Lee Lowenfish

Once it became clear that the 2025 Orioles lacked the pitching and any consistency in other aspects of the game, it became inevitable that 31-year-old center fielder

Cedric Mullins would be traded by the July 31 deadline.  After all, he is a free agent after the season and his salaries have gone up through salary arbitration for the past

four seasons and he was likely to want a bigger (but not extravagant) longer free agent contract.  I guess it didn't help when it became known that Mullins recently was voted to the Players Association executive board. The storm clouds for another owners' lockout before the 2027 season are definitely forming.       

It is still a sad day for Oriole fandom because the 13th-round draft pick from Campbell University had emerged as a versatile player, quiet team leader, and fan favorite.. In 2021, he hit 30 homers and stole 30 bases on a bad Oriole team. He had the courage earlier to abandon switch-hitting and even accepted demotion to the minors to get his act together as solely a left-handed hitter. In a personal note, he did make a public admission that he was dealing with Crohn's disease but he kept it low key at a time when teammate Trey Mancini was dealing with a life-threatening cancer.  (Mancini played Triple-A ball this year but has no clear route back to majors.) 

Mullins used his great speed to become a stolen base threat and an often-spectacular fielder.  The analytics geniuses - who have an algorithm for everything and a limited feel for baseball itself - downgraded Mullins' arm and maybe criticized some of his routes to fly balls, but he sure went out with a bang this past weekend with timely hitting and two spectacular catches as the Orioles narrowly missed a 4-game sweep of the first-place Blue Jays.  

Word came just after my ode to Cedric that two more Oriole mainstays, first baseman/outfielder/DH Ryan O'Hearn and first-year-Oriole outfielder Ramon Laureano. had been traded to San Diego.  O'Hearn is a free agent after the season who revived his career in Oriole orange and black and was the team's only representative in the 2025 All-Star Game.  Laureano had a two-year contract and had so many big hits and outfield assists this year that his trade even surprised many analysts.

Last night (Wed July 30), we also said goodbye to infielder Ramon Urias, one of GM's Mike Elias' earliest and best pickups as a Cardinal farmhand. He was a Gold Glove winner at third base and could acquit himself well at any infield position.  He had surprising power, too. And at the Thursday deadline, the Tigers picked up RHP Charlie Morton, the 41-year-old curve ball master who rebounded from a terrible start to 2025 to become a reliable starter again.    

I haven't even mentioned most of the bullpen has been traded and perhaps the saddest news of all came in late July when closer Felix "The Mountain" Bautista suffered a serious shoulder injury, still not fully diagnosed, that could well keep him out for the rest of the season. The only somewhat good news is that starter Kyle Bradish is pitching in minor league games after missing over a year. (I'm happy to report, too, that Isaac Mattson who came from the Angels in the same trade for the now-retired Dylan Bundy has been working well in the Pittsburgh bullpen and with their closer Dave Bednar now traded to Yankees Mattson might get a shot of that role.)  

What shocks the system of this Oriole loyalist for over a half-century is that the Orioles have received no major league ready players but only "prospects," most of whom will likely become "suspects" before too long.  Many of the pitchers seem to be 6' 5" up to 6 8" which likely means they'll take extra time to develop if they ever develop. Attendance was way down in Baltimore for the Toronto series which featured some of the best baseball played by the Orioles all season with O'Hearn and Laureano as well as Mullins contributing mightily.  But the decisions to break up the team and save money were obviously made earlier.     

The only two people that mattered in the decision were "President of Baseball Operations" Mike Elias and new owner David Rubenstein who is finding out in his second full year at the helm that it is not easy being held accountable in an industry that operates in the fishbowl of public passion. Maybe Elias and Rubenstein felt lucky that Arizona outbid them for Corbin Burnes last winter and Burnes now is out through next year with Tommy John surgery. Maybe they felt glad that Toronto outbid them for former Oriole Anthony Santander who has been unproductive and now injured for his new team. I'd like to see him contribute in Toronto before too long. Team is doing fine without him

but another big bat never hurts.

The trick in baseball management is to keep on trying and be willing to spend if you know the makeup of the player and not just what the new-fangled algorithms tell you.

The 2025 Orioles were obviously a flawed team inundated with injuries - even announcer Ben McDonald fell 35 feet out of a tree while deer hunting! - and hampered by underperforming younger players.  I have always understood that evaluating players is the hardest job in baseball but you always need some veteran stability in a successful organization. 

I have no idea where such leadership will be coming from on the Baltimore current roster.  For the rest of the season, as someone who needs to root for someone not simply against a certain historically arrogant team in pinstripes, I'll have a lot of players to root for in different unis: Cedric in Queens, Urias in Houston, venerable Charlie Morton now in the Motor City, and O'Hearn and Laureano in SD where the Padres start August only 3 games behind the EEW (Evil Empire West) Dodgers who were relatively quiet at the trade deadline. 

And here's a shout-out to a couple of new baseball names that have entered the MLB universe: WARMING BERNABEL corner infielder for the Rockies who arrived in Colorado when Ryan McMahon was traded to the Yankees and already has two homers, and RYAN GUSTO, pitcher for the Houston Astros.

Happy August to all and stay positive, test negative & take it easy but take it.     

Since we last met, dear readers, there have been a lot of exciting MLB baseball games. There are too many strikeouts and good team defense is an endangered species so maybe it is not a surprise that nearly 20 teams are close enough to .500 to keep playoff dreams alive.  I'm not even counting the six division leaders in that number: The surprising Blue Jays up by two over the Yankees and 3 over the Red Sox in the AL East; the runaway Tigers who still have a 11-game lead in the AL Central despite being swept by Seattle just before the ASG break; and the always-contending Astros 5 games up over Seattle in the AL West.

In the NL East, the Phillies have only a half-game lead on the Mets; the Cubs are only 1 up on the Brewers in the NL Central with that fierce Midwest rivalry likely to go down to the wire like Mets-Phillies; and in the NL West, the perennially top dog high-spending Dodgers are still in command with the Padres 5 behind and the Giants 6 out.

Sadly, I cannot harbor any hopes for my Orioles. I thought there was a glimmer of hope when the Birds swept the Mets in a doubleheader last Thursday July 10 in Baltimore. But when the Marlins followed the New Yorkers into Baltimore and won the weekend series convincingly, it felt like a crushing blow. 

Both teams entered the series with identical 42-50 records, but the surprising youngsters from Miami demonstrated superior pitching and far more fundamental baseball.  Nothing like having no expectations as compared to the burden of contention that the Birds have carried since their emergence as a 101-team two seasons ago.

To add to the embarrssment of the Sunday Jul 13 11-1 shellacking was a 3-HR 5-hit 6-RBI performance by former Oriole outfielder Kyle Stowers, a second-round pick in 2019 from Stanford.  The Birds brass evidently decided that U of Arkansas's Heston Kjerstad, a top pick in 2020, was a better prospect, but now he is back in the minors and scuffling there too. The only saving grace is that southpaw Trevor Rogers, who they got in the Stowers trade and is only 27, has seemingly emerged as a top-flight lefthanded starter.  I hope he sustains his excellence. 

It looks like newbie Orioles owner David Rubenstein, the honcho from the private equity fund the Carlyle Group who is also an author and moderator discussing books on the Bloomberg TV channel and other places, still has confidence in GM Mike Elias who tore down the 100-loss Orioles teams six years ago and might be doing a lot of trading before the July 31 deadline.  I hope I'm wrong, but it could be that the road back to contention will be a long one for my team. 

I do try to avoid the negativity surrounding my favorite sport.  Bobby Winkles, the great Arizona State baseball coach and less successful pro manager of Angels/A's, once even said, "Half the fun of baseball is laying blame."  So I'm gonna take a different tack now and close with some bouquets.

**To the AL All-Stars who rallied from a 6-0 deficit to tie the Tu July 15 ASG game in the top of the 9th on two doubles and an infield hit despite two great defensive plays by the NL.  The 10th inning Home Run Derby that ended the game with an NL victory got all the attention, but I say there is nothing like an old-fashioned rally with this time situational hitting trumping great defense to warm the heart of an old-fashioned lover of old-fashioned baseball.  

**To Joe Girardi whose commentary on YES cable TV Yankee broadcasts has been insightful and humorous. Recently, after a player hit a weak infield popup to third, Girardi recalled that when he was a rookie with the Cubs and he endured a similar poor excuse for an at-bat, puckish teammate Rick Sutcliffe quipped, "I guess the wind is blowing in from third at Wrigley today, Joe." 

**To roaming Mets broadcaster Steve Gelbs for finding 12-year-old Antonio from Long Island in the crowd at one of last week's Oriole-Met games and telling him that he had won the award to substitute for Gary Cohen for an inning on an upcoming Mets cable TV broadcast. With most of his face smeared with eye black (a player's trend these days),  Antonio's jubilation virtually poured out of my TV set. He also gladly responded to Gelbs' request to give a rendition of his contest-winning call of a Francisco Lindor home run. The big event will happen during the Tu July 22 Mets game on SNY-TV.

**Last but not least, here's a shoutout to the Bonnefont Restaurant at the entrance to Fort Tryon Park at the footsteps of the renowned Cloisters museum in Upper Manhattan. I had a wonderful 4th of July dinner there celebrating my special friend Maria Patterson's birthday.  The ambience and food were excellent and when I complimented a waiter for his colorful shirt, they even had an extra to give me. 

The Bonnefont cafe and main restaurant are open Wed through Sunday for lunch and dinner. The M4 NYC bus takes you virtually to the doorstep of the Cloisters. More info at thebonnefont.com and 212/740-2939

That's all for now - always remember to Take It Easy But Take It! and Stay Positive, Test Negative!