Birds Flying In
Day off today before a very exciting series with Baltimore. The Orioles have a lot of young, exciting talent. Should be a fun weekend of baseball.
Saw this pic today. It’s a pic of the bleachers they added at Candlestick in the mid 90s.
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
Zum, “Blood in the Garden”, story of Knicks in the 90s, good read.
Riley’s record as Coach in Finals, especially after his tenure ended here, um not great.
Thanks! I appreciate the recommendations you post.
I was astounded at that stat that Riley has been involved in 25% of all NBA finals ever, as either player, coach, or executive.
I’m jazzed up to see the Orioles in town.They were one of my favorite teams in the stone ages with Boog Powell,Frank&Brooks Robinson,Belanger,Paul Blair,Elrod Hendricks and that incredible pitcher staff that had four 20 game winners in the same season( that will never happen again) Palmer,McNally,Chellar( total wrong sp?) and Dobson incredible team led by of course one of the best manager imo the fiery always made me laugh with his tirades on umpires,Earl Weaver..
Any way this new Orioles team is exciting and young and have turned the corner with their prospects and now in 2nd place ahead of the Evil Empire Yanks even, so great for them, but slow down your momentum against the Giants this weekend thanks..
Mike Cuellar who they stole from the Astros for Curt Blefary.
Very few people know that Cuellar won a ring with the 1964 Cardinals…
I don’t miss the Earl Weaver-type manager/umpire arguments. Thank goodness for replay challenges. It’s not a perfect system, but I’m glad it’s there.
We need electronic balls and strikes, though. Every ump having their own personal strike zone is not acceptable anymore.
On Tuesday, in the almost empty A’s stadium, before the game, a spectator jumped onto the field, ran around the bases, and then jumped back into the stands. No one cared, and everyone ignored him. Man, that’s bleak stuff.
There’s video of it online.
Well, one of the grounds crew tried to rake him.
Icymi
Also Matos was recently promoted to Sac. If he hits there, possibly look for him by the end of the year.
Very cool to see progress of young pitching, thanks for posting. Very encouraging part of 2023.
Matos definitely someone to keep eye on and from what I’ve read cut the Ks way down as he’s been promoted, always good to see.
Action yesterday Matos 3-5 with couple SBs and did K twice.
Luciano (also 21 like Matos) homered for Richmond, his 5th in 23 games.
So did Vaun Brown his second. Brown is 11-31 and hitting .355 there as 24 yr old coming off injuries to start season.
I saw Vaun Brown in one or two of the televised ST games and I was impressed. 40-40, I thought. The announcers compared him to Pence but he’s bigger and faster and more powerful. Then he hurt his knee. Apparently, both knees have suffered minor injuries over time. Maybe he’s too big for his own good. Meanwhile, Luciano’s back problems haunt.
But those pitchers, andHarrison, are on the way, and Matos may get a shot at CF if Slater and Yaz falter.
Exciting.
Good news on Conforto’s heel,MRI showed no damage just a soreness, he’s Day to Day, probably won’t be in Friday’s LU I’m guessing but he won’t be a heel and end up on IL..
Yeah I could see Matos making a real push soon, he can do it all, and he has a great K to BB ratio I believe? All these prospects that are now advancing to AA are AAA are looking damm good for the future.Another guy a lefty pitcher name Casey Wisienhut (sp?)a 2nd rd pick struck out 7 straight batters for the Emerald team and his K rate is as right their with Harrison so more exciting times ahead hopefully!
Yanks invade Latrine this weekend. Dogs now tied for first as AZ gets walkoff W to sweep Rox.
Rox btw put Bryant back on IL. Gad, what a bust of signing that turning out to be–signed through 2028 7 yrs/$182 mil.
First time to IL this season but 4 th overall since he signed. Slash line this season: .263/.346/.374 with 5 HRs in 214 PAs. Oy for someone playing home games at Kathmandu.
Yanks getting Stanton and Donaldson back from IL just in time for the Dogpile.
Miami scored 42 in the first half. Yikes.
Yeah, will be fun with the O’s in town, they’ve always been a cool team to root for even if not *your team*. Always liked them, except when they let the Mets beat them in ’69, will never forgive them for that, haha. Kat, you’re right about those 4 20-game winners, will never even come close to happening again. Used to love seeing them when they came to Fenway. Remember the last weekend of regular season in ’82, I’d escaped Boston for a nice autumnal weekend on Martha’s Vineyard, bicycling around the island. Sunday’s game was on and O’s had made a last dash trying to catch the Brew Crew; Weaver brought Palmer in from the ‘pen to try to win that last game, but the effort failed and Milwaukee went on to win it and eventually go to the Series. I was rooting hard for the O’s; as good as they were as a team, I just didn’t like that Brewers team, kind of like the Phillies team that lost to Toronto, more like a beer league softball team than a major league baseball team. Nice to see Baltimore be relevant again, hope it’s sustainable in that division…
I figured that was Weaver’s final game since Altobelli took over in ’83 and won the WS, but Weaver was brought back mid-’85 thru ’86 before finally retiring for good.
Right, John, I remember it being someone’s *last* something. I had thought maybe that was the end of Palmer’s career in Baltimore, but no, so you’re right about Weaver. Also remember Weaver laughing on the mound when he took Palmer out when it was clear Milwaukee was going to win the division. “Oh well, it was worth a shot, we had a good run.” Quite the character. And still correct about pitching, defense, and the 3-run HR….
Unrelated to anything, rewatched Life of Brian last night, I’d forgotten some of the small things. Had forgotten about Eric Idle’s character suddenly identifying as a woman and they had to call him Loretta from then on, hilarious. Identity politics way back when. They were often so far ahead of their time…
Man, what a funny movie. The stoning scene never fails to leave me in stitches.
“What’s wrong with saying ‘Jehova’?” “He said it again!” …..
Todays line for Matos:
O’s hat is classic too. Buddy of mine in 80s used to wear the one w/ white in middle and bird.
Don Buford was cool player on those O’s teams and got into 3 WS, winning it 1970. O’s mostly used him OF after he’d been IF with ChiSox before that.
In B/R profile pic he’s wearing all black hat with orange bird and bill, not as cool as other one.
Buford led off the ’69 series with a HR off Seaver who they went on to beat, before incredibly losing 4 straight to the Miracle Mets. I was one of very few people in NY not happy about it.
Not sure if it was the first pitch but heavily favored O’s must’ve thought it was gonna be easy.
Buford was also the first batter I ever saw hit live with the ’65 White Sox at Yankee Stadium…
I remember looking that boxscore up when we talking about Tommy John and you said he pitched in first game you ever saw. June game where Yanks knocked out John early. Phil Linz started at SS.
I became somewhat of a O’s fan when they got Frank Robinson from Cincy. For one thing I just couldn’t believe Cincy let him go(shades of Stoneham). And, it always made me happy for any AL team to stomp the Yanks.
yeah Yanks won 5 pennants in row 1960-64 and stomped everybody at time.
Hey, we were close in ’62. Not that I remember, as I was 1!
NL won WS a couple of times tho
Yanks were pretty broken down by 1964.
Rookie Stottlemyre saved their season…
yes xoot they did. Took Yanks 12 years to get back and they lost 76 to Reds before winning 77/78.
Yeah, wanted the Birds to beat the Pirates as they had beaten us in the 71 playoffs, but nope.
That wasn’t Large Marge was it?
As a kid my parents neighbors down the street would always be watching the Orioles while I was raising havoc with their 3 sons.The Dad originally grew up in Baltimore and a huge O’s fan so I followed them since the 60’s.He also was the block barber 💈 damm parents were to cheap to send me to a regular barber! He had one style “MARINE CREWCUTS” for all the kids in the garage and they were awful 😞
Farhan’s Farm on the move again I like how’s he quickly promoting the future!This farm system is making huge strides this year and with Schmitt,Bailey,Walker etc making the jump fast it’s awesome 👏
Lefty SP pitcher( 22)Carson Whisenhut and Right hand reliever Jose Cruz have been promoted to AA Richmond Squirrels 🐿️
Wishenhut at high A Eugene in 6 outings 25.1 innings,9 hits,8walks,4runs,36 strikeouts!
Yeesh! That’s potential front line starter stuff!
Cruz(23) out of the BP in 13 games.. 18.2 innings 7hits,7 walks,3 earned runs,28 strikeouts.
He was added to the 40man roster as a Rule5 protection in the offseason..
’62’ was the first time I ever felt what a broken heart actually felt like. I was devastated. It took me years to get over that.
1971 was the same for me. I went to game 1 (Perry’s win) and thought we were headed to the World Series. Kingman’s fuckup in game 2, and the rest was awful.
Throw in the 49ers falling to Dallas in 70, 71 and 72 (went to the Staubach comeback game) and you have my crushed childhood dreams in a nutshell right there.
I will forever hate Dallas for those years. I got pretty upset with the 2002 WS but in the end it just made me mad.
Watched game 7 in 6th grade class as Mac lined out to Richardson. thought for sure they’d get back, which um took a while.
Only thing I remember about that Series was all the rain outs, which did affect play including ball Mays lined to Rf for double that died in grass as Maris picked it up. For whatever reason Matty Alou couldn’t score.
I was at game 2, where Robertson smashed 3 dingers en route to a 9-4 clubbing of SF. Game started out positive, then hit the skids and turned into a nightmare. John Cumberland was SF starter, and I have no recollection whatever of that dude. Baseball ref says SF traded him mid 1972. That was always the achilles heel of SF in the ’60s and early ’70s — not enough good starting pitching. Marichal, Perry and pfffft. We left after Robertson ripped his 3rd dinger in the top 9th, so I missed Mays hitting a useless HR in the bottom of the 9th. I never saw Mays hit an HR live, in person…
Trading Bill Hands & Randy Hundley to the Cubs might’ve cost us a pennant or two.
The incredible shittiness of that deal gets lost in the shuffle of the many others..
Pavs posted the LU(not in stately column form, so it’s not worth reposting). No surprises, Conforto’s heel is still sore. But tweeters immediately went mad over Wisely in CF. Matos! Matos! They want Matos. Jeez. The kid just landed in Sac.
Between the Twitiots and the facebook wives, it’s impossible to say anything about the team.
That being said, this team is once again on the precipice of being mediocre. Be nice if they could put together another nice streak of wins. Got Colo and the Cubs after this so time to make some hay.
Crawford and Wisely do not raise the collective WAR. Pen’s better but Cobb and Wood aren’t as good as they were. Temporary? Gotta hope so. Webb tonight. He’s holding together so far. He said the other day that his regular psychotherapy is a big help. Wonder if Joey’s thought about that. Might enhance his trade value. Overall, I’m still a lot more interested in the games than I expected to be.
I think Cobb has only had one bad outing. Which of course could mean he’s due for a couple more.
On the DP Wisely fucked up on Weds, his turn was amazingly quick and smooth. I thought they might call both runners safe.
They like him more than most of the fill ins and are going to make sure they don’t get Connor Joe’ed. He’s probably going to be sent down soon enough, assuming all these “minor” injuries start to clear up. Maybe he does well and has a better run when he returns.
1. LaMonte Wade Jr. (L) 1B
2. J.D. Davis (R) 3B
3. Mike Yastrzemski (L) RF
4. Mitch Haniger (R) LF
5. Blake Sabol (L) DH
6. Casey Schmitt (R) 2B
7. Patrick Bailey (S) C
8. Brandon Crawford (L) SS
9. Brett Wisely (L) CF
P: Logan Webb (R)
Now that’s how it should be presented.
L/R alts. Throwback?
Wisely in CF? The wheels seem to have fallen off w/o Conforto.
I think we are set up to actually give Webby some run support.
Haniger needs a bounce-back game. He was the goat of the last game.
Yep. Plenty of guys LOB.
Wade in the water.
Wade in the Water! Spash hit #100!!!
Leadoff Wade in the Water!
Dodgers scored 6 against the Yankees in the first inning. Yanks might want to wake up a bit.
Walking that wash up POS Hicks was really unfortunate.
Hope Webb can settle in. 2 pitches in a row went about 800 ft though.
Yeah, two bombs elsewhere.
Maybe they’ll stop the game later on and have Wade give a little speech about splash hit 100.
Don’t think it would be as memorable as Lou Gehrig’s speech James
I think we are done scoring.
Maybe not! Yaz out of the coffin.
Terrible no replay showed on Wisely’s start are lack of that he got hosed at the plate..No replay Cmon u have to show the whole base running play?
HR #8 for Wade, who still has 4th best OB in NL at .413. Guys ahead of him are Arraez (hitting .382) Soto and Freeman. Not bad for guy making $1.38 mil this year.
Yes James agree totally with 7:56. stfu and play the game without anymore Nothing Like It pls.
Prediction: Schmitt will take a fastball down the middle in his next AB.
Crawford’s WAR took an uptick there.
The obligatory bomb for Webster. The rooks are ice-cold. No Conforto no offense.
Bailey did get two hits last game and Schmitt was 1-3. But they are in for a cold spell if they don’t learn to lay off crap pitches.
Won’t be seeing JD Davis in the LU tomorrow.Hope they get an MRI done, and nothing broken..
Schmitt’s bat didn’t look cold turning on the 99 mph FB for a double.
Let’s go Conforto!!
Just couldn’t get it done.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Webb gets Cained again.
Sigh, back under .500. Not having a good feeling about this series.
Bautista is a Man among boys.
Jesus 6’8 285lbs and easy 99-103 capabilities strikes out the side actually all 3 relievers were scary good..
Saw a lot of games from those bleachers! Shocked i never broke a leg jumping off to try and get a ball!
Got arrested w/my wife getting stoned under those bleachers. The weasel cops paraded us from the bleachers all the way from around the lower level of the stadium to the RF foul pole and back to the little jail near home plate. Kathy was swearing up a blue streak the whole way.
Gad, Webb sure having different season w/bombs. In previous 4 games 27 innings 3 runs allowed, only 20 hits 0 bombs. Could have been worse than 2 last night couple near misses.
For season, now 9 in 79 innings. 2022 11 all year in 192. 2021 9 in 148.
His K rate is up BB rate down, ERA and WHIP really good. Yet HR rate has doubled from 1.4 to 2.9 What’s up w/that?
I’m blaming Manfred for messing w/ball.
Still and all, his 2.85 ERA should be worth more than a 4-6 record.
Yeah he does Unc. Last year they were best NL at HRs allowed only 132 in 162 games. this year 65 in 57 already, and pitching seems definitely better overall (4th NL for ERA) except for Stripling.