out there and hoping that they turn things around. And I think they will, for the most part. Now that that being said, is that going to be enough understanding where you’re starting pitching is, I have no idea, and especially knowing that you’re gonna have to play even better the rest of the year because of the fact that you had a 12 and 18 March and April. I mean, that’s, you know, they’re behind the eight ball a little bit. The season’s not over, but at the same time, just because they win one series against the Yankees, no one’s sitting here saying they’re fine either. So we got Dean Kramer going to the Hill Friday that we’re fine. Hopefully Dean Kramer can be better in May than he was in April. And you know, he’s he’s had some seasons, even seasons where he’s ended up being pretty good at the end, where he didn’t get off to a great start. So that’s what you kind of have to lean on. And you know, one thing that I’ll mention, as I alluded to, turning to the month of May, this team schedule does soften up a little bit. And believe me, this is not me at all saying that April schedule was an excuse for how they played, because we all know it wasn’t right, not even close. But if you’re looking for a path for this team to inch its way back up to 500 they play Kansas City, you know, they play Minnesota. They play the Anaheim, you know, the LA angels, they’ve got the Nationals again later this month. So, you know, you look at that and look, when you’re 12 and 18, all those teams are looking at you and saying, Hey, we’ve got a chance against the Orioles, because they’re not playing very well either. But Kansas City has not been great so far this year. Now, they won a couple games in this last series for themselves, but they’ve been mediocre. Minnesota is another team kind of like the Orioles, right? They had a bet that terrible collapse last September, and they haven’t recovered, you know? So, so they’re playing bad baseball as well. I mean, the angels are in last place in the ALS, so these next couple weeks are a chance to to get healthier, doesn’t mean you’re making it all up all at once. Like I said, there’s no singular performance where you can go out there and make up 10 games on the schedule, I mean, but you go out and win two out of three and win two out of three and win two out of three, even if they are by one run, even if the losses end up. Being a little lopsided, even if your run differential still looks lousy, you just got to make up wins however you can. And this, this goes back to how we how we viewed this club when fn went on the IL, you know, after that start in Arizona, where I just said, reality is they’re starting. Pitching is not good enough right now, but they’ve got to find a way to just tread water water and survive for the time being. And you know, they certainly can’t take on any more water when you’re six games under. You don’t want to be looking up two weeks from now and you’re 11 under then, at that point, you’re starting to say, doesn’t feel like this is going to happen. So can you make up a game or two a week in terms of getting closer to 500 and if you look at Memorial Day Three and a half weeks from now, and you’re in a position that you know they’re 500 let’s say at the very least, then want to say you’re fine, but you’re feeling a lot better than you were at the end of the Wake me
8Nestor Aparicio 15:56
up when they get pitching. Sure. Wait. Wake me up when I’m seeing three, four days a week where they’re getting the kind of pitching they’re going to need to be, to be
Luke Jones 16:03
I mean, for me, for me, I I hear what you’re saying, I’m much more wake me up when they start swinging the bats to the eye, to the degree that you’re going to be able to overcome some of the because starting pitching is not going to it’s not going to be great, it’s not going to be good. Maybe it can get to a point, at some point later this year, where it’s, I don’t know, trending on mediocre five innings and survivable. Yeah, you know? And yeah, you’re right in the fifth inning. If they’re losing five to nothing, it’s one thing. If they’re losing five to four, they have got a chance. Or if you’re winning four to three, right? So again, is that, is that fair to to the young core? Probably not, and that’s on Mike Elias, right? And that’s why so many people are ticked off at Mike Elias and and how this team’s built its roster over the last year, few years, fully acknowledging that pitching injuries haven’t helped. And I’m not, not going to completely blame him for all of that, although I certainly would question, you know your training methods, your mechanics, you know how you’re developing, your pitching when you got at least ask. You know, it’s fair to ask, but you know they’ve got to get to the point where they’ve got to do everything else well. And
Nestor Aparicio 17:12
this is not Elias has said anything just so I’m just asking he spoke. I think
Luke Jones 17:16
8the last time he talked was the Cleveland series two weeks ago. You know, I think he needs to get in front of cameras. And you know, whether it’s
Nestor Aparicio 17:23
the plan, dude, that’s why I’m asking. I mean, I don’t say much lately, he’s been getting annihilated on social media all my timeline, because the team’s no good, and I haven’t heard anything from him. I mean, yeah, Brandon Hyde has to come out every night. Nobody likes his quotes. Nobody likes Kramer’s quotes. Nobody likes the quotes of these dower we’re not playing well enough. It’s in our heads all that kind of stuff. Yeah, we’re leadership. Yeah,
Luke Jones 17:47
sure. No, I agree with you. And look in terms of the plan, you know, in quotes, I’m not sure what the plan can be in season, right? Especially at this point, no one’s trading you premiere starting pitching in on May 1 right? So, so some of it is you just have to wear it a little bit for the time being. But I think a recognition of, hey, this is below the bar. Ultimately, I’m in charge of baseball operations. Ultimately, I’m the one who builds the roster. Ultimately, everything the buck stops with me, and we need to be better, and we are going to be better, and we’ve got to figure this out, and everyone’s got to be pulling in the same direction. And you know, you might even get the dreaded vote of confidence for Brandon Hyde and the coaching staff, whether that means anything or not, who knows? But we, we know that typically, even when you make changes, there’s some vote of confidence that comes weeks before that happening, or it’s a case of, it might be Mike Elias saying, Look, Brandon’s getting a lot of heat for this, and that’s not to say that he isn’t part of the responsibility for this, just like the rest of us, but I’m the one that made this roster. I’m the one that projected us to be good enough with with our starting pitching, and that was a miscalculation on my part, and we’ve got to figure this out. And I’m working the phones and looking at our system. I’m scouring the waiver. Why? You know, oh, I mean, I’m giving you
Nestor Aparicio 19:08
write the press please, qualified to be Jennifer grand all at this point you can write the press release form, because it’s not that hard, and the accountability part of it isn’t that hard, right? In relation to two years ago, when things are going well, and this is where Rubenstein gets in, because he and I brought this up earlier after they got their ass kicked the other night. He doesn’t know anything about baseball. I don’t know how engaged he cares to be other than bobbleheads and his fame and giving autographs and taking pictures. I mean, I don’t, I don’t think he’s studying the sport of baseball at 75 to make really good executive decisions here. So I, you know, hearing from him is weird, because we didn’t hear from the other guy for 30 years. Then we heard from Pareto, you know, on Martin Luther King Day, of course, because that’s the only day he’ll come out, um, you know, when they’re doing an honorarium for the African American community, and we could have no questions that day. Um. I mean, just the absurdity of all. I mean, I look at who’s running the country, and I think every morning I get up, and it’s absurd, but the baseball team hasn’t spoken in forever, right? Like Elias got up in front of this seven years ago, pounded sand for four years when they stunk, and then tipped his cap and did his little, you know, pirouettes two years ago as Executive of the Year. And you know, the team’s on the com, and they’re going to be great forever. And how can they mess this up? You know? I mean, this is their leadership at this point. You know, we’re not waiting for Peter to die, we’re not waiting for John to go away. All. They’re waiting on to $600 million figure out how to, how to put a coat of paint on the place. But in the meantime, they’re trying to make money, drive revenue. Katie Rigg Griggs is here. I wrote her her note. You know, they need to sell tickets, and they need to sell enthusiasm, and they need to get people to the ballpark. You know, they need to be heard from. That’s all I’m saying. In the modern era, what Peter did was never good enough, and what John Angelos was capable of was never going to be good enough. I, you know, my bar is high for communication and for grown ups. No, it is. And, yeah, it is. But thank you. Thank you. I’m a brick. Ask around. I’m a brick when you want $35 and, and, and nobody speaks. I mean, this has been going on for 30 years. It’s going on across the street with the football team, okay, you know? So, like, it’s just, there is a messaging part of this, when things go bad, that everybody runs the other direction. That’s all I’m saying, Sure. And so for Elias, he’s got people giving up 20 runs twice in the last two weeks, and he hadn’t been heard from that’s all I’m saying.
8Luke Jones 21:41
Understood, and I agree. And that’s that’s why I brought it up, and that’s why, you know, I acknowledge that. I will also say he, he talks regularly. I mean, over the course of the last five years, once a home stand, you know, maybe, maybe not every single home stand, but most home stands, you’ll hear from him now. Like I said, it’s been Cleveland. That was what two weeks ago. He should probably be talking this weekend, right? I mean, before the team goes back out on the road. So I hear you as it pertains to the product on the field. I don’t know what David Rubenstein is going to say. That’s no but, I mean, this is what, yeah, no question. And he runs baseball ops. I agree with you wholeheartedly. Let me be
Nestor Aparicio 22:23
clear. I hear from Brandon Hyde every night he has the pitching. We know that people and I would be incumbent upon all I
Luke Jones 22:29
would say the same exact thing. If the Ravens were two and seven at the bye week, Eric da Costa should be talking at that point. You know, if they’re if the roster has been extremely flawed, but the ravens are so rarely in that kind of territory. You know, we don’t hear from the general manager during during the season whether we should or not, you know, but just that, the way, their way of doing things, but, yeah, you’ve got to get in front of this and and that’s why I said, even if it’s even this is and fans won’t like this, necessarily, because so many are ticked off, and I understand that. And when fans are ticked off. They want a pound of flesh, right? A lot of people are calling for Brandon Hyde to be fired. So it might be as simple as Mike Goliath saying, Look, this isn’t Brandon Hyde’s fault. And if you go to that clubhouse right now and you ask those 26 guys in there, they still respect their manager and and they still want him to be the guy. Now, we also know that it’s a results driven business, and just because the players feel a certain way about their manager doesn’t mean that the manager is going to have a lifetime contract. Bring back Earl Weaver and Jean mock and Casey Stengel. If they got Charlie Morton and and Kyle Gibson out there pitching, this is what they got. And to be clear, that’s not me. That is not me suggesting that Brandon Hyde should be absolved, because I’m down. I’m down on all of it right now. I’m down on the young core. I’m down on all of it. But Mike Elias, if your thought is you’re not making a managerial change because you feel like this isn’t Brandon Hyde’s fault. I’m the one to put the roster together. It might be to come out and say, Look, Brandon’s getting the heat right now, and that’s not really fair to him. You know, that’s not really fair to the staff. It’s not fair to the players that they’re feeling of all the heat, because I needed to do a better job, but I will do a better job. Brandon will do a better job. The players are going to do a better job. But, you know, so it might be that which, you know, in terms of selling tickets, probably will make fans more ticked in many cases, but you know it, they just got to win games. You know, I agree with your point about getting in front of the media, and I agree with that, but that’s not going to matter either if they don’t start playing better. I had a
Nestor Aparicio 24:34
8guy, Cocos the other night, say to me, Wednesday night, we’re watching the game together at the bar, and I’m not going to out him, because I like him. I like talking baseball with him, but, and he’s a he’s a fan, fan. You know, we grew up in Memorial Stadium because over the games, and he said to me, yeah, I got tickets on Sunday. We’re going with the game. They’re not getting any more of my money. This is what he said to me. And not saying this to me because he listened to the show or trying to rile me up. He’s just sort of like, you know, when, when they’re putting a product in the field, it’s worth paying for. I’m going to pay for and I hear this, and I’m thinking, every bar stole in the cities. I look at Twitter, I look at all of this, and I say to myself, this is where Katie Griggs and David Rubenstein Elias doesn’t care if they make money or if people are in a stands, and I He just cares about the baseball. It’s like, it’s like Eric DeCosta. He just they can’t all be choir boys, so somebody’s got to be in charge of getting in front of it in that way when it’s going bad and it’s going bad, and look, they beat the Yankees two out of three. I can beat Johnny sunshine today. You know? I mean, from that perspective, at least, it didn’t fall further down the hill when the first place Yankees came to town, and nobody got their feelings hurt after Tuesday night. But I am with you. I don’t know the answer is in the bats. I mean, I’m not pushing back on that, but I am pushing back on if you have bad pitching, talk about the bats all day long, you’re not going to win well, and you’re not a serious winner. You’re not a you’re not an October winner with this kind of pitch, sure,
Luke Jones 25:53
sure. But we’re looking at this on a conditional basis, right? I have my Cummings back. I’m very much like you. I have my significant doubts even if their offense performs at the kind of level that we all think slash more. So hope they can do at this point in time, because it’s been so long that they’ve actually performed like that that it’s fair to be skeptical in that regard. But there’s no questioning whether this is good enough as presently constructed, because we’ve seen it’s not. So can you get your offense to a level that feels more in line with what expectations were and what the expectations and perception was of this young core? Can you defend better? You know, Brad and I talked about it after the game. You know, he talked about their defense. You know, their defense, I think on Monday and Wednesday, you know, was was mostly okay. You know, Tuesday night, their defense was terrible, when they fell behind and he talked about that. I mean, they need their defense to be better. They need their base running to be on point. You have to do the other little things as well as possible. You have to score runs. And then we get into the condition that you mentioned, where you say, even if all those other things are good enough, I’m not sure their pitching is going to be good enough in the end. And that’s, I mean, we were talking about that before the season even started. So of course, now, after seeing a team that’s played 400 baseball over the first month plus of the season. Then, yeah, I mean, but they’ve got to get the hitting back to a level where you thought it was going to be, and then we can kind of see what this looks like, right? And you know, they’re not going to win 100 games this year. I mean, I didn’t think they’re going to win 100 games before the season started. And having seen this product for a month. I’m I’m certain about that, but there’s a wide range of winning 100 plus games and still being able to hang around, get your pitching a little bit healthier, hope that you don’t have any more injuries in general. I mean, we’ve talked so much about the pitching, but cows are westburg O’Neal on the IL at the moment. I mean, the the position player injuries have piled up as well. Gary Sanchez, even though he wasn’t doing anything to contribute anyway at this early in the season, but you’ve got to get healthier. Obviously. You have to pitch better, somehow, someway. You know, I don’t know exactly how that’s going to look. I don’t know exactly how that comes to fruition, but, you know, your offense was designed to lead the way. It has not led the way, and it’s why they’re 12 and 18. But it’s a lot of baseball to go. And you can either choose to make that a curse in the sense of, oh my gosh, we have five months of baseball to go, or you can view it as an opportunity. Of, yeah, April sucked. You know, to put it bluntly, it sucked. But they have five months to play better baseball. And if you can play better in the month of May and hang around, you know, get closer to 500 even if you don’t get over the hump just yet, and get into June, and you’re starting to get, you know, you know, you get effluent back. Andrew Kittredge is going to be starting a rehab assignment. He’s a couple weeks away. So that should hopefully fortify your bullpen and give you another late inning high leverage guy. Because, you know, it’s been shaky getting the Batista in the ninth at times, especially here, over the last 10 days or so, even though they haven’t had many chances to get to that point. But you know, you just have to kind of piece work it together, you know, piecemeal, and hope that you, in the end, will have a chance the second half of the season. And the three wild card system is what it is, in the sense that you don’t need to be a 96 win outfit to make the playoffs, and then it’s a matter of, can you get hot? I mean, we talked about this two years ago, the Arizona Diamondbacks didn’t look like a playoff team, let alone a World Series Team Two years ago, and what happened? They got in and they got hot at the right time. Now, if you’re asking me to if I think the Orioles are going to do that in 2025 I’m going to say no, but at the same time, just play. Be better. You know, you gotta win two out of three. Win, two out of three. Win, two out of three. You know, split a four game series. You know, when you’re on the road, you know, just that’s, that’s how you creep back into this. And you look, you look up at the standings suddenly, three weeks from now, and hey, you’re, you’re a game over 500 now, you know, you look how much you’ve made up, even though you haven’t necessarily gone on an eight game winning streak to do it. So, you know that that’s the goal, right? I mean, that’s realistically. I don’t know if you can expect much better than that from this team right now as as they’re constructed. But, you know, get F back, at the very least for your rotation. You know, see what happens with Kyle Bradish later on the year, later in the year, Tyler wells later in the year. I mean, who knows, with Grayson Rodriguez? I mean, he kind of, you know, I at this point until he’s healthy. I mean, you’re just not expecting him to be out there, you know, because it’s just his MO the last few years, unfortunately. But in the meantime, you’ve got, you’ve got to score runs. I mean, it’s just that simple, I mean, and it starts this weekend. You know, they’re going to see, you know, going to see good pitching from the Royals, and a couple lefties. You know, the way it’s set up, Bucha is going to go on Saturday, and they’re going to see Reagan’s on Sunday afternoon, and they’ll see Walker against Kramer to open the series. So two lefties in there, not coming
Nestor Aparicio 31:19
off. You see the playoff
Luke Jones 31:20
team, not a playoff team, but a playoff team that’s not playing great baseball out of the gate, much like the Orioles. Now, they’re not, they haven’t been as bad as the Orioles, but Bobby Whitman, okay? But, oh, sure. I mean, you know, he’s their one, one. He’s playing like a one, one. The Orioles are waiting for their one, hitting 220, yeah, yeah. But, but, but, you know, the Royals, you know, they, they’ve scuffled. I mean, they’re 16 and 15. That’s after winning a couple games here, here, this week in a row. So, you know, we’ll see
8Nestor Aparicio 31:49
pitching. There’s, they’re seeing real pitching this, fair enough. Oh, yeah. I mean, especially Reagan’s. I mean, that’s what, that’s where I was, and they got Chicana going on Saturday, you know, he, he’s the, you know, pray for saying, pray for Sagano. You know, every fifth day he’s all, yeah, around here. It’s funny you
Luke Jones 32:07
mentioned that because, you know, I think you think of that way. Back when I was trying to I was actually thinking about that saying, of like, what would rap, what would rhyme with Sagano, or even slightly rhyme with Sagano that you could say, and I couldn’t come up with anything but, but it’s funny that tomo, yeah, it’s funny that you mentioned spawn insane and pray for rain, because I literally was thinking that two nights ago, sitting at the ballpark where they were down 15 to three. So how do the hot dogs taste when they’re losing 15 they’re not as good. Yeah, they’re just not, just not. I mean, it’s just not so Hey, but nice to win a series. I mean, we’ve only been able to say that twice in over a month, so, you know, but, but as I mentioned, you know, the 73 and 74 Orioles, they were three games under 519 79 you know, 101 wins five games under 500 in April, they had a nine and then they had a nine game winning streak, and they won 15 of 16. I don’t think this team’s going to do that. Their pitching is not capable to do that at the moment, but
Nestor Aparicio 33:07
don’t get me excited about 79 again. Don’t do that to me when you bring 79 this
Luke Jones 33:12
8team is not 1979 there’s no Mike Flanagan or Jim Palmer in that rotation. But you know, if you can just win some series here. Just scratch some series wins any way you can do it, even if it’s ugly, even if the game that you lose is a 10 run loss, right? Just find a way. Because, you know, you’ve got to get back to 500 before we can have any sense of meaningful hope at this point in time, right now. I mean, we’re trying. I’m presenting an argument for the pathway to get back to that point. And it’s, you know, it’s not counting on a 12 game winning streak. It’s counting on trying to win two out of three and then going on the road and trying to win two out of three again. And, you know, it’s, it’s kind of how they operated two years ago, right? I mean, the whole thing was, they never get swept. They never get swept. They never get swept. And they were really good in one run games, and they had the best closer in baseball. And then before you knew it, they were on their way to winning 100 games before Batista hurt his elbow, unfortunately. But you know, it’s not exactly like that, and you don’t have exactly the same version of him, of course. But you know, all these young players, I’ve said it over and over, and I’ll continue to say it other than holiday they’re not that and I emphasize the word that they’re not that young. They’re college drafted players, right? Yeah, so, I mean, Adley rochman is 27 years old. He’s not a young guy. That’s not young and catchers, catcher terms anymore. You get to age 30, as a catcher, they want to move you off for move you to first base or something, if, if your bats worth it. So if your bats worth it, yeah, and that’s, you know, that that’s the you need, these one ones. You need these top 100 prospects, you know, to play like it at the next down here,
Nestor Aparicio 34:52
get my press pass to say to Roger, we stunk for a year. To get you, you know, any games we lost to get you. Luke Jones. Baltimore, Luke, although what’s
Luke Jones 35:00
funny, that was the year that they didn’t stink on purpose to get him. That was the final year of the buck Dan era. So which,
Nestor Aparicio 35:10
man, you’ve been there some ish, I’ve had too many.
8Luke Jones 35:12
I’ve had two memories of that team and the 2010 team over this first month of the season. That was the team that Juan Sam,
Nestor Aparicio 35:19
well, was that the year?
Luke Jones 35:19
Yeah, yeah, that was the year. Remember, it was trembling. Google, weather, one
Nestor Aparicio 35:24
8Sam, well, was really the manager. It was 2000 doing, what? No, I mean, I knew he was, I was on the radio. I got it all, but it was,
Luke Jones 35:29
remember, it was trembly. And they got off to like they were on 120 lost pace for most of that year, until Showalter finally arrived. And I think they went like 34 and 23 over the last two months to have a record that wasn’t utterly embarrassing. But yeah, man, yeah, I’ve had too many memories of of 10 and 2018 watching this team this month, where I’m just like, man, they gotta be better than that, right? I think, I hope. I hope for the next five months. I hope for fans sake, I hope for you know, just because it’s a long summer, otherwise, until you get the football season. So, but, man, you can’t make it all up in one night or one series. But nice to nice to take two or three from the Yankees. You know, regardless of the current state of affairs overall, what are you gonna
Nestor Aparicio 36:17
do with the night off? I mean, no draft tonight, or, Oh, I know NBA. I got you NHL
Luke Jones 36:22
probably, probably catch up on some pro wrestling. You know me, man, I’m sorry. I’ve got, I’ve got the DVR fired up with probably about three wrestling shows that one of them always in season, never an off season for WWE and a Ew,
8Nestor Aparicio 36:36
did not give a week off. There’s no doubt about that. We had a great show over Cocos on Wednesday, we’re going to be at red brick station in White Marsh next Wednesday. Come on out. I do have the Back to the Future scratch. Also, I had a lucky badge of Cocos. Folks were having a good time over there on Wednesday afternoon. Great conversation with Jamie Costello. We talked at length with a man named Howard perlo, who is a local title person, who’s very, very connected to horse racing and and sports, more so than I realized, and there was a big Maryland party for a bunch of business folks here in in Baltimore and all across the state. He joined us, and Marcella made me a crab melt with SIG, and RACI got all of his digs in for the baseball the football side of things, and we did chat about the 45th district with Corey McCray. Senator Cory McCray, well, I always love having on. I heard more about his story. It’s fascinating. I’ve had Corey on many times, and I learned a ton this week. So please check that out through the weekend. All of it will be up at Baltimore. Positive Luke will be at the ballpark. The football team is wherever they are that NFL investigation. I got my eye on that, so I’ll be writing about that over the weekend as well. I am Nestor. He’s Luke. We are W, N, S, T, AM, 1570 and we never stop talking. Baltimore, positive. You.
