Happy Monday, Birdland! After a quite inauspicious start to the Toronto series on Friday, the Birds bounced back to take the final two games of the series and hold onto their spot atop the AL East for the time being. They also managed to win game one of Manny Machado’s suspension, which will go through Wednesday’s tilt with San Diego.
Let’s see what everybody is saying about the Birds today…
The Baysox will show some serious Maryland Pride with these special jerseys during the game Sunday, June 26 pic.twitter.com/6nHsDmbuYG
— Bowie Baysox (@BowieBaysox) June 20, 2016
Yowza. ‘Atsa lotta Maryland pride!
Fulfilling a Father’s Day Promise Through Baseball
Written ahead of the Father’s Day weekend, Matt Taylor of Roar from 34, in his weekly MASN column, talks about fulfilling a promise he made to his dad during a health scare a while back. I dare you to read this and 1) not tear up; and 2) not immediately reach for the phone to call your dad and/or kids. Great stuff as always from Matt.
Prospectus Q&A with Buck Showalter
Tim Britton of Baseball Prospectus sat down with Buck for a nice long interview – take some time and read it when you have a few minutes. Don’t miss Buck’s thoughts on teams who say they’re “on a five-year plan.”
David Laurila of FanGraphs talked with Dylan Bundy about life after TJS. Spoiler: it’s not always as smooth as the success of some pitchers leads us to believe it is. Bundy also says that he stopped throwing his “slider,” but here in Birdland we all know that’s code for “cutter.”
Matt Perez of Camden Depot dives into Chris Tillman’s 2016 peripherals to try to find out what’s caused him to get better results than he ever has in his career. Matt predicted some regression when he published this last week, and lo and behold, Sunday was one of Tilly’s rockiest starts this year. He fought through five innings of four-run ball on 99 pitches and still got the win, at least. Here’s to Tillman’s run of good fortune continuing, as the group of starters behind him has been cringe-worthy.
5 Reasons the Orioles Remain the Surprise Leaders of the A.L. East
The Birds have only won more games than any A.L. East team since 2012, but for some reason, the national sites are still always “surprised” when they contend. Funny how that works. R.J. Anderson of CBS Sports runs down five reasons that the O’s are good, reasons to which any Birds fan would likely respond with a simple, “duh.”
