Straight brought to you by the Baltimore Battery, and we are ready to rock and roll with another episode. Kind of hoping that things were going to be a little bit better than we were on last episode. I want to give a special thanks to Nathan from Full Count Chaos for joining us on our last episode, but, you know, things have gotten worse. Still 500 team at home. We're looking in my notes here, we're 9-14 on the road. We're 21-26 overall. We're now in fourth place. Tampa Bay is actually in first place now. So the Yankees are no longer in first place. We did actually take two or three from the Yankees, but then we went ahead and looked abysmal against the Athletics. We won the first two games against the Marlins and then looked atrocious in the last game. We just, I don't, we can't seem to put anything consistent together. I don't know what is lacking here. I mean, the coaches can only do so much. The coaches aren't the ones playing in the field. They can only prepare so much. Even Albert has come out and said that Bunning is going to start being more involved in their game. He sees that the offense is not producing the way it should produce. Beyond the expectations that, you know, many people had. I mean, we signed Peter Longa to a five-year deal. Expecting the offense to get better than it was last year. As of right now, we're scoring 4.54 runs a game, which is actually 17th in the league. 17th in the league. That's when you have Gunnar Henderson, Pete Alonjo, Adley Rutschman, Samuel Beseo in your lineup. Tyler O'Neal, Taylor Ward. I mean, these are guys who you expect to be producing runs. These are guys that you expect to be powering an offense. Colton Couser just hit his first home run the other day. I mean, really, Colton, you know, Kobe Mayo, he has four home runs, and when he hits the ball, he hits it a freaking mile. Don't get me wrong on that. But there's something seriously lacking here. And I've talked to many, many, many people who are fans of the Baltimore Orioles and they're scratching their heads. They're frustrated. They're just as confused. And the only thing I can think of is it's individuals playing baseball. And I can hear it now, people, well, there's nine guys out there playing. It's got to be a team sport. Well, you know, yeah, it is a team sport. But what I mean by that is you got Gunnar Henderson going up there, and I'm going to pick on Gunnar right now because Gunnar is having an abysmal year. Yeah, he might hit the ball a ton when he does hit it, but he's batting below 200. This is a guy that apparently is going to get a 10-year, $600 million contract, okay? And yet, his shoulder's not hurt like it was last year, and yet last year he had a better year than he's having right now. But this is a guy who will go up there and swing at horrible pitches, or watch pitches, he goes straight down the middle of the plate, and then either swing at a pitch so far out of the zone that it looks like he has no clue what the strike zone is, or sit there with the bat on his shoulder and watch the ball go straight down the middle of the plate like he's trying to guess what the pitch is going to be. And when he does swing the bat, he swings it so hard, it looks like he's going to drill himself into the ground. So it looks like he's trying to hit a six-run home run, trying to win the game every at-bat when we're down four, five, six runs instead of trying to get on base, instead of working a walk. Taylor Ward. I love the guy. I think he was a great pickup, but it's gotten to the point now he's trying to get a walk every single bat to the point that he's striking out because of it. Or he's putting the ball in play and getting thrown out because he's not getting the ball past the infield or he's lining it straight to an outfielder. He's so focused on getting a walk now, he's forgot how to play regular offense. I mean, seriously, I am picking on the offense big time. Yes, I can pick on the starting pitching. Yes, I can pick on the defense. Yes, I can pick on the bullpen. The bullpen actually at one point was one of the strongest parts of our team, and now it's gone to shit. You can only blame so much on the coaches, on the management, on the front office. You can only blame so much on them. This is a team where most of this team has been together in the big leagues for the last three, four years. Went through the minor leagues together. So it's not like they're not familiar with each other. But it seems like there's a disconnect with each other. It's almost like they've gotten to the point where, okay, you might be moved, you might be moved, you might be moved. Okay, so I'm not going to get close to you. I'm not going to, you know, we're not going to have that bond that we had before. So I'm not going to cheer you like I did before or pump you up. And because of that, you have no player leadership. Adley Rushman is out there playing his ass off, which is a welcome sign compared to the way he played last year. Now, whether that's because he knows he's either going to get traded or he knows that the Orioles aren't going to extend them. But honestly, I'd love to keep Adley Rushman and Samuel Beseo around. DH, first baseman, you know, help give Pete Alonzo some rest here and there. You know, you got a good offensive catcher and a good defensive catcher. You got two catchers with one with a cannon and one with a pretty decent arm. Both have great pop times. And in the bigs, it's been shown numerous times you need at least two good catchers on your big league squad. I personally would keep them both. But who knows? What might be needed to wake this team up is trading somebody. A Colton Kalser. An Adley Rutschman. Yenier Canel. Dean Kramer. Trevor Rogers. Somebody like that. Somebody who you don't think isn't somebody that the team thinks isn't going to be traded. Trade them. Give this team a wake-up call. We are getting ready. We are halfway through the month of May, and this team is sitting here at five games under .500, cannot consistently put anything together. They had one six-game winning streak. 47 games into the season. Now, granted, like Tommy Lasorda said many times, the season is three sections of 56 games. What you do in the middle section is what determines your season. You're going to win 56, you're going to lose 56. It's the middle 56 that determines what you do in your season. Okay, I can accept that. I've also heard the thing that, you know, you play 500 ball for most of the season, and then you have two or three 10-game winning streaks in, you're going to make the playoffs. I've heard that. But when you have a team that looks as dysfunctional as our team looks right now, you cannot tell me that the hope is that we pin it on, a 10-game winning streak here and there and playing 500 ball. We're playing 500 ball at home. We're playing down below our competition. There's no reason that we got manhandled the way we did in D.C. And I say manhandle because in both games, we were no hit through the first six innings of the game. We've been no hit through so many innings of game too many times this year for me to even remember. It's sad. And there's no excuse when everybody in the top of that lineup to the bottom of that lineup has the talent and the ability to get on base just about every time they come to the plate. They're smarter than that. They're wiser than that, and yet I see dumb, unfundamental baseball being played every single time I watch the game. It is embarrassing and hard to watch the Baltimore Orioles play right now. Twice against the New York Yankees, we had the bases loaded. Twice the Yankees were giving us runs, and we still could not score. They threw to the wrong base. They threw behind the runner. They made mistakes that we generally make and we could not capitalize on it. It's ridiculous. We cannot play fundamental baseball. We cannot capitalize with players on base. We cannot score when we have players in scoring position. It's all about me, me, me, me, me. What can I do when I get up to bat? That's it. We're not going to bump the guy over to get him in scoring position. We're not going to hit the sack fly to get the guy home because he's going to give us a run. You know, we're not going to do a hit and run because it's going to maybe move a guy over to third base instead of second base on a single. That's nothing that you see our team doing. It's a bunch of selfish baseball. And I really hate to say that because this team has a lot of players that we all have watched over the last few years that we have supported, gotten behind, cheered, rooted for, and everything in our power to sit there and hope that they brought something back to Baltimore that we have been starved and waiting for since 1983. And you cannot tell me that one of these players can look us in the eyes right now and tell us that they are playing the quality of baseball that this city deserves, that this city should be able to get behind and support. Not one player can get up there and say that. Because they haven't. As people say, Greg Albernaz should not have been hired because he's a rookie manager. Greg Albernaz knows his shit. He can only do so much to get a team prepared. Right now, I don't even think a veteran manager could get this shit taken care of. Mike Elias, I've heard maybe he needs to go. Well, once again, Mike Elias can only do so much. We didn't have the top draft and the top minor league system for no reason at all. It's not like these kids can't perform. We've seen it. We've seen them perform Numerous times So you're telling me all of sudden They just decide to stop? It makes no freaking sense, Brandon Hyde was fired because of this Tony Manzolini ended up doing Doing a pretty good job With a bunch of, Shit going on at the same time And I know I'm cussing a little bit more than I normally do But I'm fed up I'm fired up, I'm frustrated, And most of Birdland is frustrated too They feel the same exact way. If I can't turn on the game and I look at the box score, it's just as heartbreaking to see those games go inning by inning by inning by inning with us not hitting the ball, with us striking out. Or us getting runners on second and third base with no outs and scoring no runs, loading the bases, scoring no runs. Watching our pitching staff that has a 20-plus ERA after we score a run. The pitching staff has a 20-plus CRA after we score a run. Meaning we can't even keep them off the board after we score. Somebody on that team needs to pull these players aside and give them a good ass-chilling. Wake them up. Because if this continues, I can promise you by July, a lot of these players are going to be gone. And we'll be back to square one all over again. And what scares me the most about it is I guarantee none of these players even realize that, and somebody needs to get them to understand that. Keep playing this game. Keep playing this stupid, unfundamental baseball that you seem to have forgotten exists, and you'll find out you're going to be playing elsewhere or you're going to be out of the league, because I can promise you the way Colton Couser is playing right now, he'd be lucky if he'd be playing in double-A baseball. And I hate to pick on Colton Couser because I love the guy I think he's got the right talent but somebody needs to work with him and get him to understand that you don't have to chase every freaking ball in the zone, he's slowly getting better but the game on him I wouldn't throw him a fastball at all because he can't hit anything but a fastball, Dylan Beavers who has a pretty good view of the strike zone seems to forget about the strike zone all of a sudden. It just started swinging at pitches that go out of the strike zone. Now, I know he's hurt right now, so I'm not going to go on him too hard. I'm going to knock on wood before I say this, but Tyler O'Neal's playing baseball for us, and yet he's about as good as he would be if he was on the aisle right now. What has he brought to the plate? Nothing. Tavares seems to be the only person right now in the outfield that's worth his salt. Ward keeps going through these flashes where he looks really good and then all of a sudden he looks really bad. It's Tavares who seems to be worth his weight and salt, and Jermiah Jackson, but he's been playing second base. Blaze Alexander, who's not doing too bad, but I would really prefer him not to play the outfield. I just... I don't know. I'm just frustrated. And I'm sure you all are as frustrated as me. Now we're going to play Tampa Bay, who's 30-15. They've won 18 of their last 22 games. They're 16-5 at home. Our top three pitchers are going, and Trevor Rodgers, Kyle Bradish, and Shane Baz. You know, it's against Faith McClanahan, who's 6-0 against us in nine starts. We're 2-9 against lefties. Now, we have won our last two games against left-handers, so there is that, but we're still 2-9 on the season against them. The good news, though, is we have beaten the Devil Rays, or Tampa Bay Rays, excuse me, 33 times since 2022, which is the most of any team during that span. So there's hope. And the Rays and Orioles do play each other very tough every time they play against each other. Another stat to drop is the Rays are 9-1 in one-run games where the Orioles are 4-7. So, one-run games are going to be a tough one, too. But I digress. I don't know. What are your thoughts, Birdland? What do you think? Do you think I'm right on this? Do we need a player to step up and be a leader and rally the troops? Give these guys the swift kick in the ass that they need and wake them up, get them to understand that if they don't turn their shit around and start playing better as a team or together as a team, that they're going to start seeing their team disassembled because that's where it's going to end up going, and I wish they'd understand that. Is it a managerial problem? Is it a coaching problem? Is it a front office problem? Would it be an ownership problem? I mean, Peter Angelos is still there. He's not an owner, but he is still there. Could there be behind-the-scenes things going on? Let me know your thoughts. Drop a comment. Let me know. You can find me here, of course. You can also find me at SRJHechman on Instagram, TikTok, and X, formerly of Twitter. Also, don't forget to check out thebaltimorebattery.com. Without them, I wouldn't be here. A lot of new writings that are coming out. The Great, The Good, and Ugly Edition 6 just came out. We also had our Prospects of the Week just drop. So, new articles there. Plenty of other articles you can catch up on there. Lots and lots of information that we drop on a regular basis. So, check out thebaltimorebattery.com. You can find them on TikTok and X, formerly of Twitter, at thebmorebattery. I also want to give a big shout out to our sponsor Scooter Advanced Mobility Solution, formerly Scooters for Rent if you're ever in the Maryland Delaware Eastern Shore area and you're looking for mobility products mobility scooters, wheelchairs manual beach wheelchairs or electric wheelchairs or lift chair recliners give them a call at 302-280-6203 and tell them Stephen Heckman from the Final Strike sent you until next time Birdland And please keep that beer cold. Please keep rooting for our O's. They need all of the cheering and support they can get. And until next time, peace out. We'll catch you around the nest.
