Good morning, Camden Chatters.
We’re four days into the Grapefruit League season, still at the point where every team has roughly 10,000 players in camp and the regulars are getting sporadic half-days of work. That’s good, because yesterday’s 10-7 loss to the Braves was not the most sterling pitching performance for the Birds. The O’s used 10 pitchers, of whom you’d probably recognize fewer than half the names in the box score. Someone named Cohen Achen, who is so anonymous that his MLB player profile
includes neither a picture nor a birthday, gave up five runs, including a grand slam by former Oriole Jorge Mateo. Journeyman reliever Enoli Paredes gave up three.
Still, the pitchers you’ve actually heard of mostly did well. Cade Povich worked two scoreless innings, and righty bullpen candidates Rico Garcia and Jose Espada tossed a perfect frame apiece. Keegan Akin wasn’t so sharp, giving up two runs in his inning of work. The important thing is that nobody got hurt and everybody’s got another month to continue working out the kinks.
The Orioles’ starting lineup was mostly full of regulars, though the majority of the offensive production came from bench players, who contributed six of the Birds’ nine hits. Jhonkensy “Big Christmas” Noel had a pair of hits, and even former first-round pick Vance Honeycutt got in on the action by hitting a home run, something he did only five times in 436 minor league PAs last year. For the first time, though, Pete Alonso started a game and did not homer. That’s it, I’m calling it: he’s a bust.
The O’s are back to work today at 1:00 PM with a visit to the Twins in Fort Myers, but for the second straight day, there will be no local TV or radio broadcast of the game. Albert Suárez will start for the Orioles, and we’ll just have to take someone else’s word as to how effective he looks today.
Links
Orioles sign infielder Thairo Estrada to minor league contract – BaltimoreBaseball.com
Based on his .655 OPS for the worst team in baseball last year, Estrada is probably not any kind of a solution to the Orioles’ infield problem. But it doesn’t hurt to stash him at Triple-A as depth.
I don’t see Povich having any real shot of cracking the Opening Day rotation, but don’t rule him out as a reliever. Not having to go multiple times through the lineup would help him a lot, and so could this delicious-sounding new pitch of his.
A few O’s pitching prospects make a nice early impression in Sarasota – Steve Melewski
One thing that made the 2025 Orioles’ rotation so shoddy is that they had almost no legitimate pitching prospects at Triple-A who could provide any big league help. They’re in a much better spot this year, thanks to the trio of Trey Gibson, Levi Wells, and Nestor German.
Puppy palace: Inside the dog-filled house at Orioles spring training – The Baltimore Sun
Jacob Calvin Meyer checks in with one of the more adorable stories from Sarasota.
Craig Albernaz described Cade Povich as “really good” with a “really good” tempo, Keegan Akin as “good,” and Blaze Alexander as a “good” athlete who made “really good” defensive plays. Albernaz may turn out to be a fine manager, but somebody get this man a thesaurus.
Orioles birthdays and history
Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! And happy 70th birthday to the great Eddie Murray, the Orioles legend who spent 13 of his 21 MLB seasons in Baltimore. With the Birds, he was the 1977 AL Rookie of the Year, a seven-time All Star, three-time Gold Glover, two-time Silver Slugger, and 1983 World Series champion. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2003. Enjoy your day, Eddie!
Other former Orioles born on this day are catcher Chance Sisco (31), 1B/OF Chris Parmelee (38), and catcher Gustavo Molina (44).
On this date in 2014, the Orioles signed veteran DH Nelson Cruz to a one-year, $8 million deal. Cruz, despite solid career numbers, had been left untouched on the free agent market until spring training due to his 2013 suspension for involvement in the Biogenesis scandal. The O’s took a gamble and were rewarded with perhaps the best bang-for-the-buck free agent signing in franchise history, as Cruz mashed an MLB-best 40 home runs for the Orioles, leading them to the 2014 AL East title. But the O’s made the mistake of letting him leave in free agency, after which he crushed 204 homers in the next five years.
