Greetings again, Birdland. The O’s failed to take advantage of their lengthy homestands in May, going just 10-10 during a stretch of 17 of 20 games played at Oriole Park at Camden Yards (9-8 home, 1-2 road). Obviously, that’s just not going to get it done.
Or is it?
Somehow, the O’s are more games below .500 (three) than they are games out of first place (two). The 2015 AL East, ladies and gentlemen!
Now they hit the road for four against the Houston Astros, who will have revenge on their minds after the Birds took two of three from them last week.
Crank up the linkin park:
Wieters’ Return Creates More Questions Than Answers
Mauer with Power (LOL) will return later this week, and Buck Showalter will face some tough decisions…again. I don’t know what Buck is going to do. What I do know is that I spend about zero time saying “I sure can’t wait until Matt Wieters is back.” That job is Caleb Joseph’s and I’m just fine with that. We’ll see what Buck thinks. Our own Andrew Stetka has more in his weekly MASN guest column.
Adam Jones Might Have Been Playing Through Another Injury
In April, Adam Jones was looking like an early AL MVP candidate. In May, he’s gone in the tank just like everybody else on the offense not named Jimmy Paredes (until recently, of course). Jones has missed the last two games with an ankle injury, but Zach Wilt of Baltimore Sports Report wonders if Adam got hurt much earlier in the month, and has just been powering through. An interesting theory, and while I certainly hope AJ isn’t hurt, it would be nice to have something to explain his down month.
In his weekly power rankings, Jonah Keri has the O’s at 18, which, whatever, that sounds about right. The much more interesting part of this article though, is where he talks about Chris Tillman’s regression. Tillman, of course, has been awful in 2015, losing again yesterday after getting beat around by the anemic Tampa Bay Rays offense. Keri wonders if Tillman was just pitching through some very good luck in 2013-4, and if it’s just finally catching up to him. For the record, I disagree with that assessment. To me, Keri’s final point on Tillman (his increase in walks) is the biggest culprit.
Are Infield Shifts Hurting Baseball?
Oh, the shift. Such a divisive thing among baseball fans. I’m on record as saying that while I hate the shift, I don’t want MLB to go so far as to ban it. However, when managers are shifting their defense on guys like Ryan Flaherty and David Lough, I submit that things are getting a bit ridiculous. Domenic Vadala of Birds Watcher thinks managers should sort of agree to stop shifting so much on each other. That’s not realistic, to me – why would they purposely give up an advantage? I’d like to see professional hitters start making teams pay more by hitting against the shift, but that’s obviously easier said than done. I don’t know what the answer is. I’m afraid we might be stuck with the shift (and the accompanying decline in offense league-wide) permanently.
This Day in Orioles History – Nolan Ryan No-Hits the Orioles
Matt Taylor of Roar from 34 recounts Nolan Ryan’s June 1, 1975 no-no against the Birds, his record-tying fourth.
