Hyde’s Head-Scratchers, Grayson’s Injury Cast Ominous Shadow

After the Orioles bounced back in impressive fashion to split the four-game series against the Guards, then took a well-earned day off, it was supposed to be a good chance to extend the winning streak to three games against a Toronto team that sold at the deadline and is basically mailing it in.

Instead, leaving one historic house of horrors in Cleveland for another in Toronto produced the kind of results to which we’ve, unfortunately, come to be far too accustomed north of the border.

First things first, the terrible and ominous news about Grayson Rodriguez. Just moments before the game started, the Birds’ #2 was scratched, and Albert Suarez was called upon to be the spot starter. There was some video going around on social media that gave Birdland some hope that, perhaps, just maybe, Rodriguez was simply feeling a bit under the weather. We crossed our fingers that this was a sickness of some temporary sort, not an injury.

Those hopes were dashed after a few innings, when the team announced that Rodriguez was suffering from some lat teres discomfort. While not as disastrous as elbow pain, if you remember back to 2022, it was a lat injury that delayed Rodriguez’s MLB debut for several months.

A look at this thread by Avi Miller, detailing the fates of MLB pitchers who’ve recently had similar issues, is not for the faint of heart.

Recent pitcher lat strains in 2024:#Yankees Clarke Schmidt (injured May 26, still no return)#Yankees Ian Hamilton (injured June 16, still no return)#Reds Emilio Pagán (injured June 8, still no return)#Dodgers Michael Grove (injured June 16, still no return)

— Avi Miller 🟦 (@AviMiIIer) August 7, 2024

Rodriguez was sent back to Baltimore for more testing. While we always hope for the best, barring a near-miracle, it seems quite unlikely that we’ll see G-Rod again any time soon. So there goes the team’s number two starter, just days after they lost their All-Star infielder and in a season where they’ve also seen two other key members of their rotation and another versatile arm lost for the year with elbow injuries. And of course it happened after the trade deadline had passed.

Just an utter disaster.

Moving on to the game itself, things didn’t get any better for those of us cheering on the orange and black. Facing Chris Bassitt, a guy they beat around mercilessly last Tuesday (4.0 IP, 9 H, 5 ER), and coming off back-to-back 15-hit performances, the O’s were hitless until Jackson Holliday‘s solo home run in the sixth inning. It was Holliday’s second straight game with a homer, and his third since being recalled again on July 31. He’d posted two hits in back-to-back games leading up to last night, and looked poised for another such performance. The kid is HOT.

Hold that thought.

Thanks to Suarez’s yeoman’s work to hold Toronto scoreless through five, the Birds were up 1-0. A five-inning scoreless spot start? You take that every time. Nobody had any issue with Brandon Hyde‘s decision to go to Burch Smith in the sixth.

Unfortunately, that’s where Hyde’s logical thought decided to check out for the evening.

Smith struck out George Springer, then induced a groundout from Joey Loperfido. He then allowed a single to Vladdy Jr., who remains one of the hottest hitters in the game, extending his hitting streak to 18 games last night. No shame in that.

But here comes Hyde, doing his favorite thing: running out of the dugout to the mound. After 12 pitches, Smith was removed in favor of Gregory Soto. Why? Well, because there was a left-handed batter coming up, you see. And Soto throws with his left hand. Easy peezy!

Never mind that Soto has been a train wreck in his first two appearances since coming over from Philly.

Well, make that his first THREE appearances. Soto fell behind the lefty he was brought in to retire, Spencer Horwitz, 3-0, and gave up a single. Soto, a LOOGY, was then forced to face a righty, Alejandro Kirk. Rather than intentionally walking him or pitching around him, Hyde let Soto go after Kirk, who predictably deposited the ball in the left field seats, giving the Jays a 3-1 lead.

Soto, of course, was still required to face another batter. He allowed a double to another lefty, this time Daulton Varsho.

Get him out of there, Brandon!

Nope, nobody was warm behind Soto. So you brought in a guy who’s been nothing but an arsonist for you thus far, in a 1-0 game, with no backup plan if he once again sets everything on fire. Great work, great work.

Proving that he does, in fact, know that you’re allowed to do this, Hyde had Soto IBB righty Ernie Clement (LOL). The lefty he chose to face instead, Addison Barger, of course, doubled. Now it’s 5-1 Toronto.

If you MUST play the damn matchup game in that inning, instead of just letting Smith try to get the third out, then Cionel Perez should have been the move. Not Soto. Personally, I’d have preferred he just leave Burch in, perhaps even pitching around Horwitz and going after Kirk.

We can also get into the fact that Soto is on the roster at all over Keegan Akin, and direct our ire to the Warehouse and Mike Elias. Akin, despite a few blowups of his own, has been pretty reliable. Now, we can all think of a few times where he was brought in to get a lefty out and failed miserably, but at least he’s done it. Soto, for the O’s? The guy has now allowed eight earned runs while recording FOUR outs, a 54.00 ERA.

But hey, he’s left-handed.

Alas, Hyde seemed determined to make us all forget about that particular brain fart later on, with some of the most asinine maneuvering you’re likely to ever see from a major league manager.

Two innings later, in the top of the eighth, Adley Rutschman led off with a walk. Ryan Mountcastle singled, and Eloy Jimenez followed with a scorcher of his own.

Bases loaded with Birdies, no outs. With Holliday coming to the plate looking for his second grand slam against the Jays in less than a week, Bassitt was removed for lefty Genesis Cabrera.

I don’t think Toronto manager John Schneider is a very good skipper. He wasn’t playing 3D chess here. His starter was clearly out of gas, and he brought in a good lefty reliever, knowing two of the next three batters were left-handed, though they were both also scorching hot. There’s no way Schneider, in his wildest dreams, could have predicted what Big Brain Brandon would do next.

Nor could any of us, even those of us who’ve grown most exasperated with Hyde’s insistence on platoon splits above all else.

First, let’s talk about Cabrera’s numbers. Lefties hit .236/.317/.500 off him this year. Righties .284/.370/.392. So, nothing that screams “GET THE RIGHTIES IN THERE!” by any means.

Brandon Hyde, though, can’t help himself. He did it. He removed Jackson Holliday – who’d already homered that night, who’s hitting everything he touches over 100 MPH since coming back up, who just hit a grand slam against this same team days ago, who’s getting comfortable and if nothing else had EARNED the chance to take that AB – for Austin Slater.

Austin Slater.

Slater is an innocent bystander in this conversation. To his credit, he worked a walk, kept the line moving, and earned an RBI. Good on him, and we thank him for his service.

But he never should have been batting there. Why was he up? Let’s ask Braindead Brandon.

Brandon Hyde: "…went with Austin [Slater] who's been really good against lefties this year."

Austin Slater this year against lefties:

.193/.300/.205 (.505 OPS in 100 PAs) pic.twitter.com/l78RrBmyct

— Avi Miller 🟦 (@AviMiIIer) August 7, 2024

So, he’s either lying, or doesn’t know the numbers.

As for Slater, he SHOULD, however, have been batting next! The nine spot was up, in the form of Ramon Urias. Urias is a reverse splits guy (.196 vs LHP, .254 vs RHP), and the team has – seemingly reluctantly – acknowledged as much.

However, just like earlier, when no reliever was up behind Soto, Hyde backed himself into a corner. Since he’d pinch hit for Holliday, Urias had to go to second base. There was nobody else on the bench to man the position.

Urias predictably struck out on three pitches.

With Urias now needing to slide to second base, Coby Mayo would be the third baseman when the O’s again took the field. Still, we certainly couldn’t have predicted that Mayo, who remains hitless in his short MLB career (he’ll be fine) would be grabbing a bat immediately to pinch hit for Colton Cowser!

That’s exactly what happened though. Cowser, whose 17-game hitting streak was on the line, was denied the chance to continue his streak, with one out and the bases loaded in a 5-2 game. Cowser, a rookie of the year favorite, was seven for his last 19 against lefties. Yet Hyde would rather go with the hitless rookie because PLATOOOOOOON.

(An aside here: Cowser was visibly uncomfortable swinging in his previous AB. Ben and Kevin talked about it on the broadcast. If he was still in pain, or re-aggravated something on deck, then fine. But in Hyde’s words in the above clip, he “took a shot there with Mayo.” That’s…not a spot to simply, “take a shot.” We’ll see if Cowser is in the lineup tonight. I certainly don’t want him to be hurt, but if he is, that’s the only way any of this makes any damn sense.)

Mayo, despite owning the platoon advantage (crazy, I know!), struck out. Anthony Santander then grounded out, ending the threat and dooming the Birds to the loss.

Jacob Calvin Meyer of The Baltimore Sun tweeted that Hyde’s pinch-hitting decisions over the weekend were superb, and that we need to acknowledge that. However, pinch hitting regulars who just happened to be out of the lineup is not the same as pinch hitting someone like Slater and a rookie without a single hit to his name yet.

Pinch hitting Adley, O'Hearn, and Mounty is not the same as pinch hitting Austin Slater and a guy with 0 MLB hits!

Not to mention the hottest guys in the lineup were swapped out.https://t.co/1Ce9MYUku7

— Eutaw Street Report (@EutawStReport) August 7, 2024

Even folks I’ve seen vehemently defending Hyde for years seemed completely dumbstruck with the Skipper’s decisions in that eighth inning.

To those fellow O’s fans, I say: welcome to the party. I’ve kept your seat warm.

Without getting too deep into all of it, I’ll just say that I’ve resigned myself to the fact that we’re stuck with Hyde. He isn’t going anywhere any time soon. So I’ve just kept hoping and hoping that he would learn from his mistakes and stop making the same blunders time and again.

After last night, I can only conclude that he’s actually getting worse, not better. It’s like he gives no consideration to the fact that these are human beings playing the game, not simply robots that happen to throw or hit with a certain hand or from a particular side of the plate. You don’t think Holliday and Cowser were raising their eyebrows at each other in the dugout in that inning? Even if the organizational philosophy is clearly to play the platoon matchups as often as possible, I have to think Hyde is given enough freedom to assess each situation as it arises.

Let Holliday take the at-bat. As stated, he’s earned it. Pinch hit Slater for Urias. Let Cowser hit. Just play the best players sometimes. Crazy concept.

Between the Rodriguez injury and *waves arms* whatever that all was from the manager, the good vibes we thought had returned on the way out of Cleveland quickly dissipated.

We await news on Grayson, but it’s hard to be optimistic. We await signs of improvement from our Manager of the Year (lol), but they also seem elusive.

I’ll leave you with this small reminder, from 2023 ALDS Game 1:

https://t.co/AHtkuXk4QG pic.twitter.com/n49KmSlD3N

— Eutaw Street Report (@EutawStReport) August 7, 2024