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Thursday Thoughts: Davis’ Struggles, Gausman’s Curve, & Silly Fans

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This is a weekly column that dives into eight random thoughts about the Orioles/MLB. Why eight? It’s a nod to Cal Ripken Jr. of course. That, and doing 2,632 of these would be a little overboard. – A.S.

1. It’s everyone’s favorite (or least favorite) topic right now – the Orioles bullpen has been fairly awful to start the season. There’s no way around it. They’ve given up a run in every single game of the season so far. Some of this blame goes to the starting pitching, for sure, but the relief ERA is the second-worst in baseball just ahead of the Minnesota Twins. THAT is bad.

I understand that it’s early and “small sample size” comes into play here, but it’s tough for fans to watch after the bullpen has been such a strength in recent years. Some of the complication comes with the injury to Wesley Wright. It’s not that anyone expected Wright to be a dominant left-handed arm out of the pen, but he was being relied on for some key outs.

The other complication comes from Rule 5 pick Jason Garcia. Buck Showalter has hinted (without actually saying it, obviously) that Garcia’s inclusion in the bullpen has hampered them a bit. You won’t hear Showalter say it. You have to listen very carefully and kind of read in between the lines with his comments. He brings up Garcia’s name every so often as a complication.

With Wright’s injury, T.J. McFarland would likely be up as another lefty in this bullpen right now if it weren’t for Garcia. There are sure to be a lot of moving parts in the bullpen going forward. As I’ll touch on in a moment, the Orioles don’t expect to have Kevin Gausman in a relief role for the entire season. This isn’t a finished product by any means, but it’d be nice to see things sorted out in front of Zach Britton and in a long-relief role soon. It’s also interesting to see Britton get a four-out save. I’m curious if this is something Showalter will decide to try out more if the bridge to Britton isn’t being built properly.

I don’t think it’s ideal, or what Buck wants to do, but in the short term it could help.

2. I’m going to go on yet another Kevin Gausman rant briefly, and it somewhat piggybacks on what I wrote about in “Thought Three” last week. We learned late last week via MASN’s Steve Melewski that Gausman is now throwing a curveball, but we aren’t sure if it’s instead of or in addition to his slider. I’m not opposed to a pitcher working out a new pitch in the bullpen, but is that the end game for Gausman and is this something we really want him doing on the big league roster? I argued last week that Gausman should be in Norfolk’s rotation learning to dominate AAA hitters. Even if he wouldn’t need to use his breaking pitches against that level of hitting, it’s something he could work out and do to get himself into a starting mentality and build up his stamina.

Gausman ST 2015

 

Attempting to take him from starter in the spring, to long reliever that sometimes appears in late relief roles and back to starter isn’t doing anything to help his growth as a pitcher. It’s a gross mismanagement of his potential. Gausman’s Tuesday outing against the Yankees was a bit misleading when you look at the stats. He was actually better than the numbers indicate. There was a weakly hit bloop single that fell in between a few defenders and a ball that glanced off Alejandro De Aza’s glove for an error which helped lead to two runs (one earned) in just 2/3 of an inning.

This doesn’t change the fact that results matter. Gausman doesn’t need to be hitting 100 MPH on the radar gun, but it seems that’s all anyone wants to see right now. I’d rather see him getting outs on a consistent basis.

3. I’m going to get a lot of pushback on this topic, but I at least know I’m already in the minority. It would’ve been nice to have Andrew Miller and Nelson Cruz on the 2015 Orioles, but it’s also not the end of the world that they aren’t. Much has been made early in the season about the departure of these two players.

These are players, by the way, that virtually no one expected to be with the club on Opening Day at the time that they joined the club.

Miller was acquired at the trade deadline last year and was a known “rental” player. Cruz signed a one-year deal during spring training last year, an obvious “make good” contract after his brush up with Biogenesis. Cruz is hitting home runs left and right out in Seattle. That’s wonderful for him. I wish him all the best. Miller is the “closer” or “set-up man” depending on the day for the Yankees, and logged a dominant save against the O’s earlier this week. That’s also wonderful for him.

It’s fun to look back and think about what could’ve been at times. I tend to worry more about what currently is and what will be for the future of the Orioles roster. Maybe I’m just an old curmudgeon who doesn’t want to hear about all the “what ifs,” and that’s fair. The Orioles failed to spend the money on the players to keep them in Baltimore. If they were handing out large contracts to every big-named player in baseball it’d be one thing, but they aren’t giving big money to anyone, whether they are bad players or good ones.

4. We all knew Chris Davis would be a lightning rod of a topic throughout the season, and the first week-plus has lived up to that billing. This is going to be a common theme. It’s a contract season for the first baseman and he’s coming off some obvious “struggles” from a year ago.

Let’s just be honest, the 53 home run benchmark he set for himself in 2013 isn’t going to be reached again. I’d be astonished if it was. I recognize that Davis had a nice night at the dish last night, so a lot of this looks out of place, but he is putting up some dismal contact numbers right now. If this kind of pace keeps up, where you see Davis swinging at virtually anything close, expect to see a 200-strikeout season.

Now, there might be 30 homers mixed in there somewhere, because when he does make contact it tends to go far. The K’s will be there though. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Davis sneak his average above the Mendoza line, but he isn’t coming close to the .286 mark he posted two years ago.

I had a fellow fan ask me if Christian Walker was going to be called up any time soon. If 2016 is “soon,” then sure. Davis is the guy this season. He’s under contract and going to play. The question for me will be if Buck Showalter decides that Davis is more of a five or six-hole hitter rather than a cleanup guy. We’ve seen this in recent days, with Davis sliding down in the order a bit. It’s something to keep an eye on.

5. I didn’t really want to address this, but since everyone is talking about it, I guess I will. I’m going to attempt to be nice about the fan that stood up and turned his back on Alex Rodriguez in “protest” the other night. That fan is a bit of a goof, let’s be honest. I’ll preface this by saying that he paid for his seat and has the right to watch (or not watch) whatever portion of the game he so chooses. He doesn’t have the right to stand up and block the view of those behind him just to make his own little stand.

Oh, and in reference to the home run that Rodriguez hit to Hampden last night:

The guy went absolutely viral and for no reason other than he had an opinion. It’s an opinion, by the way, that most people share. Most people disagree with what A-Rod did and how he disgraced the game, but most people also recognize that he served a penalty for it. It’s similar to the penalty that Chris Davis and Everth Cabrera served for taking substances that were banned by MLB. I am curious if the fan also turned around with his back to the field when those players were at the plate. Did the fan also turn his back for each one of Nelson Cruz’s 40 home runs last season?

You can say Rodriguez is on a different level when it comes to other PED users, but he also served a much different penalty. It’s time to move on, and to do that, we should all sit down and shut up.

6. I wasn’t planning on writing anything about this, but after some lengthy interactions on Twitter last night, I figured I’d address it here. Jim Palmer made a comment on last night’s MASN broadcast after Yankees shortstop Didi Gregorious made an error (that wasn’t actually called an error) on an infield single by Adam Jones.

Palmer compared the defensive lapse to some of those seen by Nationals shortstop Ian Desmond, a fair comparison seeing as Desmond has already piled up six errors this year. This triggered some fans of the DC team to blast Palmer, saying the Orioles broadcasters find any chance they can to bash the Nats. I’m not really going to turn this into an Orioles vs. Nationals debate, because frankly that’s a conversation that could be picked apart in its own piece. I think the only point that needs to be made here is that Jim Palmer, while a fine Hall of Fame pitcher, is also an outstanding broadcaster. When paired with Gary Thorne, the duo completes one of the better broadcasting tandems in baseball today.

I have a unique perspective on this because I watch a lot of baseball. I watch individual team broadcasts from all across the country and have my favorites. No one will top the solo broadcast booth of Vin Scully calling a Dodgers game, but MASN’s paring of Thorne and Palmer are up there. They are top notch, no way around it. It’s time to appreciate them.

7. The news that Nolan Reimold is suing Johns Hopkins Hopsital for negligent medical care following his spinal surgery is very uncomfortable. It’s uncomfortable on a number of different levels, none of which I really feel qualified to discuss, but I’m going to attempt to anyway. I’m not a doctor, and I don’t pretend to play one on television (or on the internet).

Reimold_031915

There are so many different tentacles to this story. Reimold alleges that neurosurgeon Ziya Gokaslan told him he could “engage in strenuous activities” even though he had not fully recovered. He claims that playing caused him further injury because his bones weren’t fused. Like I said, I’m not comfortable with any of this because I don’t want to try to disparage the good doctors at one of the finest hospitals in the world, but if Reimold is correct it’s a horrible case and he deserves to be compensated.

Everyone knows Reimold had (or maybe still has) a ton of potential that was mostly derailed by injury. The jokes fly, even from yours truly at times, and perhaps it’s unfair (no, it’s definitely unfair). But it’s what we do as sports fans. I’ve always rooted for Reimold and I’ve always been disappointed. I continue to root for him in Norfolk, and think he could contribute in Baltimore at some point this season. I’m just hopeful he can remain healthy through it all.

8. I realize that I just spent some time praising Jim Palmer as a broadcaster earlier in this piece, but I’m going to close it by praising him for a different reason. “Cakes” is now an avid Twitter user, and everyone who follows him benefits. I feel like this hasn’t really been stated well enough, but it deserves its own recognition. Jim Palmer is on Twitter, and is pretty good at it. He posts old photos of himself, current photos of himself, interacts with fans, gives his thoughts on games and just generally seems to be having a swell time.

It’s all a little cheesy, but what else would you expect from a 69-year-old who is engaging with the rest of us on social media? It’s fantastic and fun and all the right things. Where else are you going to find gems like this, which Palmer tweeted just before Opening Day last week?

Enjoy it, folks. It’s not every day you get the chance to chat with one of the best players in MLB history.

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