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The Orioles are a bad team with a bad record that is bad at a whole lot of stuff, many of which are on display on a nightly basis. There are some scattered individual stories of mild interest, like whether Trey Mancini can hit a 35th homer or collect 100 RBI, whether Jonathan Villar can get to 40 stolen bases, whether Renato Núñez can finally hit his 30th dinger before the season ends, and whether Austin Hays continues making legendary plays over the last week or so of baseball.
There’s not much outside of that. If you really want to get into reading the tea leaves, though, you might find Chris Davis’s presence in the starting lineup for this final home game to be interesting. Is he getting a farewell for the home crowd in anticipation of an offseason release?
There were scattered fans in the stands last night who seemed to unironically want to see him. A few chanted here and there. One fan on the Jumbotron had a giant Davis face cutout. Unfortunately for those fans, he did not appear in last night’s game.
Today, Davis is batting seventh despite the Mariners deploying a lefty starting pitcher. He’s been very bad for two years and I don’t think he’ll ever be anything other than very bad again, so perhaps I’m just projecting what I really want to happen over a meaningless event. If he happens to reach base in the seventh inning or so and then is lifted for a pinch runner, giving the fans a chance to give him an ovation as he comes out of the game, I’ll be projecting even more.
It’s much more likely Mark Trumbo’s last home game as an Oriole and maybe even as an MLB player. He’s also in the lineup.
- Hanser Alberto - 2B
- Austin Hays - CF
- Jonathan Villar - SS
- Renato Núñez - 3B
- Mark Trumbo - DH
- Dwight Smith Jr. - LF
- Chris Davis - 1B
- Austin Wynns - C
- DJ Stewart - RF
John Means is the starter for the O’s. And yes, that’s Núñez at third base. This could get weird. Not that it takes Núñez at third base to make things get weird. The Orioles managed to let the winning run score from second base last night on an infield single hit to the third baseman, who is a natural third baseman, thrown to the first baseman, who is a natural first baseman also. I still can’t believe it.