Tuesday Bird Droppings: It’s World Series time

Good morning, Camden Chatters.

Well, folks, here it is. The World Series. The Fall Classic. The final matchup of the 2021 MLB season. The winners of the American and National League, squaring off, mano a mano, in a championship showdown. This one’s for all the marbles.

It’s...the Houston Astros against the Atlanta Braves.

Huh. Okay.

I mean, it’s not that it’s a bad matchup. These are two top-notch teams. The Astros have been consistently excellent for the last half-decade and are playing in their third World Series in the last five years. The Braves were the best team in baseball for the last two months of the regular season and took down both the favored Brewers and Dodgers in the playoffs. Both clubs deserve to be here, and I’m sure it’ll be a competitive, hard-fought series.

But it’s not easy for a neutral fan to particularly want to see either team succeed. The Astros are still villains in many people’s eyes for their cheating scandal that rocked the baseball world. The Braves seem like a decent enough crew, but the incessant and problematic Tomahawk Chopping by their fans makes their home games nearly unwatchable.

I don’t know. If this were last year’s Braves, who played their home playoff games at a neutral site with few to no fans, I’d have no problem pulling for Atlanta to win it all (especially since last year’s Braves also featured former Orioles favorite Nick Markakis). As for the Astros, I guess you could make that argument that O’s fans should be happy about their sustained success, since Birds GM Mike Elias is trying to rebuild the Orioles in Houston’s image (but without the trash can-banging, presumably). And it’d be nice to see Dusty Baker finally win his first championship after a storied managerial career.

I can’t say I have any rooting interest, but I guess I’ll predict the Astros will win it. Their offense just seems too potent for Atlanta to contain. What say you, Camden Chatters?

Links

Mullins chosen as Silver Slugger finalist - School of Roch
The accolades continue to pour in for Cedric Mullins, who is one of eight outfield finalists for the AL Silver Slugger award, of which three will win. For what it’s worth, Mullins was third among the candidates in OPS and wRC+, so he should have a good shot at this thing.

Orioles offseason positional breakdown: Ramón Urías, Jorge Mateo emerge on an infield in flux as top prospects near majors - Baltimore Sun
Good news: a bunch of legit infield prospects are on the way! Bad news: until they’re ready, the Orioles are going to be cycling through a bunch more bargain-bin free agents and waiver-wire pickups. So, business as usual, basically.

Cal Ripken, Kevin Costner rumor is subject of new podcast - The Washington Post
Two Orioles fans are hosting a parody true-crime podcast about the debunked yet long-standing rumor involving Cal and Kelly Ripken, Kevin Costner, a scandalous affair, an altercation, and a faked power outage that canceled an O’s game. It could be good for a laugh in between listening to all your murder podcasts.

Orioles birthdays

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! Two former Orioles were born on this day: Wayne Garland (71), a 20-game winner for the O’s in 1976, and Dwight Smith Jr. (29), who had two unremarkable seasons with the Birds from 2019-2020 but proved to be a skillful manager of the video game Orioles in MLB The Show’s Players League.