Sunday afternoon Orioles game thread: at Rangers, 3:05

Well, here we are. As Sunday’s game begins, there are just about 25 hours remaining until the trade deadline. What are the Orioles going to do? I think we know what they’re not going to do. They’re neither likely to acquire someone who matters for the rest of this season nor go all-out and trade Manny Machado.

Will any rumors pop up during today’s game? Or will GM Dan Duquette be going down to the wire with the question of whether he’ll trade Zach Britton or Brad Brach? Teams may want to see Britton pitch a second day in a row, so if the Orioles want to trade him, that may be a necessary condition. Or they might not even consider last night’s three pitches to be enough. Maybe that ship has sailed.

None of which has anything to do with this afternoon’s game, but when I look at the schedule and see that Wade Miley is pitching, I’m sure you can understand the impulse to talk about anything but that game.

Last night’s win felt pretty good. It leaves the Orioles with a 3.4% chance of making the playoffs, per Fangraphs. Three of the six teams ahead of them appear to be selling. But they have to play to a .600 winning percentage or perhaps even better than that for the rest of the way, and even if newly-acquired Jeremy Hellickson displaces one of the struggling trio of Miley, Ubaldo Jimenez, and Chris Tillman, that’s still 40% of O’s games started by those guys.

I don’t have very high hopes, but I would like it if Miley surprised me today. The only thing that might stop Rangers third baseman Adrian Beltre from getting his 3,000th hit today is if Miley can’t throw strikes to him and keeps walking him instead.