REALITY: Jonathan Schoop is still in AAA-Norfolk.
Schoop could be activated tomorrow or go to Norfolk
— Roch Kubatko (@masnRoch) June 28, 2015
PERCEPTION: I’m not sure there is a better front office at manipulating a roster than Dan Duquette and Buck Showalter. As I said last week in Perception is Reality, the Orioles have six outfielders, and sooner or later one of them is going to have to go. But right now, each of those guys has turned it up a notch, and they are playing really well.
Buck and Dan have a lot to figure out. By keeping Schoop on the DL in Norfolk for as long as they are allowed, they get more time to make a tough decision, or work out a much needed trade. If they can’t work out a trade, someone will have to be Designated for Assignment and the Orioles will lose that player and receive nothing in return. So the team is looking to hold-off on a decision as long as possible while they look for a trade partner.
REALITY: Chris Davis has played a few games in RF while Chris Parmelee has played those games at 1B, including both games of Sunday’s doubleheader.
PERCEPTION: Speaking of looking for a trade partner, I have found it very interesting that the Birds have put Davis in the outfield and Parmelee at first. Are they trying to showcase them for teams that might be interested? Does Davis become more valuable as an outfielder? Does Parmelee become more interesting to teams as a first baseman? I guess we will have to wait and see.
REALITY: The Orioles are in 1st place in the AL East.
PERCEPTION: The Orioles are 18-5 in their last 23 games. With that, they are now 7 games over .500 and are in first place in the AL East. Every team in the AL East is within 1 game of first place, except the Red Sox (that makes me very happy to type). It’s hard to believe, but just one month ago, many of us were calling for them to blow it up. But the Orioles got healthy and turned things around, just as they did one year ago.
The AL East has four teams with at least 40 wins. No other division has more than two. The AL West and NL East have one each. — Sporting News MLB (@SN_Baseball) June 28, 2015
REALITY: The AL East has four teams with at least 40 wins. No other division has more than two teams with 40 wins. The AL West has only one team with 40 wins.
Editor note: With a Mets’ win yesterday, the NL East now has two teams with 40 wins or more.
PERCEPTION: Remember just a month ago or so when the Yankees were the only team in the AL East above .500 and every one (media and fans) across the nation were screaming about how terrible the AL East was? If I could go through all of my tweets, I would find a few where I said that the AL East was all struggling to get over .500 because they were beating up on each other. It was sort of like the NFL’s AFC North. The Steelers, Bengals, and Ravens tend to beat each other up so no one usually runs away with the division title.
In the first two months of the season, the AL East played a ton of games against each other and just beat each other up, to a point where every team hovered around .500. Now that teams are playing more games outside their division, the AL East is showing how good it really is. Once again, the Orioles, Yankees, Blue Jays, and Rays are better than most teams in the American League. It makes me happy to not include the Red Sox in that list.
