Thursday Bird Droppings: Where Opening Day is two weeks away

Hello, friends.

There are now 14 days to go until Orioles Opening Day. Two weeks from today, there will be real baseball! I hope the weather is a little bit warmer in Baltimore by then. This would not be the most fun weather for sitting and watching a game. The number 14 belonged to Craig Gentry last year. Perhaps he will claim it again. Farther back in Orioles history, it was Mike Bordick who held the number.

The spring training schedule rolls on here on this Thursday. The Orioles are traveling to Cardinals camp this afternoon. As is the unfortunate standard for spring road games, it will not be televised anywhere and will not be on the radio in Baltimore. If you subscribe to the right MLB products, you can listen to a Cardinals broadcast.

The Orioles camp roster is down to 42 players after three cuts made on Wednesday. Joey Rickard was optioned to Triple-A Norfolk, while Ruben Tejada and Jayson Aquino were reassigned to minor league camp. Unlike many of the cuts so far, this does give us a bit of clarity about how the Orioles are leaning for the Opening Day roster.

Rickard wasn’t a favorite to make the team at this point, but he was still in the picture - same with Tejada. Things are pointing up for the aforementioned Gentry, perhaps, and for recently-signed Danny Valencia as well. Whether these developments mean that things are pointing up for the Orioles is something we will all be watching with great interest.

Around the blogO’sphere

Showalter on Davis as DL candidate: “We’re not there yet” (School of Roch)
What was described as a 3-5 day injury on March 3 is still lingering, with Showalter acknowledging that Davis “could get there” as far as needing to go on the DL. When might Davis return? “I wouldn’t put a date on it yet.”

Jonathan Schoop replicating sweet sound in spring in hopes of sustaining success from 2017 (Baltimore Sun)
If you bought into the Jonathan Schoop hype that was happening last spring, there was at least one thing with the 2017 Orioles you weren’t wrong about. Here’s hoping he can do it again!

Buck Showalter confident in Brad Brach (Orioles.com)
That’s what the headline says, and then the sub-headline notes that Mychal Givens and Darren O’Day could both be used as closer in Zach Britton’s absence.

2016 top pick Cody Sedlock is fully healthy at minors camp (Steve Melewski)
Sedlock received a stem cell injection in his flexor tendon and now proclaims that he feels like a new man. It would be good for the Orioles if he is a new pitcher than what he was last year.

Yankees’ Aaron Judge tells Manny Machado: “You’d look good in pinstripes” (Newsday)
The latest reason on the pile of why everyone either does, or should, hate the Yankees. MLB issued a statement to the media last night announcing that the Yankees will speak to Judge about how these comments were not appropriate.

Birthdays and anniversaries

There are a few former Orioles with birthdays today. They are: 2007-08 infielder Freddie Bynum, 1993 part-timer Mike Pagliarulo, and 1993-95/97-2000 designated hitter Harold Baines.

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! Your birthday buddies for today include: Santa Claus inspiration Saint Nicholas (270), 7th President Andrew Jackson (1767), General Foods founder and pavilion namesake Marjorie Merriweather Post (1887), Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933), rapper will.i.am (1975), actress Eva Longoria (1975), and Dunbar’s own NFLer Tavon Austin (1991).

On this day in history...

In 44 BC, Roman dictator Julius Caesar was stabbed by several Roman senators, including Brutus.

In 220 AD, the Chinese warlord and Han dynasty chancellor Cao Cao passed away. Cao Cao was posthumously proclaimed the founder of Wei, one of the Three Kingdoms of this era of Chinese history; his successors were overthrown by their own chancellors, the Sima family, who set up the Jin dynasty - which, incidentally, on this same date sixty years after Cao Cao’s death, received the surrender of Sun Hao of Wu, thus ending the Three Kingdoms era.

In 1917, Russian tsar Nicholas II abdicated his throne, ending the Romanov dynasty after 304 years of rule. This did little to blunt anger at Nicholas, who was killed, along with his family, about four months later.

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And that’s the way it is in Birdland on March 15 - or at least, until something happens later, even if what happens doesn’t count. Have a safe Thursday, and beware the Ides of March!