Thursday Bird Droppings: Where no Orioles have been ejected today, yet

Hello, friends.

Feels like it’s been a full year since the Orioles weren’t involved in a baseball game that was not either completely bizarre, full of drama, or both. Last night’s game was no exception, what with both Kevin Gausman and Adam Jones receiving their first career ejections, with Gausman’s coming after a curveball slipped and hit Xander Bogaerts, with no warnings having been issued before the game began.

Speaking after the game, manager Buck Showalter told MASN’s Gary Thorne, “We keep trying to do the right thing and we keep getting screwed.” That includes Gausman being ejected on Wednesday as well as Chris Sale not being ejected on Tuesday. And as a result, Showalter added, the O’s team will be thrown out of whack for days or weeks.

That’s because, in part, Ubaldo Jimenez had to be pressed into service last night, rather than starting tonight’s game. Maybe you’re happy about that, given how he’s pitched so far, but there’s a very real chance that whoever pitches tonight - Gabriel Ynoa? Tyler Wilson? Mike Wright, if somebody goes on the disabled list? - will be worse.

It’s all the kind of thing that might lead a person to believe that there is, in fact, an ongoing MLB campaign to screw over the Orioles whenever they can get away with it as a result of their fighting the MASN rights fees screwjob at the hands of MLB in court.

By the way, the Red Sox will also be starting a relatively short-notice starting pitcher tonight, as fresh call-up Kyle Kendrick will make his first MLB start of the season. Kendrick is not left-handed, so maybe the Orioles have a chance, but also his fastball averaged 89mph last season, and you know how it goes when they go up against soft-tossers.

Perhaps, if nothing else, we can get through a game without J.J. Hardy making one or more horrible plays on defense. He just doesn’t look good either in the field or at the plate right now.

Around the blogO’sphere

Joe Torre weighs in on the ongoing Red Sox-Orioles tension | FOX Sports
The key quote here is that neither the pitchers nor umpires were supposed to be walking on eggs. And yet, still, last night’s home plate umpire Sam Holbrook with the absurdly quick hook. It’s embarrassing.

Orioles lose game and listed starter for Thursday - School of Roch
It’s hard to even know exactly how much this decision will be echoing in the days to come. Maybe they will finally have to make a decision over whether they want to send either Joey Rickard or Trey Mancini to the minors in order to free up a bullpen spot.

Orioles notes: Catcher Welington Castillo says WBC played into shoulder soreness - Baltimore Sun
Throw another one onto the pile of problems that the World Baseball Classic can cause.

In Machado-Boston feud, a former Red Sox player sides with Machado - Steve Melewski
We’d probably be done talking about this whole thing if not for Holbrook’s Wednesday ejections. Anyway, Pedro Martinez is apparently on Manny Machado’s side.

Dean Jones Report: Mountcastle's huge month leads bullish Orioles' prospects - BaltimoreBaseball.com
One man’s take on the top dozen or so Orioles prospects. Who had a good month and who didn’t? Although it seems sometimes like we can’t have nice things, in fact, a few prospects had nice Aprils.

April Attendance Matters for MLB | FanGraphs Baseball
No team’s April attendance increased more than the Orioles, it turns out, and that probably means good things for attendance for the rest of the season... well, as long as they mostly keep winning, anyway.

Birthdays and anniversaries

One lone former Oriole has a birthday today: 1995 six-gamer Joe Borowski.

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! Your birthday buddies for today include: trumpet genius Maynard Ferguson (1928), actress Aubrey Hepburn (1929), sports broadcaster Erin Andrews (1978), NSYNC’s Lance Bass (1979), and golfer Rory McIlroy (1989).

On this day in history...

In 1471, in the War of the Roses, Yorkist forces under Edward IV defeated a Lancastrian force in the Battle of Tewkesbury, killing Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales. This intra-Edward killing marked the only time an English heir apparent has ever died in battle.

In 1814, Napoleon arrived on the island of Elba to begin what was supposed to be a permanent exile, but it didn’t quite stick.

In 1904, construction started on the Panama Canal, described in my personal favorite palindrome: a man, a plan, a canal: Panama.

In 1961, the first of the Freedom Ride buses left Washington DC, for New Orleans, LA - beginning a series of protests over the continued segregation of public buses.

In 1970, Ohio National Guard soldiers opened fire on unarmed students protesting the Vietnam War at Kent State University, killing four and wounding nine more.

**

And that’s the way it is in Birdland on May 4 - or at least, until something happens later, which you know it will, because if nothing else, the Orioles have to call up a starter for tonight. Have a safe Thursday. Go Orioles!