Official Orioles Fan Thread

[finfangfan]

Do my eyes deceive me? Three game win streak? Morton quality start? Dylan Carlson heating up?

[Oriole Way]

Originally Posted by finfangfan

Do my eyes deceive me? Three game win streak? Morton quality start? Dylan Carlson heating up?

We've won 3 in a row to get to... 15 games below .500.

The damage has been done.

It's an absolute travesty that Mayo is still rotting in AAA while Jorge Mateo gets forced into the outfield. Blows my mind that Elias still gives that POS preferential treatment.

And trust me, I'm not saying Mateo is playing a position that Mayo plays or directly taking away playing time from Mayo. But Elias has given way too much playing time to vet scrubs for years, instead of giving opportunities and consistent playing time to our own prospects, who have almost all been superior talents compared to the scrubs they got blocked by. Ortiz, Stowers, Norby, Kjerstad, Mayo - even Westburg had to platoon with Elias Turd Adam Frazier and Cowser benched/demoted for Elias Pet Aaron Hicks when they first came up.

The true cancer of this organization - Elias - is still there, unfortunately.

[callou2131]

Originally Posted by Oriole Way

We've won 3 in a row to get to... 15 games below .500.

The damage has been done.

It's an absolute travesty that Mayo is still rotting in AAA while Jorge Mateo gets forced into the outfield. Blows my mind that Elias still gives that POS preferential treatment.

And trust me, I'm not saying Mateo is playing a position that Mayo plays or directly taking away playing time from Mayo. But Elias has given way too much playing time to vet scrubs for years, instead of giving opportunities and consistent playing time to our own prospects, who have almost all been superior talents compared to the scrubs they got blocked by. Ortiz, Stowers, Norby, Kjerstad, Mayo - even Westburg had to platoon with Elias Turd Adam Frazier and Cowser benched/demoted for Elias Pet Aaron Hicks when they first came up.

The true cancer of this organization - Elias - is still there, unfortunately.

Pretty much sums up my thinking also. Plus I remember Hays mentioning some club house issues before he left. Now hes raking in Cincinatti. Young players need consistent playing time, not bounced around up and down the lineup (Hyde) or platooned with has beens, and sent up and down a bunch of times. Last year Holiday was bad early like gunnar was, and they couldnt really move them because of injuries. They both figured it out PDQ, but if not given that chance, they can never figure it out.

[Oriole Way]

Originally Posted by callou2131

Pretty much sums up my thinking also. Plus I remember Hays mentioning some club house issues before he left. Now hes raking in Cincinatti. Young players need consistent playing time, not bounced around up and down the lineup (Hyde) or platooned with has beens, and sent up and down a bunch of times. Last year Holiday was bad early like gunnar was, and they couldnt really move them because of injuries. They both figured it out PDQ, but if not given that chance, they can never figure it out.

Agreed. The lineups with Hyde were infuriating - every single day, guys were in different spots. You could tell that Hyde loved tinkering with his lineups, but it was detrimental to letting individual players, especially the young prospects, get comfortable, as well as the offense as a whole stay consistent. Even when the offense was good in the first half of 2024, it was an all-or-nothing offense, we'd beat teams 12-2 one game, then lose 3-1 the next. Part of that was the team's approach (by the way all the hitting coaches and pitching coaches need to be fired as well), but Hyde's stupid changing lineups contributed also. Gunnar Henderson is not a leadoff hitter and never should have been as much as he was under Hyde.

Elias uniquely botched Holliday. He deserved to start the 2024 season on the Opening Day roster after a big spring, but instead the O's inexplicably brought north another Elias Turd in Tony Kemp. Norby should have made the 2024 OD roster as well. But then Elias nonsensically called up Holliday after 8 games or so, citing matchups as the main reason, which was stupid. Even in that case, Elias and Hyde's stupid tendency to over-platoon hurt the development of the #1 prospect in baseball. Even recently before Hyde was fired, Holliday was platooning regularly at 2B with the worst player in baseball, Jorge Mateo! Absurd.

There's no doubt handling Holliday like that in 2024 put extra unneeded pressure on him. Then Holliday was yo-yo'd down to the minors and back up again later in the season. It was horrible player development, which is one of the many flaws Elias has as a GM.

[finfangfan]

Ryan O’Hearn with the 3 run homer! He is having an amazing year. The Orioles likely trade him before the deadline but hopefully they get something solid for him!

[finfangfan]

Any guesses as to when we see this guy?

[finfangfan]

Per the Baltimore Sun, Orioles attendance is down 8% this year. That’s not surprising given their lackluster performance. I wonder if they end up reversing some of the changes they made to this year’s season ticket perks that got watered down from previous years. I think the assumption on their end was they could charge more since fans were willing to pay more to see playoff caliber baseball. That went off the rails a little bit this year.

[panthers59]

Holliday breakout is the lone bright spot this season

Gotta think Gunnar is going to heat up in June.

[teosdesserts]

Originally Posted by panthers59

Holliday breakout is the lone bright spot this season

Gotta think Gunnar is going to heat up in June.

Ryan O'Hearn is the 3rd best hitter in the AL, pretty bright.

[finfangfan]

Originally Posted by teosdesserts

Ryan O'Hearn is the 3rd best hitter in the AL, pretty bright.

If O’Hearn had come up through the organization, he would be getting a lot more fan love than he does. We would be talking about extension right now but it doesn’t look like the Orioles will do that. And admittedly, O’Hearn might even prefer to be dealt to a contender this year.

[BoSoxFan1999]

wtf? lol
https://x.com/Topps/status/1929606129576759327

[finfangfan]

The Orioles are 8-2 over their last 10 games. They are now 4 games from the 4th place Red Sox.

[callou2131]

I NEED the Gunnar auto inscription where he wrote.... Cowser is scared of shrimp

[finfangfan]

The Orioles have now won their last 6 in a row!

Ruh roh… they might make the 6-team playoffs, but not as easily as many of us expected at the start of the season. No longer sellers at trade deadline?

[blackvodka]

There's so much young talent on this team. The winning streak is nice so hopefully they can keep it up.

Sent from my motorola razr 2024 using Tapatalk

[finfangfan]

Orioles are 13-12 under Tony Mansolino. So at least they are playing somewhat better ball than under Hyde.

[finfangfan]

I actually wouldn’t be upset if the Orioles made Mansolino the regular manager.

[finfangfan]

Tony Mansolino is now 15-12. After taking over for the 15-28 hole Brandon Hyde dug, the Orioles are now 30-40. We are closing in on respectability.

[callou2131]

When i saw todays lineup with Cowser, Holliday, Adley, on the bench and blewett starting I was like WTF Is he trying to lose? Guess I will eat those words.

[finfangfan]

Originally Posted by callou2131

When i saw todays lineup with Cowser, Holliday, Adley, on the bench and blewett starting I was like WTF Is he trying to lose? Guess I will eat those words.

lol… I was on the road today and listening to it on the radio. They mentioned a lot of starters were resting, so like you I also assumed an L but was pleasantly surprised. Mansolino has luck on his side (so far) which is a good attribute for a manager to have. I like the guy. Seems down to earth and just a decent human being that I think the players love. On the radio, they made it seem like he rushed out to challenge the ump on a questionable 3rd strike to Henderson. That seems like a good manager standing up for his guys. I hope the players keep performing for him.

And Holliday was blocked from leadoff when Hyde was here, but is excelling now. I remember a weird press conference with Hyde like a week before he was fired where a reporter asked him if he would experiment with Holliday at leadoff. Hyde basically said it would be awhile. A week later he was gone and Holliday is excelling. You choose your fate, I guess. Hyde’s luck ran out this year.

[Oriole Way]

Originally Posted by finfangfan

lol… I was on the road today and listening to it on the radio. They mentioned a lot of starters were resting, so like you I also assumed an L but was pleasantly surprised. Mansolino has luck on his side (so far) which is a good attribute for a manager to have. I like the guy. Seems down to earth and just a decent human being that I think the players love. On the radio, they made it seem like he rushed out to challenge the ump on a questionable 3rd strike to Henderson. That seems like a good manager standing up for his guys. I hope the players keep performing for him.

And Holliday was blocked from leadoff when Hyde was here, but is excelling now. I remember a weird press conference with Hyde like a week before he was fired where a reporter asked him if he would experiment with Holliday at leadoff. Hyde basically said it would be awhile. A week later he was gone and Holliday is excelling. You choose your fate, I guess. Hyde’s luck ran out this year.

Don't be fooled, Mansolino is an absolute moron. He might be even dumber than Hyde, which I didn't think was possible.

Mansolino wasn't expecting to get the job and admitted as much to the media after he was named interim manager. At one point in a press conference not too many games after being named interim manager, he referred to a run as a "point", which is something I've never heard a major league coach or manager say in my entire life. That's something one of my South American grandmothers (when they were alive) would have said in their endearing lack of knowledge of the sport.

Mike Elias is such a bad GM that he filled this team's entire staff with incompetent, inexperienced coaches. With the possible exception of Buck Britton, who has had a nice career in the minors and won a lot of games with several of this team's young core players (Adley, Gunnar, Westburg, Cowser, etc.). Britton is who Elias should have given the interim job to for the rest of this this season to evaluate for perhaps making Britton the permanent manager, but Elias couldn't get that move right either. Instead, he gave the job to a moron who doesn't even want to be a manager.

It's clear at this point that Mansolino is just writing out the same stupid lineups that Elias is giving him (just as Elias force fed lineups to Hyde, which is something that both Elias and Hyde lied about).

This team is still platooning Coby Mayo, which is absolutely preposterous. And just last week against the A's, Donkey Elias and Moron Mansolino benched Gunnar Henderson - one of the best players in baseball - and instead started Jorge Mateo - the worst player in baseball - after a day off (and with another day off right after the series) and after Gunnar had a nice game in the previous game. If you are serious about winning, you need to write out your best lineups every game, especially when your best player needs to get things going.

That Gunnar benching was egregious and irresponsible, and really telling of how incompetent both Elias and Mansolino are. This team has dug itself such a huge hole, and it needs to do everything it can to win every single game. Benching Gunnar for a turd like Mateo is the opposite of doing everything possible to win. And during the game itself, Mateo came up in the 6th inning with runners at 2nd and 3rd and less than 2 outs. Instead of doing the right thing and pinch hitting with Gunnar, Mansolino left Mateo in to hit, and Mateo of course struck out. Then dumbass Mansolino pinch hit with Gunnar too late in the 8th inning - there was a runner on 2nd base with first base open, so of course the A's intentionally walked Gunnar. It was some of the dumbest baseball management I've ever seen in my life, and I've seen a lot from the Orioles with idiots like Hyde, Trembley, Perlozzo, Mizzilli, etc. And Mansolino made multiple quotes to the media defending the Gunnar benching both before and after the game. And of course, the O's ultimately lost that game by 1 run - 5-4. Gunnar could have/would have easily been the difference between winning and losing that game.

So not only is Mansolino dumb, he's convinced his bad moves are good ones. That's exactly the way Hyde was, and that's dangerous.

Regardless, we're screwed as O's fans with Elias and Mansolino at their respective positions. Most casual O's fans don't know any better because the team got healthy and hot for a stretch, but the same cancers are there that will prevent this team from ever making a deep run in the playoffs and winning a World Series.

[finfangfan]

I agree 2025 is a disappointing season and the organization has a lot of weaknesses. However, I’m a tad more optimistic than you.

I do think it will always be a struggle for us to assemble a healthy, playoff caliber starting rotation. So the weaknesses of 2023 and 2024 will likely never be addressed. A further hindrance to this is they have moved in the wall from its 2023 and 2024 distances. One of the things they hyped when they moved the wall back is that it would help attract quality starting pitching. That is moot now.

So SP is always going to be tough.

Our hitting on the other hand should be doing much better. The narrative was that they assembled a generation of All Stars through multiple drafts. Looks like Gunnar is legit and Holliday likely will be legit, but the rest of our draft guys are either underperforming or struggling to stay healthy (or both!).

I really wish we would have gone off script and gone after Pete Alonso when he was briefly on the outs with the Mets this past offseason. Yeah, that would have been a ton of bucks and they would have had to release popular (but not good) players like Mountcastle, but it would have been fun to see the Polar Bear swing at Camden Yards and break up some of the fraternity of mediocrity that are having fun in Baltimore but not playing up to the level of their draft spot.

That said, I think Mansolino is solid. We will see what other managers become available, but I think he has a solid chance of returning.

[finfangfan]

Dang… we blew an 8-0 lead early and are now down 12-8. Ouch.

[finfangfan]

The Orioles are in last place but “only” 10 games out of first which is the best position for a last place team in any of the 6 divisions in MLB.

ORIOLES— 10 games out of first
WHITE SOX — 23.5 games out
A’s— 13 games out

NATIONALS/MARLINS— 15 games out
PIRATES — 16 games out
ROCKIES — 29.5 games out

While unlikely, the fact they still have an outside shot of making the playoffs by winning their division might make things interesting at the trade deadline.

[finfangfan]

What is even more weird… if the season ended today, all 3 AL wild card spots would come from the AL East…