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A Memorable Sunday in Baltimore But Let's Ax The Manfred Man Ghost Runner & the Sliding Oven Mitt!

The surprising Baltimore Orioles have played many memorable games this season, but their 5-4 11th inning walkoff victory over the Tampa Bay Rays yesterday afternoon (Sun Sep 17) at Camden Yards was truly remarkable.  Even gracious Rays GM Erik Neander admitted afterwards that it was a great game.  

 

The Birds trailed in the bottom of the 8th, 9th and 10th innings. Young budding superstar catcher Adley Rutschman somehow managed to homer on a 101 mph fastball off fearsome Rays closer Pete Fairbanks to cut the lead to 3-2 in the 8th. 

 

Down to their last out in bottom of 9th, journeyman Adam Frazier came through with an opposite field double to send the game into extra innings as  speedy Jorge Mateo, pinch-running for Austin Hays who had singled up the middle, went flying around the bases. The Rays grabbed the lead in top of 10th on two Baltimore chop grounders that scored the ghost runner from second. More on that annoying innovation in a moment.

 

 

In top of 11th, young southpaw D.L. Hall had perhaps his finest moment as an Oriole holding the Rays scoreless. And then Oriole baseball 2023 style won the game in the bottom half. 

 

Ryan O'Hearn, who didn't even make the Orioles out of spring training after 5 pedestrian years with Kansas City, laid down the first sacrifice bunt of his MLB career. O'Hearn has been a godsend to the lineup. making up for the injuries to regular first baseman Ryan Mountcastle.  Also a corner outfielder,

O'Hearn has a chance to finish as the team's only .300 hitter. 

 

How fitting it was that Cedric Mullins, who came up at end of 2018 and has endured more losses than any current Oriole, hit a deep sacrifice fly to score ghost runner Rutschman with the winning run.

 

Now about that ghost runner or Manfred Man, as one wit wth pop music cred calls it.  I was happy to learn that the joint player-management rules committee UNANIMOUSLY voted to not to use it in playoffs.  I ask: Why keep it in regular season?  The whole point of baseball should be earning bases not being given bases. 

 

And while I'm ranting a bit, how about doing away with the oven mitt for base runners? It's an unfair advantage to the runner to augment the hand with five fingers that God gave you.  I might call it is a performance enhancement and we don't like that, do we?  

 

Several minutes of our lives were wasted yesterday during a replay of whether Rays outfielder Josh Lowe was safe or out on a close play at the plate that would have given Tampa a big insurance run in the 9th inning.  Fortunately the Orioles won the challenge, but if Lowe had not been wearing the oven mitt, there would have been no doubt in real time that Adley Rutschman tagged him.

 

With 13 games left, the Orioles are assured a spot in the playoffs for the first time since 2016.  They hold in effect a 3-game lead on Tampa Bay because Birds won season series from Tampa 8-5. The Rays must play 6 with Toronto including the final 3 of regular season in Canada.  The Blue Jays could be a very dangerous team in playoffs and they will have much to play for since they are now leading for the second wild card over Texas with Seattle right behind Texas.  

 

The Orioles face a big hurdle starting tonight (Mon Sep 18) in Houston against the enigmatic defending champion Astros who have been only a .500

team at home this year.  In last week's post, I predicted wrongly that Houston had an advantage playing tailend KC and Oakland. Somehow the Astros managed to lose both series.  Yet the defending world champions are narrowly holding on to first place ahead of Texas and Seattle. 

 

Time will tell how the Orioles end the season and with what kind of momentum they enter the playoffs. I still love the cliche, "Momentum in baseball is the next day's starting pitcher."  Certainly after this past weekend, a split never seemed more sweet because the Rays had won the first 2 games, 4-3 and

7-0.

 

A rare Orioles 4-game losing streak was snapped on Sat night behind 8 shutout innings from highly-touted rookie Grayson Rodriguez, the longest outing of his young career. They took charge early led by rookie Gunnar Henderson's booming bat and won 8-0.  Then came the 5-4 Sunday classic. 

 

Tampa's rout on Fri night behind RHP Zack Eflin happened despite a capacity crowd that came out to honor center fielder Adam Jones who signed a one-day contract so he could retire as an Oriole.  I've never met Adam but he is a refreshing person, a Southern Californian originally signed by Seattle who spent much of his career in Baltimore. 

 

What Adam Jones does and says is worthy of our attention.  One of his great gestures came when Cedric Mullins arrived in Baltimore to take his place in center field. As Adam prepared to run out to right field, he let Cedric lead the team out onto the field.

 

A one-time number draft pick of the Mariners, Jones often cites the advice from the scout that signed him:  "You're only a number one draft pick for one day."   About the rise of the today's Orioles, Jones said this weekend, "There's nothing better than when you go through the mud and then you get out." 

 

That's all for now. By next post, I hope the NL wild card race has at least one team with a record 10 games above .500. The Phillies are pretty much set as number one WC but there is a fierce competition among Diamondbacks, Cubs, Marlins, and Reds with Giants now looking like long shots. 

 

The level of play hasn't been particularly distinguished, but it is exciting fans in the involved cities. NL.   Division winners LA Dodgers and Atlanta Braves have long ago clinched their titles.  The Dodgers swept Seattle on the road to make a statement while somehow the Braves were swept in Miami.

Milwaukee will soon clinch the NL Central ,but they will have to play the last wild card winner - no byes for the Brew Srew. 

 

Happy Autumn to all and always remember:  Take it easy but take it, and stay positive, test negative! 

 

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"The Mute Button On Social Media Is The Best Thing I've Ever Seen" and Other Words of Wisdom From The Orioles' Emerging Winning Culture

The youth, speed, and grit of the 2023 Birds have won me over. No more Woerioles but increasingly Wowrioles. I'm posting on the Monday off-day before they come into Yankee Stadium for three night games against the resurgent Yankees.

There are 115 games left in regular season so a lot can happen, good and bad, but a 31-16 record, to use Phil Rizzuto's term, is not too shabby.

 

RHP Kyle Gibson is at 35 the oldest member of the team and the veteran has become the leader of the pitching staff. 

The title of this post comes from an interview he gave last week to sportswriter Steve Melewski of masnsports.com 

 

In addition to urging his young teammates to avoid the madness of social media, Gibson shared some of the quiet advice he has given rookie teammate Grayson Rodriguez, billed as the best pitching prospect in the majors but who is yet to establish consistency.

 

Among Gibson's words of wisdom: 

**Triple-A hitters face you as an individual. They are not meeting beforehand as a team to help the team win by exposing your weaknesses. In the majors, "Your bad stuff at this level gets exposed."

 

He ended with this sage observation: "Here it's trying to figure out how to limit the damage when you are bad, how to maximize when you are average, and how not to mess it up when you are having a really good day." 

These almost fatalistic comments reminds me of the sub-title to Joe Maddon's fine new book, "The Book of Joe", written with Tom Verducci: "Trying Not To Suck At Baseball and Life." 

 

Gibson was once a number one draft pick himself, in 2009 by the Twins out of the University of Missouri, the alma mater BTW of Max Scherzer who turned pro in 2006.  Gibson doesn't have the stuff or the reputation of a Scherzer, but there is nothing like veteran leadership behind the scenes - it is maybe the key contribution to a winning culture. 

 

Here are some other impressions about the MLB season as we are past the quarter-pole of the regular season.

**The AL East could be the first division ever to finish with every team having a winning record.  Now in the basement, the Blue Jays, losers of 9 out of 10 recent games to Orioles, Yankees, and Red Sox, would be near the top in the AL and NL Central. 

 

Toronto might take solace in the old baseball adage, "You're never as good as you look when you are winning or as bad as you look when you are losing." But pessimists say: "You could be as bad as you look when you are losing."

 

Certainly Vlad Guerrero Jr. will certainly start to hit again and with George Springer and Bo Bichette ahead of him in lineup and Matt Chapman looming below that's an impressive group. Catchers Alejandro Kirk and Danny Jarsen are good bats,

too - Jansen's extra-inning home run against the Yankees won the only game Toronto picked up in this horrendous stretch.

 

(A wonderful detail I heard on an Oriole broadcast some years ago is that Jansen's parents housed retired Oriole star Adam Jones when he was starting out on his career as a Seattle minor leaguer.)  

 

Fans are filling Toronto's Rogers Center for a team that also looks pretty good on the pitching side.  They are dying to forget another hockey collapse in the playoffs that gave life to the old saying" "Toronto is the only city where the Leafs fall in April." (Sorry, couldn't resist a good joke.)   Toronto plays four in Tampa Bay starting tonight and they need a good showing against the top team in the division. 

 

**As for the other MLB teams, Oakland is an embarrassment with only 10 wins after games of April 21. For

Colorado, Kansas City, and White Sox, the playoffs already look out of sight.  At least Kansas City has some promising young players led by shortstop Bobby Witt Jr., drafted 2nd after Adley Rutschman in the 2019 draft. 

 

Speaking of my favorite subject and their star catcher, Adley has now played a full season from late May 2022 to late May 2023. The Birds are 90-60 since his arrival, not a coincidence. 

 

Mets fans will be surprised to learn that new backup catcher James McCann has played very well, too.  His good hitting seasons are probably in the past, but his skilled receving has added another effective piece to this year's team. 

Not enough can be said about the emergence of center fielder Cedric Mullins on both sides of the ball.  More on his achievements in later posts. 

 

On the college scene, Columbia lost to Penn and Princeton in the first-ever four team double elimination Ivy League playoff. At home on Tommy Lasorda Field at Meiklejohn Stadium, Penn pounded its way to the title and will ride a huge winning streak and 33-14 overall record (16-5 in the Ivies) into the regional tourney.  Seedings announced on Memorial Day Monday leading to the mid-June College World Series in Omaha. 

 

After a slow start to season, Rutgers finished strong and will open Big Ten Tournament as #5 seed against #4 Nebraska on Wed May 24 at 2p.  Top-seeded Maryland plays #8 Michigan State at 6p on Tues May 23.  All games will be televised on Big

Ten Network and available on Fox Sports app.  Games will be played in same stadium as the CWS final round. 

 

Finally on the NYC high school scene, the PSAL Triple AAA playoffs - representing the largest schools - open play on Wed afternoon May 24 after 330p.  The final will be on Mon June 12 at Yankee Stadium.  More on that in future blogs.

 

For now, take it easy but take it, and more and more these days, stay positive, test negative.   

 


 

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