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You know what’s fun? Two Orioles games in the same day. Maybe not as fun is when the second of those games will be on the road and feature almost entirely minor leaguers, some of whom are not in the team’s future picture.
But hey, the afternoon game will be on the radio in Baltimore and the night game will be on MLB Network, so if you want, you can devote a lot of hours today to listening to or watching the Orioles, and that’s not bad at all. Isn’t spring training fun?
First up, the Orioles will be facing the Twins with a lineup that is most of the way there to an Opening Day-looking lineup:
#orioles split squad lineup vs #twins pic.twitter.com/4MngfQRS0S
— Roch Kubatko (@masnRoch) March 2, 2017
That looks like a real dang lineup from 1-7, although when Jonathan Schoop is around I think he’ll maybe bat ahead of Welington Castillo. And if you read my article about the optimum lineup from earlier in the offseason, you know I’d switch Adam Jones and Manny Machado.
Still, I really like Hyun Soo Kim leading off. Get a guy who’s going to be on base for the dinger machines. Here’s hoping Kevin Gausman looks to be on track as he pitches today. Not that it matters for another month.
Remarkably less exciting and less like a real dang lineup is this starting lineup for tonight’s game against the Yankees:
#orioles lineup for tonight pic.twitter.com/KxbiYLglF8
— Roch Kubatko (@masnRoch) March 2, 2017
How do you think it feels to be Caleb Joseph and batting seventh in THAT lineup? But it’ll be a chance for Trey Mancini to flex a little bit and for the two Rule 5 outfielders to try to show off as well. Maybe someone will successfully show off. Or maybe the Orioles will get three hits all day.
As the well-known Baltimore-area lawyer commercial used to say, let’s talk about it.