Sunday Bird Droppings: Football season is over, so bring on the Orioles

It’s a dark day in the Baltimore area, Camden Chatters. The Baltimore Ravens, the #1 seed in the AFC, who finished the season with a 12-game win streak, were destroyed by the Tennessee Titans last night. It was a devastating, unexpected loss for a team many expected to go all the way to the Super Bowl. For you diehards out there, I am truly sorry. As a bandwagon fan myself, I’m ok.

(For those who aren’t Ravens fans, please indulge me that last paragraph.)

But now that football is over, there is just one thing to focus on: baseball! There are just 74 days until Opening Day and it’ll be here before we know it. Pitchers and catchers report to spring training on February 11th, just 26 days from now.

I know the Orioles are probably going to be as bad as the Ravens were good this season, and I know we’re going to have a lot of days during the season when we wish it was all over. But that doesn’t stop me from looking forward to it. There’s nothing like seeing those first pictures of green grass and stretching baseball players that come out of spring training ever year.

Link

Ureña linked to Orioles before waiver claim - School of Roch
And interesting if now irrelevant story about how new Oriole Richard Ureña was one of the prospects the Blue Jays were willing to send to Baltimore as compensation for hiring Dan Duquette. I wonder how the Orioles would have been different if that happened.

2020 ZiPS Projections: Baltimore Orioles | FanGraphs Baseball
If you missed this in yesterday's Bird Droppings, it's a doozy.

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! You have six Orioles birthday buddies. Today is the 32nd birthday of Hyun Soo Kim, who many think didn’t get a fair shake in the MLB. Maybe they were right, I don’t know. Since leaving MLB after the 2017 season, he has been back in the KBO with the LG Twins.

It’s also the 38th birthday of former Orioles closer and current brewmaster, Chris Ray. Journeyman relief pitcher Luis Ayala is 42, utility man of my childhood Tim Hulett is 60, Juan Bonilla is 64, and Paul Gilliford is 75. Gilliford played in only two games for the Orioles in 1967 and those games make up his entire major league career.

On this day in 1991, the Orioles traded Mickey Tettleton to the Tigers for Jeff Robinson. It was not a good trade, though it did turn out pretty well for Chris Hoiles.