Thursday Bird Droppings: The walk-off walks are fun edition

Hello, friends.

As of the posting of this article, we are now 33 hours away from this year’s trade deadline. If you read it later in the day, it’s even closer: The deadline is 4pm on Friday the 30th, a day earlier than the usual date of July 31. The Orioles, as you know, have traded no one yet. The clock is running out if they’re going to pull off a deal. Is it going to be Tanner Scott? Paul Fry? No one? We’ll know by then.

The trade season is in swing elsewhere around the league. The big trade yesterday saw the Yankees get Rangers slugger Joey Gallo in exchange for several prospects, none of which rate among the top five names in the Yankees system. Former Oriole Mychal Givens was also on the move, among others, going from the Rockies to the Reds.

Whoever does end up getting traded, the O’s aren’t likely to get any marquee prospect names. They just don’t have that kind of talent up for trade. The best to hope for is probably a couple of guys who can be added to the pile of prospects where maybe there’s a 20% chance of things working out. The more guys the O’s can get in that pile, the more chance there is that the O’s can get some solid players to the team in the near future.

Even with their current lack of solid players, the Orioles managed a fun comeback win in last night’s game, as you probably already know if you’re reading this. Sure, it was against the Marlins, who’ve struggled this year and began their sell-off before yesterday’s game, but it took some resilience to come back from a horrendous start by Jorge López to eventually tie and win it later on.

Special thanks to Marlins manager Don Mattingly for issuing two intentional walks to load the bases after his pitcher had already given out a leadoff walk. Mattingly then had to watch from the dugout as his pitcher delivered a walkoff walk for the Orioles. Check out Paul Folkemer’s recap of the game for the lovely totals.

The result was shirtless Ryan McKenna:

Sure, why not?

As the clock ticks down towards the trade deadline, the Orioles will be getting ready for the start of a four-game series against the Detroit Tigers, who haven’t done well this year but aren’t as bad as the O’s are. The Tigers won a wacky 17-14 donnybrook yesterday. Maybe they got all the scoring out of their system. Alexander Wells is set to start the 7:10 opener for the Orioles.

Around the blogO’sphere

The Orioles have aggressively promoted top prospects all summer. Why is Adley Rutschman still at Double-A? (The Baltimore Sun)
The Sun’s Jon Meoli tackles one of the bigger questions of the summer for Birdland. Director of player development Matt Blood said, “We’re still seeing growth occur where he is in his game. I think once we feel like he’s no longer benefiting from being in Bowie, then he’ll move.”

Santander, Akin clear COVID-19 protocols (Orioles.com)
The two Orioles who recently landed on the COVID injured list are cleared to play, though the Orioles won’t activate them right away to give them a few days to make sure they’re in game shape.

Final draft pick signed, and farm player movement (Steve Melewski)
The O’s have gone 21 for 21 in signing draft picks and will be using nearly the entirety of their allotted draft pool. Good luck to all of the players as they enter the Orioles system.

Birthdays and Orioles anniversaries

Today in 1988, the Orioles traded Mike Boddicker to the Red Sox. They received two players in return: Brady Anderson and Curt Schilling. It’s best if we not dwell on the years later trade that sent Schilling away from Baltimore.

In 2010, the Orioles announced the hiring of Buck Showalter as the team’s next official manager. That went pretty good for quite a while there.

Of all of the players to ever play for the Orioles, not a single one has been born on this day.

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday to you! Your birthday buddies for today include: French writer Alexis de Tocqueville (1805), longtime TV news man Peter Jennings (1938), documentary man Ken Burns (1953), Rush vocalist and bassist Geddy Lee (1953), TV fashion man Tim Gunn (1953), and country musician Martina McBride (1966).

On this day in history...

In 1148, a siege of Damascus was abandoned after five days, leading to the failure of the Second Crusade.

In 1836, Paris’s famous Arc de Triomphe was inaugurated.

In 1950, the US 7th Cavalry Regiment withdrew from No Gun Ri, South Korea, after a three-day period in which its soldiers had fired upon a number of refugees under and around a railroad bridge. A 2011 inquiry found evidence of at least 250 dead.

In 1976, the serial killer “Son of Sam” committed the first of his six murders in New York City.

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And that’s the way it is in Birdland on July 29. Have a safe Thursday. Go O’s!