Bird Watching- First Place Orioles Fly To Toronto And Boston For A Big 7 Game Road Trip.
Coming off a 7-3 homestand against the Red Sox, Yankees, and Royals, the Orioles are atop the division at 36-23 and hold a 2 game lead over the Red Sox. These road series, plus 3 more against Toronto at home next week will help this division take shape.
O’s have a chance to put a lot of separation between them, the Sox and Jays. A Manny Machado suspension of a maximum 4 games will be coming up, so they’ll have to play without him. Hopefully the appeal lasts after these next 10 games, and he can sit them out against Texas (1 game make up), San Diego (2 game set), and Tampa. With or without Manny, the O’s need a winning road trip to hold the top spot, especially with Boston playing the worst team in the A.L, and the Blue Jays creeping up towards the top.
One guy who the O’s need to catch fire is Chris Davis. In May he slashed .210/.313/.380. He only hit 3 home runs, drove in 11, walked 13 times, and struck out 42 times. Terrible numbers for the O’s slugger, but somehow the O’s managed to keep their head above water and went 14-12 with one of their best players playing like crap. June needs to be different, but it hasn’t started off that pretty.
Davis missed Thursday night’s game, his first game missed all season, for what Buck said was a “rest day”. I ain’t buying it. He’s had a lingering thumb injury from an awkward slide earlier this season in Tampa, and my guess was he hurt it, or hurt something when he ran a 3.9 40 yard dash from the dugout to pummel Yordano Ventura on Wednesday night. I mean check him out below, my pants would be filled with piss if I saw a man running at me that with that speed.
While I said he was struggling in June so far, he had a big game last night, and led them to their 20th comeback win of the season, this one against Toronto. Coming into the game, Davis’ June numbers were disgusting, .143/.379/.429, with 2 bombs, 2 RBI, 7 walks, and 9 Ks. He proceeded to go 2-3 with the game tying home run in the 7th, and the eventual game winning sac fly. He also made a great catch at first, looked like he snagged this ball off the top of the rim. Maybe a game like this jumpstarts Crush.
While his numbers this season are underwhelming, .230/13 HR/ 33 RBI with 36 walks, 80 strikeouts, but he also has a .340 OBP. So even with his top 5 strikeouts in the league, and his month long slump, he is still getting on base at a decent rate. His opposite field home run last night is a very good sign, when he is on and hitting well, he’s going to right and right-center. If he can get hot, coupled with Jones, Wieters, and Trumbo continuing their hot streaks, the offense will be even better than it is currently.
Orioles Draft RHP Cody Sedlock
I’m not going to mess around and pretend I knew who these kids were, I literally heard their names for the first time when they were announced at the draft.
Sedlock, the 27th overall pick, comes from the University of Illinois and was the B1G pitcher of the year last season. This 27th pick was the comp pick for Wei-Yin Chen signing with Miami. The 6’4 righty went 5-3 with a 2.49 ERA and 116 Ks in only 101 1/3 IP. Looks like he has an above average fastball, and some good breaking balls. Seems like he was a bit of a workhorse his junior year, check out how long he went inches last 5 starts…
This sounds like a classic O’s pitching pick that will eventually have a hurt elbow, get a PRP injection, wait 6 weeks, and then get Tommy John. But who knows, he wasn’t a high school pick like Bundy or Hunter Harvey, so he’s bigger, stronger, more developed. He seems like a big strong kid who scouts like. He started in the pen and made the successful transition to starter, lets hope he can find his role for the Birds. Hopefully we will see him at Frederick or Bowie later this season. I do know that I love him already because he follows Big Cat and Carl on Twitter, and even said his favorite show is the office, this guy may just be okay. Welcome to Baltimore.
The Orioles also drafted another college pitcher, lefty Keegan Akin out of Western Michigan with the 54th pick. Again, I don’t know much about him. I like the college pitchers because they are a little more seasoned than high school guys, more developed, and faced better competition, doesn’t guarantee anything though. Hoping to see Akin somewhere in the minors later this summer.
With the 69th pick in the draft, they selected Matthias Dietz, a righty pitcher out of John A. Logan CC in Illinois. Don’t know much about Dietz, but he was named the National JUCO pitcher of the year by Perfect Game USA, fine by me!
Upcoming Schedule
Friday June 10- @ Toronto Kevin Gausman (0-3 3.52) vs Marco Estrada (4-2 2.41)
Saturday June 11- @ Toronto Mike Wright (3-3 5.14) vs J.A. Happy (6-3 3.57)
Sunday June 12- @ Toronto Ubaldo Jimenez (3-6 6.21) vs Aaron Sanchez (5-1 2.91)
Tuesday June 14- @ Boston Chris Tillman (8-1 3.01) vs David Price (7-3 4.63)
Wednesday June 15- @ Boston Tyler Wilson (2-5 4.73) vs Steven Wright (6-4 2.29)
Thursday June 16- @ Boston Kevin Gausman (0-3 3.52) vs Eduardo Rodriguez (1-1 5.40)