Thursday Bird Droppings: Trey Mancini is two wins away from a World Series ring

Hello, friends.

One thing we can say for sure is that the 2022 MLB season is not going to come to an end tonight. The Astros added to World Series no-hitter lore with a combined no-no last night on the way to taking down the Phillies to even up the series at two games apiece. (I’m obligated by my wife to remind you this pales next to Don Larsen’s perfect game.) Somebody will take a crucial 3-2 lead tonight, but this thing will be going through at least the sixth game on Saturday.

The tale for tonight will be whether Justin Verlander can turn his World Series luck around. The guy has pitched in eight World Series games across five different years and has a 6.07 ERA in those games. Small sample size, but yikes. It will certainly make things interesting on top of the stakes already baked into the game. Noah Syndergaard is set to start for the Phillies in the 8 o’clock Eastern Game 5. How will a team respond the day after being no-hit in the World Series? We’ll find out!

If you want to bring some Orioles thoughts into it, think about whether you want the O’s to sign one or the other of these guys this offseason. They need to sign or trade for somebody in the rotation, if you ask me. Whether Mike Elias ends up agreeing, who he targets, and who he actually gets, well, we can start to find that out once free agency begins and transactions have opened up. That’s potentially a week away.

For today, there’s not much to do beyond watch two teams fight for a championship that the O’s have been eliminated from for more than a month. Maybe fortune will shine on Trey Mancini and he’ll get a big moment. This hasn’t been his postseason yet either. I’m rooting for him to get a ring, though. His team’s only two wins away.

Around the blogO’sphere

Urías’s Gold Glove doesn’t guarantee him 3rd base job with Orioles in 2023 (Baltimore Baseball)
Between Gunnar Henderson, Jorge Mateo, and the plethora of high-minors infield prospects, the freshly-minted 3B Gold Glover may not even be the O’s 3B next year.

Some important dates on the baseball calendar (School of Roch)
Roch reminds us that the first big date awaiting the Orioles is five days after the World Series, when they make the decision about what to do with their contract option for Jordan Lyles.

Jordan Lyles wants to stay with the Orioles. If he doesn’t, he’s thankful for the experience. (The Baltimore Sun)
Speaking of Lyles, he’d like to stick around, and it’s not only because that means he’ll be getting an additional $10 million if the Orioles pick up the option.

The top 50 MLB free agents of 2022-2023 (The Athletic)
For the first time in a long time, you can read a list like this and think the Orioles might actually sign one of the exciting guys. Though sometimes I wonder if I’m just kidding myself about that.

MLB gets involved in MASN debate to help facilitate sale of Nationals (The Washington Post)
It seems that the Nationals owner thinks he can get $2.5 billion for his franchise if he can only extricate himself from MASN owning Nationals television rights. No evidence in this article suggests any willingness or interest from either him or MLB in cutting a large enough check to the Orioles to accomplish this.

Birthdays and Orioles anniversaries

Today in 1982, Jim Palmer finished as the runner-up for what could have been the fourth Cy Young Award of his career. The season turned out to be his final full season of pitching. Looking back on the results by today’s more enlightened standards, it’s an absolute joke that the winner, Milwaukee’s Pete Vuckovich, had a 1.500 WHIP, though it seems that the pitcher who was truly screwed out of a win even more than Palmer was Toronto’s Dave Stieb. There hasn’t been an O’s Cy winner since 1980.

There are several former Orioles who were born on this day. They are: 1994-98 reliever Armando Benitez, 1979-81 reserve outfielder Mark Corey, 1991 outfielder Dwight Evans, 1976 pitcher Ken Holtzman, and 1961-62/64 outfielder Earl Robinson.

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday to you! Your birthday buddies for today include: baseball Hall of Famer Bob Feller (1918), actor Charles Bronson (1921), and famous famous person Kendall Jenner (1995).

On this day in history...

In 1534, the English Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy, which proclaimed King Henry VIII as the head of the Church of England, rather than the pope. The Act was repealed under Henry’s daughter Mary in 1554, then a similar act was re-established in 1558 under Henry’s daughter Elizabeth.

In 1783, with American independence secured, the Continental Army was disbanded. Though there was a lapse with no formally organized American army, today’s United States Army continues to trace its lineage to the Continental Army.

In 1868, Louisiana’s John Willis Menard was elected to a seat in Congress, the first African-American to achieve this. However, Menard never served, as the loser contested the result and the full Congress effectively refused to resolve the issue.

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And that’s the way it is in Birdland on November 3. Have a safe Thursday.