Sunday Bird Droppings: Thinking about veterans on the Orioles next year

Hello, friends.

There are now 158 days remaining until Orioles Opening Day 2024. Not too many of those days are going to have actual MLB games, so if you can enjoy this postseason with the O’s out of it, do that while you can. The baseball-less winter will be upon us in less than two weeks from now.

The only game that awaits tonight is a potentially clinching ALCS Game 6 between the Astros and the Rangers. After the Astros lost the first two in Houston, they won the next three in Arlington and could advance to the World Series for the fifth time since 2017 with a win tonight. The road team has won every game up to this point in that series, so Houston will have to reverse that if they are going to do some more celebrating.

That’s an 8pm Eastern scheduled start for the game. Nathan Eovaldi will be on the mound for the Rangers, with Framber Valdez scheduled to pitch for Houston. Eovaldi has been good so far this postseason. Valdez has not, including Game 2 of this very series, when he allowed five runs (four earned) in only 2.2 innings. Eovaldi allowed three runs in six innings while striking out nine in that same Game 2.

In a different universe, there might be angst today about having to have a Ravens game at 1pm and an Orioles game at 8pm and would these things be able to co-exist? The ALDS Game 1/Billy Joel combination was not a very good first test, though that game having a rain delay before it began was a big part of that. It might go better with a football game first and a baseball game later. This year is not the year where we have to find that out. Maybe next year.

Michael Phelps threw out the first pitch for the Diamondbacks last night. I am still sorting through how I feel about this.

He’s the Baltimore sports guy! The Orioles were in the playoffs this year! I guess they would have needed to get to the ALCS to get Baltimore’s most famous recent Olympian on the first pitch list. Phelps does not seem to have brought any good fortune to the Diamondbacks last night, as they lost their Game 5 to the Phillies, 6-1. Philadelphia will take a 3-2 lead in that series back to their home city. The NLCS resumes on Monday night.

Around the blogO’sphere

The veteran presence that was important this year will be next year too (Steve Melewski)
My hope for the 2024 Orioles is that if there must be veteran signings, that they are better than the ones who were added for 2023.

Orioles face winter of uncertainty on closer decision (Baltimore Baseball)
There’s not much that’s good about Félix Bautista being out for all of next year, but one small silver lining is that at least the team can have a whole offseason to try to plan around that absence.

Pickings are slim during the weekend while the postseason is still going on, so diligent Bird Droppings readers might have seen this one yesterday as well.

The bar for an Anthony Santander trade should be high (The Baltimore Banner)
Roster and service time math combined with the number of high-minors Orioles prospects sure all seem to point to at least SOMEBODY getting traded at some point. Jon Meoli makes the case that it shouldn’t be Santander unless some other team meets a good price.

Birthdays and Orioles anniversaries

There are a few former Orioles who were born on this day. They are: 2012-18 reliever Darren O’Day, 2005 catcher Eli Whiteside, 2003 reliever Héctor Carrasco, 2004 catcher Keith Osik, and 1989 catcher Jamie Quirk. Today is Quirk’s 69th birthday, so an extra happy birthday to him.

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday to you! Your birthday buddies for today include: composer Franz Liszt (1811), Maryland-born Baseball Hall of Famer Jimmie Foxx (1907), novelist Doris Lessing (1919), actor Christopher Lloyd (1938), soon-to-be Baseball Hall of Famer Ichiro Suzuki (1973), and rapper 21 Savage (1992).

On this day in history...

In 1721, after having defeated Sweden in the 21-year Great Northern War the previous month, Russia’s Tsar Peter I proclaimed his nation to be an empire.

In 1836, the inauguration was held for the first president of the Republic of Texas, Sam Houston.

In 1962, President John F. Kennedy announced to the public that American planes discovered Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, and that he ordered a naval “quarantine” of the island. That’s basically a blockade except without a declaration of war.

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And that’s the way it is in Birdland on October 22. Have a safe Sunday.