Thursday Bird Droppings: The Orioles gained ground on the Rays edition

Hello, friends.

The Orioles! They’ve done it again. Despite playing what was honestly kind of a stupid game last night, in which the team frustratingly blew a bases loaded, nobody out situation by not scoring any runs against a thus-far bad Angels starting pitcher, they were able to pull off the win thanks to a good outing from starter Kyle Bradish and getting just enough offense later. It was fun. Check out Tyler’s recap of the game for more of the lovely totals from the 3-1 win.

Maybe no one was having more fun last night than general manager Mike Elias. The MASN cameras caught him reacting after Yennier Cano tossed one more scoreless inning without allowing any batters to reach base, and you know what, I think the man was pleased:

Can you blame him? I sure can’t. I’m sure Elias had no idea that THIS was going to happen when he made sure Cano was included in that Jorge López trade last year, but you know what? Sometimes you make your own luck and the Orioles put themselves in a position to benefit from this Cano ridiculousness. They might have even given him a nudge in the right direction to get the last tweak to his arsenal to make it suddenly... this.

After pulling off the Wednesday evening victory, the Orioles are now 28-15 on the season. It’s hard to believe! They’re 7-5 through the first 12 games of the 22-game stretch against above-.500 teams. Though if the Orioles should happen to win today’s 12:35 finale, the Angels won’t actually be above .500 any more. Yes, it’s a 12:35pm Eastern game! Don’t be that person who shows up later, unaware that the game already started. The O’s are guaranteed at least a split of this four game series, but a win would sure be nice, because wins are always nice.

As a nice bonus for the Orioles, the Rays even lost yesterday. This is a rarity, so it’s great that the Orioles won first. The Rays went into extra innings against Buck Showalter’s Mets and scored two runs in the top of the tenth, but the Mets came back and scored three to walk it off in the bottom half. Pete Alonso delivered a three-run homer to send everybody home. We’re not even for the time he beat Trey Mancini in the home run derby a couple of years ago, but it’s something.

The O’s are now 3.5 back of the Rays. They sit three games ahead of the Toronto Blue Jays and four ahead of the Yankees, who hold the other two American League wild card spots at present. The Jays and Yankees took a game 0-0 into extra innings yesterday, with the road Blue Jays coming out on top.

It’ll be a battle of the Tylers for the starting pitchers in this finale. That’s Tyler Anderson for the Angels and Tyler Wells for the Orioles. Anderson literally has more than double Wells’s WHIP up to this point in the season. So, you know. What ought to happen is obvious. But then, the Orioles ought to have destroyed Griffin Canning last night and they didn’t. Anything is possible today. Hopefully things turn out well.

Around the blogO’sphere

Updates on Givens, Tate, Mateo, and Hall (Baltimore Baseball)
Manager Brandon Hyde provided a number of status updates before yesterday’s game, including that Jorge Mateo was out of the lineup as he’s nursing a sore leg.

Yennier Cano was exiled from baseball in Cuba. How he found his way to the O’s and became one of MLB’s best. (The Baltimore Banner)
This is a great profile.

Cionel Pérez is starting to regain his 2022 form in Orioles bullpen (Steve Melewski)
It’ll take stringing together more than two games with clean innings for me to fully believe this, but I’m glad that he has at least been able to do that much.

Shohei Ohtani showed why he’ll break the bank with his performance at Camden Yards (The Athletic)
I don’t usually include articles that are about things other teams players did against the Orioles, but this one is written by former Orioles beat writer Brittany Ghiroli. Plus I’m also interested in how big of a salary Ohtani will command as a free agent this offseason.

Birthdays and Orioles anniversaries

The Orioles were last victorious on this date five years ago. The 2018 team beat the Red Sox, 7-4, to “improve” to 14-30 on the season. Alex Cobb won his first game in an Orioles uniform, Jonathan Schoop homered, and Manny Machado had three hits. The only player to appear in that game who’s in the organization now is reliever Mychal Givens.

Today is the 86th birthday of Orioles legend and all-time third base great Brooks Robinson. Happy birthday, Brooks! Other former Orioles born today: 2006 outfielder Luis Terrero, and 1976 outfielder Reggie Jackson, who, like Brooks, is in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday to you! Along with the two Hall of Famers who’ve played for the Orioles, your birthday buddies include: poet Omar Khayyám (1048), final Russian tsar Nicholas II (1868), philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872), The Music Man composer Meredith Wilson (1902), recent long-serving Pope John Paul II (1920), actor Chow Yun-fat (1955), and actress Tina Fey (1970).

On this day in history...

In 1291, the city of Acre was captured by the Mamluks, marking an end to the time of the Crusaders in the Holy Land.

In 1756, Great Britain declared war on France, marking the beginning of the Seven Years’ War. Exactly 47 years later, Britain declared war on France again, that time starting the War of the Third Coalition.

In 1896, the United States Supreme Court delivered its decision in Plessy v. Ferguson that established that the “separate but equal” doctrine was constitutional.

In 1944, the Allies captured Monte Cassino in Italy after four months of fighting when German paratroopers retreated from their last remaining positions. Of the 240,000 men committed to the battle on the Allied side, nearly 20% were killed or wounded in the fighting. The Germans, though they lost the ground, had only 20,000 casualties.

In 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted. The immediate effects of the eruption are known to have killed 57 people, with about $3 billion in damage caused in the area. That’s about $11 billion in today’s dollars.

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And that’s the way it is in Birdland on May 18. Have a safe Thursday. Go O’s!