The Monday night Orioles game thread: vs. Rays, 7:05

Mired in the rut in which they currently find themselves, the Orioles certainly need to do something different. Having the players who are already here not suck at scoring runs would be a nice difference. So would having the starting pitchers who are already here not suck.

They're certainly getting a shock to the system tonight, or at least a shock to the lineup. Manny Machado is your starting shortstop - for the first time in his MLB career - and all three catchers are in the same lineup. This seems like the kind of thing that would cause a manager to break out in hives. It could also be a recipe for something awesome or terrible happening by the end of the game.

Speaking of terrible - well, you have Wei-Yin Chen, a fly ball pitcher, so you stick a weird infield defensive alignment and also you have Davis in right field? What is going on here? Are the Orioles trying to figure out if Machado can be a shortstop next year? Ryan Flaherty is also in the lineup and he's played some shortstop before. Fair or not, it gives the impression of chucking darts and seeing where things land.

Oh, and all of this lineup shuffling still pits a strikeout-happy Orioles team against Chris Archer, who, with 217 strikeouts on the season, has racked up more of these than all but three other MLB pitchers. So that should be fun. Or perhaps actually the opposite of fun.