Tuesday Bird Droppings: Facing one more last-place team

Happy Tuesday, Camden Chatters! After an off day, the Orioles continue their road trip tonight with three games in Kansas City. Andrea’s in-depth series preview will be posted a bit later today, but on paper, this looks like it should be another good series for the Orioles.

All three Royals starters in the series have ERAs over six. The series finale is against Jordan Lyles, although fate intervened to keep us from the matchup we’re all dreaming of: Lyles vs. Kyle Gibson. Gibson is slated to pitch game two.

There has been a lot of talk about the Orioles taking advantage of their weak schedule and they absolutely have so far. But are you even an Orioles fan if you don’t think they might get swept by the Royals to kick off a long run of bad baseball?

Yes, it sounds crazy. Maybe I am crazy. But I was poking around the Royals page on Baseball-Reference.com and noticed that the Royals are just 1-12 at home this year. That is nuts! They are bad this year, but are they 1-15 or 2-14 at home bad? It seems unlikely and they’ll need to bounce back at some point. My inner skeptic, who is always afraid the Orioles are bad, feels that it’ll happen now.

The flip side of my weirdness is what the outside world might see, which is that the Royals are a bad team who have had the bad fortune to play at home the Twins, Braves, Blue Jays, and Rangers. And now they have the Orioles coming to town, the team with the second-most wins in the American League. I should feel confident! Right?

Being a sports fan is weird, man.

Links

Baltimore Orioles: Report Card for Historic April - Eutaw Street Report
ESR hands out April grades and accolades.

Minor Monday: Povich's performances at Bowie raise his stature in Orioles' organization - BaltimoreBaseball.com
Rich Dubroff caught up with Cade Povich, who is turning heads in the minors this year. If both he and Yennier Cano turn out to be something, well then, that would be something indeed.

Orioles reset: Baseball’s latest pitching craze is sweeping through Baltimore – Baltimore Sun
Kyle Gibson admits that a sweeper is just a slider. But it's a slider that like, really slides dude. He actually has a lot of good info in this article about the sweeper, along with a guy who can't hit it (Ryan Mountcastle) and a guy who helps teach it (Chris Holt).

Bullpen bocce began during the O’s lowest moments. Now, it’s all about bragging rights. - The Baltimore Banner
The bullpen has been playing Bocce for awhile, but it's only adorable now that the Orioles are good.

ESPN+ to Stream 31 Major League Baseball Games in May - ESPN Press Room
If you're an ESPN+ subscriber, you have a lot of baseball available to you this month. The Orioles will be on the streamer on Wednesday but you can only watch if you're out of market. Sorry!

Birthdays and History

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! You have three Orioles’ birthday buddies.

Jonathan Villar celebrates his 32nd birthday today. Villar came to the Orioles in the 2018 selloff in exchange for Jonathan Schoop. Schoop went to the Brewers and Villar came to Baltimore along with Jean Carmona and Luis Ortiz. After being one of the most valuable players on the 2019 team, the Orioles traded him to Easton Lucas. Lucas is currently a relief pitcher for the Bowie Baysox.

Brent Bowers is 52 years old today. He appeared in 21 games for the 1996 Orioles, his only major league experience. And Keith Moreland turns 69 years old today. He had a 12-season major league career that ended with 33 games with the Orioles in 1989.

On this day in 2018, writer Alex Church tried to drum up reasons to watch that year’s team. I gotta say, it’s a pretty bleak article.

In 2017, the Orioles turned a triple play! It went 6-4-3: J.J. Hardy to Jonathan Schoop to Chris Davis, but it only started because Hardy couldn’t catch a pop-up in the first place.

In 2014, Ubaldo Jimenez struck out 10 over 7.1 shutout innings and Nelson Cruz hit a home run into the third deck of Target Field as the Orioles defeated the Twins 3-0.

And in 2010, Ty Wigginton hit a walk-off home run to give the Orioles a win and sweep over the Red Sox. It was their first sweep of the Red Sox at home since 1974. It was an exciting win but still just the team’s seventh of the season.