While the O’s gave us very little to get excited about this weekend while sleepwalking through a series loss to the Kansas City Royals, there was a bit of good news in Birdland: Manny Machado looks like he’s more than ready to return.
Playing for single-A Frederick on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, Machado had eight hits in 12 at-bats, including four doubles and a triple, knocked in two, scored five runs, and stole a base.
Sunday alone, Manny went 4-for-4 with two doubles, two RBI, and a walk.
As Pete Gilbert of WBAL pointed out on Twitter, Manny had more extra-base hits than the entire O’s team this weekend:
Yes, against Single A, but Manny Machado had 5 extra base hits this weekend. The Orioles meanwhile had 3.
— Pete Gilbert (@WBALPete) April 28, 2014
Machado served as the designated hitter on Friday night before playing third base the last two days. He’ll DH again today.
Roch Kubatko says the the O’s are giving serious thought to activating Manny as early as Tuesday.
As we’ve discussed before, it wouldn’t be fair to expect Machado to turn a .500 team into a .600+ team immediately upon returning, even if he HAS done something similar in the recent past.
Manny won’t be a cure-all for the O’s, especially since they still won’t be at full-strength when he returns, thanks to Chris Davis hitting the 15-day DL with a strained oblique. However, at the very least, we’ll get to watch Manny Machado play baseball every day again.
That, in itself, is a reason to get excited.
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photo: Craig Landefeld
