Friday Bird Droppings: The Orioles are on a roll

Good morning, Birdland!

The Orioles are in the wild card race. That may seem a bit ridiculous to say given that they are still a sub-.500 team and there is plenty of season left for things to go wrong. But it doesn’t change the fact that this team, since May 1, has been so good that they are now in the thick of that discussion.

They beat the Angels 4-1 on Thursday, their fifth straight win. That win, which followed a sweep of the Rangers, has catapulted the Orioles above both of them in the league standings and puts them just a half-game back of the vaunted White Sox. Their five-game win streak is tied for the longest in all of MLB at the moment.

That brings about the question of how the Orioles should approach the August 2 trade deadline. Are they sellers? Buyers? The answer is likely somewhere in between as they still look towards the future with a few players that could make sense to move now. But the front office should let the major league squad dictate what happens rather than the other way around.

If it is late July and the Orioles are on the doorstep of a playoff spot, how could they trade away Trey Mancini or Jorge López? The return for Mancini is expected to be light, and it’s unclear what López’s value would even be given his short track record as a reliever. Would the potential package that the Orioles land be more valuable than an exciting September in Baltimore? The next three weeks are going to be crucial to how things play out.

Links

For the more competitive 2022 Orioles, change can be measured in both numbers and feelings | The Baltimore Sun
The “vibes” for this team are truly off the charts with the home run chain, and everything else. But obviously the biggest difference is talent, up and down the lineup. Even still, there are clear places to upgrade, which is fun to think about.

Rutschman wears homer chain at home and Lyles holds down Angels in 4-1 win | Roch Kubatko
Quotes and all of that goodness from another win for the Orioles at Camden Yards, the very friendly confines for the club this season.

O’s Gunnar Henderson selected for the All-Star Futures Game | Steve Melewski
It’s a well deserved honor for Henderson to play in the Futures Game, something that Adley Rutschman, DL Hall, and Grayson Rodriguez have done before him, not to mention Orioles legend Chance Sisco and the recently DFA’d Marcos Diplán. Not every player that gets sent to this game turns into a star, but at least it gives us a reason to check it out.

Orioles birthdays

Is it your birthday? Happy birthday!

• Danny Ardoin turns 48. The catcher appeared in five games for the 2006 Orioles.
• Jerome Walton celebrates his 57th. He played 26 games in the outfield for the 1997 O’s.
• The late John Powers (d. 2001) was born on this day in 1929. His Orioles stint lasted 10 games in 1960.

This day in O’s history

1969 - Orioles pitcher Mike Cuellar throws a complete game three-hitter as the Orioles beat the Yankees 4-1. All three hits come off the bat of Ron Wood, two singles and a solo home run.

2011 - Kevin Gregg and David Ortiz brawl in Boston after Gregg just misses Ortiz with multiple pitches. Both men are ejected in addition to Red Sox catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Orioles reliever Jim Johnson.