Friday night Orioles game thread: vs. Guardians, 7:05

It’s a multiple roster move kind of day for the Orioles. In the hours leading up to the start of their series against the Cleveland Guardians, the team summoned both Tyler Nevin and Nick Vespi from Norfolk. They are able to do this because they also placed Joey Krehbiel on the injured list due to right shoulder inflammation and placed Chris Owings on the bereavement list.

Will any of this make any difference whatsoever in getting a win on Adley Rutschman’s t-shirt giveaway night? We can certainly hope that fans won’t have to wait until after the game to see some Orioles fireworks. Whether they will deliver is another story. I would like for Rutschman to find a way to pick up his first RBI tonight.

This Cleveland team is under .500, checking in at 22-24. How have they played seven fewer games than the Orioles up to this point? That’s weird. Whatever, the point is that at home, the O’s should be able to beat them. That doesn’t mean they will. They should have beaten the Mariners too and just lost two out of three there.

I’m still bummed about Grayson Rodriguez and it would sure be nice if the big league team could do something to break through that gloom a little bit. I won’t be holding my breath.

Orioles lineup

1. Cedric Mullins - CF
2. Trey Mancini - DH
3. Anthony Santander - RF
4. Austin Hays - LF
5. Ryan Mountcastle - 1B
6. Adley Rutschman - C
7. Rougned Odor - 2B
8. Tyler Nevin - 3B
9. Jorge Mateo - SS

Pitching for the Orioles, as pictured above, is Baltimore’s own Bruce Zimmermann. He needs to stop giving up dingers. After some early success this season, he’s gotten bombed lately, and has now surrendered 13 home runs in 51.2 innings. That’s not good! Nine of those home runs came in his last two starts, each on the road, in New York and Boston. Perhaps a return to Camden Yards, where he’s given up one home run in five starts, is what he needs.

Guardians lineup

1. Myles Straw - CF
2. Amed Rosario - SS
3. José Ramírez - 3B
4. Owen Miller - 2B
5. Josh Naylor - 1B
6. Oscar Gonzalez - DH
7. Ernie Clement - LF
8. Oscar Mercado - RF
9. Austin Hedges - C

I consider myself a reasonably engaged baseball fan and I have definitely never seen three of the names in this lineup before right now. Cleveland, you expect me to believe that there’s really someone named Ernie Clement playing baseball in 2022? Something funny’s going on.

Pitching for the recently-renamed Guardians tonight is Shane Bieber, the 2020 AL Cy Young winner who’s now in his fifth season. I am tremendously envious of a team having a starting pitcher in his fifth MLB season whose career ERA is 3.28. What’s that even like? Maybe some day I’ll find out.

One thing about Bieber this year is that while he’s still having success, his K/9 has dropped nearly a third since last year. In 2021, he had 12.5 K/9 across the season. So far in 2022, it’s 8.5. I’m going to go out on a limb and say he will increase this number against the Orioles tonight.