Reality: Orioles third basemen have committed 5 errors in the past 7 games.
Perception: Ryan Flaherty has two, Jimmy Paredes has two, and Kelly Johnson has one. Johnson also had one playing second base last night.
The players sure aren’t making it easy for Buck Showalter. As Buck looks to finalize a playoff roster, who do you go with at third? Flaherty was the best defensive option, but the team picked up Paredes and Johnson to hopefully help some offensively too.
Defensively, Flaherty still gets the nod, especially because he can play every position in the field, which is invaluable. Parades gets the nod offensively, since he’s hitting .314 with 4 doubles, 2 home runs, and 2 stolen bases in his 16 games with the Birds.
So in that case, Johnson might get left off the post season roster. Roch Kubatko dives into this discussion on his blog today.
Reality: Some Orioles are hot at the plate, and some are not.
Perception: You want guys playing their best this time of the year, and some are doing just that.
Nelson Cruz is hitting .342 in the last 30 days, and .400 in his last 7 games. Cruz hit .339 in May, .215 in June, .211 in July, .216 in August and .383 so far in September. So he’s right where the team wants him.
A player that no one is talking about is David Lough. In the last 30 days, he is hitting the best of any Orioles player. He’s hitting .379 with an OPS of 1.096. While Lough hit just .197 before the all-star break, he’s hitting .340 since the break with a .547 SLG and .926 OPS. He will be on the post season roster.
Who’s not hot? Caleb Joseph. He’s hitting just .156 since the all-star break, the worst of any Orioles hitter. Joseph is 0 for his last 28 and is just 4-for-48 in September. I would have said he should be the every day catcher in the post season, but unless he turns it around, you just have to give Nick Hundley a chance. He’s hitting .286 in his last 11 games with 2 home runs and 7 RBIs.
So with some players heating up and others cooling off, it’s going to be very interesting to see how Buck shapes the post season roster.
Reality: The 2014 baseball playoffs will be the first playoffs without either the Yankees or Red Sox since 1993.
Perception: Since the last time both New York and Boston were not in the playoffs, those two teams have combined to win eight World Series titles…but not this year.
So that leaves many people to say that the AL East is down this year. But is it really?
Those winning percentages are as of September 24th. But it still proves a point. Just because the Yankees and the Red Sox weren’t good enough to make the playoffs doesn’t mean that the division was down so the Orioles just got lucky.
The Orioles have played really good baseball most of the year. They have dominated the AL East and just about every other division too. Plus, as Ryan Fagan of the Sporting News says, no team has overcome more then the O’s en route to the playoffs this year.
The Orioles are 31 games over .500 with just 3 games to play this season. They are 19 games above .500 against the AL East and 9 games over .500 against the AL West. They are 1 game below .500 against the AL Central, and most likely they will face an AL Central foe in the Tigers in the ALDS.
Frankly, I just can’t wait until Thursday, October 2 to get it started, at Camden Yards!
