Monday Bird Droppings: Where the Orioles head towards the worst record

Hello, friends.

Another day has dawned with the Orioles in last place in the American League East. They trail the co-division leaders, the Yankees and Red Sox, by 17.5 games, and they are 7.5 games behind the fourth place Rays. Presently, no team in MLB has more losses than the 32 that the Orioles have.

The one remarkable talent that the 2018 O’s possess in spades is the ability to lose games in all kinds of ways. The one that they tried out on Sunday afternoon is one where they got 13 hits and still did not score a single run. That’s tough to do. In a nine-inning game, the Orioles had never done that before. At least they finally won a road game and broke that streak.

Check out Joe Wedra’s recap of Sunday’s game for some of the not-so-lovely totals.

The good news, such as it is, is that the 2018 Orioles remain five games clear of where the 1988 Orioles were through this many games. Those woeful O’s were 9-37 through their first 46 games, and they didn’t win their 14th game until they were 14-42. So, unless the Orioles lose their next eight games, they will stay ahead of the 1988 O’s, at least for now. The 2018 O’s are on pace to win 49 games, which is five fewer than the 1988 team.

The Chicago White Sox await the O’s this week in what will be a battle to determine who is the worst team in MLB. The White Sox, with a .302 winning percentage, are the only MLB team with a worse record than the .304 winning percentage sported by the Orioles.

Around the blogO’sphere

Does Davis get a day off as strikeout total climbs? (School of Roch)
The answer to this question proved to be yes. Another lefty awaits tonight. Does Buck Showalter sit Davis again?

Adam Jones leaves loss to Red Sox with illness after getting three singles (Baltimore Sun)
Jones would have to remain fairly ill to be out of the lineup to start Monday’s game too, but still, get well soon, Adam.

Movement in the minors: Promotions for Means, Gonzalez, Baumann, and more (Baltimore Baseball)
Several Orioles pitchers moved up the ranks over the weekend. At Baltimore Baseball, Dean Jones runs down who is headed where, along with hiw view on the farm at the moment.

David Hess taught tough lessons about the long ball in loss to Red Sox (Baltimore Sun)
Hess gave up three home runs on Sunday. The lesson of one of those home runs is that Fenway Park is a joke stadium. The other two, well... MLB is hard.

Jace Peterson on his connection to a former Oriole (Steve Melewski)
When the Orioles claimed Jace Peterson, he called up Nick Markakis, with whom he’d been teammates in Atlanta, to find out what’s what.

Sunday notes: Buck Showalter’s umpire idea (Fangraphs)
In the Fangraphs notes column is an item where Buck suggests that each team should be required to add one former player to the umpire pool each season. Well, OK.

Birthdays and anniversaries

One current Oriole has a birthday today. Happy 27th birthday to Joey Rickard.

There are also several former Orioles with birthdays today. They are: 2009-16 catcher Matt Wieters, 2014 reliever Andrew Miller, 1999 five-gamer Tommy Davis, 2006 short-timer Chris Widger, and 1979 eight-gamer Bob Molinaro.

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! Your birthday buddies for today include: engineer Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis (1792), priest/volcanologist Giuseppe Mercalli (1850), Hall of Fame baseball manager Bobby Cox (1941), fool-pitier Mr. T (1952), and rapper The Notorious B.I.G. (1972).

On this day in history...

In 293, the two Roman co-emperors of the period, Diocletian and Maximilian, appointed Galerius as Caesar to Diocletian. This marked the end of the Crisis of the Third Century and the beginning of the Tetrarchy period of Roman history.

In 1792, Japan’s Mount Unzen erupted, leading to a megatsunami that killed 14,524 people. This is the deadliest such tsunami in history.

In 1881, Clara Barton established the American Red Cross in Washington, DC.

In 1904, the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) was founded in Paris.

In 1927, Charles Lindbergh landed in Paris, completing the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Five years later on the same exact day, Amelia Earhart was forced to land in a pasture in Northern Ireland, nonetheless becoming the first woman to complete a flight across the Atlantic Ocean.

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And that’s the way it is in Birdland on May 21 - or at least, until something happens later when the Orioles play the White Sox. Have a safe Monday. Go O’s!