Monday Bird Droppings: A winning west coast trip got the Orioles a three game lead

Hello, friends.

The Orioles! They’re fun, aren’t they? They’re also now 57-33 for the 2024 season after beating the Athletics on Sunday afternoon. That 6-3 win is (barring a surprising reversal or later expansion/relocation) the final game that the Orioles will ever play in Oakland. The win finished off a six-game west coast swing for the O’s with a 4-2 record and left them exactly one game below .500 for their history at the Coliseum.

Want some more fun news? The Yankees lost to the Red Sox on Sunday Night Baseball, bumping the Orioles lead in the AL East up to three games. That’s tied for the biggest lead that the O’s have had all season. The Yankees are waiting later this week to try to take some games back on the Orioles in the final series that the teams will play before the All-Star break.

Check out Alex Church’s recap of the game for more of the lovely totals from Sunday. The game also included Heston Kjerstad hitting a three-run homer, All-Star Gunnar Henderson picking up two hits, and performing-better-than-at-least-one-All-Star-reliever Craig Kimbrel notched another save with a scoreless ninth inning.

It’s an off day for the Orioles today, which means that there is absolutely no distraction on offer for anyone who wants to get worked up about the fact that there are only three O’s players who have been named to the All-Star team. The pitchers and reserves were announced on Sunday evening and just one Oriole was named to join Henderson and Adley Rutschman on this year’s AL team. That’s ace starter Corbin Burnes.

If you want to indulge in a little extra MLB gimmick, which they’re hoping to use to acquire e-mail addresses, you can vote for an Orioles ball boy who made a great play earlier this season to get to be present for the game also. Hey, good for him.

Other Burnes news from Sunday is that the Orioles announced their rotation for the coming series against the Cubs and set up Burnes to start Wednesday’s game as his final pre-break outing. They could have had him pitch on regular rest on Tuesday instead, setting him up to pitch again on regular rest on Sunday morning against the Yankees. This would have also probably ruled out Burnes pitching in the All-Star game.

I doubt that’s why the Orioles did things this way. They probably want to do what they can to keep everyone else on as regular of a schedule as possible. Burnes can almost treat the game – assuming he pitches, which he should – as a side session, and the O’s can have him in the top spot as they come out of the break.

Maybe you’d rather see him pitch against the Yankees, which I get. Those games matter and it would be nice to know the Orioles have their best pitcher lined up for that, rather than, you know, guys who aren’t their best.

If a player who has been selected as an AL All-Star is injured between now and the game, there’s still the chance of an Oriole being named as the replacement to the roster. For now, three is what they’ve got, somehow a smaller number than they had on the team a year ago.

Chicago’s NL squad will be in Baltimore for a series that starts tomorrow night, giving the O’s an off day today to rest after coming back from the west. After a win yesterday, the Cubs are 42-49 on the season. The O’s have lost series to the Pirates and Cardinals this season, so hopefully they won’t add another NL Central stinker of a series. Dean Kremer is lined up as tomorrow’s starter for the O’s. As of this writing, the Cubs haven’t named starters for the series.

Around the blogO’sphere

Logic behind the lineups (School of Roch)
There were some lineup decisions that didn’t play to the platoon advantage in the Oakland series. Manager Brandon Hyde offered some quotes about what went into some of those decisions.

With improved command, Chayce McDermott is making case for MLB call-up (The Baltimore Sun)
This one had the misfortune of being published before McDermott issued three walks while failing to complete the first inning in his start over the weekend. Even before that, I don’t think that improved command had been sufficiently proven.

Scouting notes on some Delmarva Shorebirds (The Athletic)
Keith Law recently took in a game between the Orioles and Rangers Low-A affiliates and came away with some nice things to say about Leandro Arias and Thomas Sosa.

This Bowie reliever is excelling, yet flying a bit under the radar (Steve Melewski)
The radar is definitely not tuned to think much about 26-year-old relievers at Double-A. Heid’s 1.11 ERA and 0.885 WHIP in 40.2 innings are enough for me to feel that he is worth getting a shot at Triple-A.

Birthdays and Orioles anniversaries

Today in 2011, future vandal David Ortiz initiated a bench-clearing brawl by charging the mound after weakly popping out. Kevin Gregg attempted to punch Ortiz as the Red Sock raged towards him, but as was typically the case for Gregg, he did not hit his target.

There are a few former Orioles who were born on this day. They are: 2006 five-game catcher Danny Ardoin, 1997 outfielder Jerome Walton, and 1960 outfielder John Powers. Ardoin’s son, Silas, was drafted by the O’s last year and has spent this year playing for Double-A Bowie.

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday to you! Your birthday buddies for today include: Coca-Cola inventor John Pemberton (1831), pharmaceutical businessman Eli Lilly (1838), Zeppelin inventor Ferdinand von Zeppelin (1838), oil tycoon John Rockefeller (1839), psychiatrist/author Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1926), chef Wolfgang Puck (1949), actor Kevin Bacon (1958), and actress Maya Hawke (1998).

On this day in history…

In 1709, a Russian force led by their tsar Peter I defeated Swedes under King Charles XII in the Battle of Poltava, a victory that effectively swapped Sweden’s and Russia’s places in the geopolitical pecking order permanently, with Russia ascending as the great power of northern Europe.

In 1853, the Perry Expedition arrived in Edo Bay of Japan, with the goal of opening Japanese markets for American trade using a combination of diplomacy and military threats.

In 1932, the stock market reached the lowest point that it would see during the Great Depression, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average hitting 41.22. The average closed last week at 39,375.87.

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And that’s the way it is in Birdland on July 8. Have a safe Monday.