Thursday Bird Droppings: Where Brandon Hyde is coming back next year

Good morning, Camden Chatters.

It won’t be long now until we’re free from the daily misfortune of watching the 2021 Orioles. Tonight the Birds begin their final homestand of the year, hosting the Rangers for four games and the Red Sox for three before finishing their season in Toronto. So this week is your last chance to catch a game at Camden Yards this season if you’re so inclined. I can assure you, without looking it up, that good seats still remain. They’ll head back to Baltimore with a 48-104 record after a 1-5 road trip, which wrapped up with another blown lead and loss in Philadelphia last night. Tyler Young recapped the action.

If just watching this team is difficult, imagine how much endurance it would require to manage these guys. Brandon Hyde must have the patience of the saint, and the Orioles have reportedly rewarded their skipper by keeping him as manager for the 2022 season.

The move is likely to spark some strong reactions among certain segments of the fan base who criticize and mock Hyde’s every in-game decision. To the outside observer, there’s not a ton of evidence that Hyde is a particularly good manager. The Orioles have a record of 127-247 under Hyde since he took the reins in 2019, with a 108-loss season in 2019 and 104 (and counting) this year. This year especially, the team has tended to let long losing streaks snowball on them; they’ve suffered separate skids of both 19 and 14 games, as well as a franchise-worst 20-game road losing streak. Their on-field fundamentals often leave much to be desired. If you want to attribute any or all of those things at least partially to the manager, it’s understandable.

In Hyde’s defense, the rosters he’s been saddled with throughout his Orioles tenure have been, in a word, horrific. You can’t magically turn a team into contenders when there’s so little talent to work with. You can’t make chicken salad out of...well, you know how the rest of that goes. Second-guessing Hyde for bringing in Terrible Reliever A instead of Terrible Reliever B to protect a late-inning lead is a pretty fruitless exercise. He’s got so little to work with that it’s hard to make a real evaluation about his tactical skills. And for what it’s worth, the clubhouse seems to be pretty even-keeled and untemperamental despite all the losing.

Ultimately, the person most qualified to make the decision on Hyde’s future was the one who made it, Mike Elias. The Orioles GM has had three years to evaluate Hyde, whom he hired as skipper in December 2018, and the two are in constant communication about what they want to achieve with individual players and the club’s rebuilding effort as a whole. Elias and Hyde are clearly on the same page, or the O’s would be looking for a new manager next year. That’s good enough for me.

What about you, Camden Chatters? What do you think of Hyde’s return?

Links

Source: Brandon Hyde will return as Orioles manager in 2022; agreed previously to extension – The Athletic
Dan Connolly, who broke the Hyde news, drops the deets about the manager’s new deal...which, it turns out, was an old deal that stayed hidden for almost a year.

Kriske realizes lifelong dream with O’s debut - Orioles.com
Brooks Kriske was named after Brooks Robinson and yesterday got to pitch in an Orioles uniform for the first time. Baseball is kind of awesome.

Akin and Hays impress again, but O’s lose 4-3 - School of Roch
If it’s any consolation in last night’s loss, the guys who performed well are arguably part of the Orioles’ future while the guys who blew the game are, um, not.

Orioles place Urias on injured list, designate Valdez for assignment, add Jones, Wade - BaltimoreBaseball.com
September rosters don’t expand to 40 players anymore, but the Orioles seem determined to use 40 players this month anyway. The roster churn continued yesterday, with Cesar Valdez sent packing after blowing a save in his brief return.

Orioles birthdays and history

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! Three former Orioles were born on this day: outfielder Willie Greene (50), right-hander Pete Harnisch (55), and the late lefty Marcelino Lopez (b. 1943, d. 2001).

On this date in 1958, Jack Harshman did his best Shohei Ohtani impression for the Orioles. Not only did he throw a complete game against the Senators with nine strikeouts, but he also went 3-for-3 at the plate and hit two home runs. The Birds won, 3-2.

On this day in 2013, the Orioles suffered a terrible blow when Manny Machado tore his kneecap after landing awkwardly on first base, an injury that would keep him out the remainder of that season as well as the first month of 2014. Adding insult to injury, the O’s lost the game to the Rays on a walkoff, though Chris Davis hit his 52nd homer in the losing effort.

And on this day in 2016, the Orioles pulled off a come-from-behind, walkoff win over the Diamondbacks, despite scoring only three runs, all on solo homers. Trailing 2-0 in the eighth, the O’s got a run on a Pedro Alvarez dinger in the eighth and tied it on Matt Wieters’ leadoff blast in the ninth, eventually winning in the 12th on Mark Trumbo’s game-ending homer. The win kept the Birds within half a game of the Tigers for the second Wild Card spot, which the O’s would eventually claim.