Friday Bird Droppings: Where the Orioles keep winning, but so do the Red Sox

Heck of a way to start a homestand. O's flailing away against a crummy, soft tossing starter only to beat yet another Tigers bullpen like a red headed stepchild. In a matchup that might have considered "marquee" only a couple years ago, Chris Tillman and Justin Verlander face off tonight at 7:05 pm.

J.J. Hardy to rehab in Florida next week | orioles.com
If you woke up this morning and thought, "hey, what's going on with J.J. Hardy," you're in luck.

Ex-Oriole Bill Ripken wins Sports Emmy Award for MLB Network coverage - Carroll County Times
Check out their cheeky take on the Nuclear Dish's infamous Fleer rookie card.

Orioles' Manny Machado moves to shortstop, continues to shine
Jay Jaffe has invented a decent system for assessing Hall of Fame worthiness, so it warms my heart to see him writing nice things about Manuel Arturo Machado.

Camden Depot: A Closer Look At Joey Rickard's Defense
I don't want to spoil the punchline, but you might be surprised.

Stephen Strasburg, Bryce Harper helped keep Chris Davis from drawing interest from Nats - Baltimore Sun
The Lerners are worseners.

On this day in 2012, the Orioles scored six runs on James Shields and still managed to lose. That may be attributed to the seven runs allowed by Jake Arietta. Nick Markakis doubled twice and Matt Wieters homered. Weren't those times?

If today's your birthday, you share it with current Orioles reliever Mychal Givens and former Orioles reliever David hernandez. Former minor and minor league Orioles Lyle Mouton, Ryan Bukvich, Robby Hammock and Juan Beniquez are also May 13th babies.