Friday Bird Droppings: Where a spot opened up on the Orioles roster

Hello, friends.

There are now 13 days remaining until Orioles Opening Day. That is just Manny Machado days to go until there is real baseball being played. In order to start your day off in the least depressing way possible, don’t think about where Machado will be playing for next year’s Opening Day.

The spring training schedule moves on. The Orioles travel to Mets camp today. As is typical for spring training road games, it is not on television or radio in Baltimore. However, if you subscribe to the right MLB products, you will be able to watch the Mets TV broadcast, so if anything happens, there may be video of it.

There were not any cuts yesterday, so the Orioles camp roster remains at 42 players. There was a development that will affect the Opening Day roster, though, with the news that Mark Trumbo is out 3-4 weeks with a grade 2 quad strain. That’s not a long absence, given that it could mean just 1-2 weeks of the regular season, but there are still a few games to give that playing time to somebody.

Around the blogO’sphere

By his own measurements, Kevin Gausman pleased by spring progress (Baltimore Sun)
We’re into the “Excited articles after Kevin Gausman pitches five shutout innings” part of spring training, which is a bit more interesting than the earlier parts.

Cortes still making his pitch for rotation spot (School of Roch)
The fifth starter competition isn’t settled quite yet, and if the Orioles are really determined to have a lefty in the rotation, it may be Nestor Cortes has an inside track.

Orioles fifth starter competition should last all season (Camden Depot)
This is one of those ideas that MLB teams won’t do because nobody has done it. The Orioles, in particular, probably won’t do it because several of the fifth starter candidates are either out of options or are Rule 5 picks.

O’s top pick DL Hall preps for his first full season of pro ball (Steve Melewski)
One small tidbit here is that Hall had his tonsils removed in January and is a week behind the other minor league pitchers. I bet he snores less.

Showalter on Judge recruiting Machado: “I’m just glad they didn’t catch Manny recruiting Judge” (Baltimore Sun)
I always appreciate the loyalty in Buck Showalter quotes like this, even as I seriously doubt the connection to reality as I observe it.

Top 175 MLB prospects for 2018 (Minor League Ball)
The Orioles have had 2-3 prospects in most everybody’s top 100 prospects list. Our friends over at SB Nation’s Minor League Ball go out to 175, and there are still only three Orioles on the list. Things are better, but they have a way to go.

Birthdays and anniversaries

There are two former Orioles with birthdays today. They are: 1962-63 catcher Hobie Landrith, and the late 1954/60-61 catcher Clint Courtney. Today is Landrith’s 88th birthday, so happy birthday to him.

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! Your birthday buddies for today include: 4th President James Madison (1751), physicist Georg Ohm (1789), comedian/actor Jerry Lewis (1926), MRI inventor Raymond Vahan Damadian (1936), longtime ESPNer Bob Ley (1955), and rapper Flavor Flav (1959).

On this day in history...

In 1802, the Army Corps of Engineers was established, with its initial goal being to found and operate the United States Military Academy at West Point.

In 1916, two cavalry regiments led by General John J. Pershing crossed into Mexico in an attempt to capture the Mexican revolutionary Francisco “Pancho” Villa. This excursion lasted nine months, during which time Villa’s force was defeated but Villa himself escaped.

In 1926, Robert Goddard launched a liquid-fueled rocket at Auburn, Massachusetts, noteworthy because this was the first-ever such rocket launch.

In 1968, a group of American soldiers committed the My Lai Massacre, in which somewhere between 347 and 504 unarmed Vietnamese civilians were killed. The platoon leader, Lt. William Calley, was the only soldier convicted of a crime: He served 3.5 years of house arrest for killing 22 civilians.

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And that’s the way it is in Birdland on March 16 - or at least, until something happens later, even if it doesn’t count and you probably can’t watch it on TV. Have a safe Friday.