We are now just one week away from Orioles Opening Day. It’s true! Real baseball that counts will be back at Oriole Park at Camden Yards next Thursday afternoon. Hopefully that will be fun. Until then, there are another six exhibition games to get through, including a split-squad day today. Road Orioles play the Yankees at 1:05, while home Orioles play the Pirates at 6:05. The night game will be televised locally on MASN. The day game has only a Yankees broadcast for TV. Neither game has a radio broadcast.

In yesterday’s spring training action, the Orioles played the Blue Jays. They were victorious by a 3-2 score, with each of Ryan Mountcastle and Adley Rutschman recording multi-hit games and Jeremiah Jackson hitting his first homer of spring training. The starting pitcher, Albert Suárez, gave up a run in four innings while striking out five batters in what could be his last big audition to make the roster before camp is over. The O’s improved their Grapefruit League record to 9-11-3 with this win. Four games in Florida remain.

This deep into spring training, it’s around the point where I’d like to start seeing good results from players who are going to be on the roster and getting regular playing time. Some guys are doing pretty well and not giving much reason to worry about them. Others are more in the “Well, it’s a good thing that doesn’t count” category.

These guys who I think are likely to be in the Opening Day lineup are OPSing over .800:

Adley Rutschman (.880 OPS)Samuel Basallo (.946)Coby Mayo (1.131)Taylor Ward (.960)

Additionally, Gunnar Henderson was a hot hitter in the World Baseball Classic when Team USA’s idiot manager put him in the lineup. He had not been doing well early on before leaving for Team USA. I am choosing to be more excited about the recent results. Tyler O’Neill, who only had 11 PA before joining Team Canada, has also had a split spring with interesting things going on.

Riding the struggle bus for spring with an OPS below .700:

Colton Cowser (.564)Blaze Alexander (.653)Heston Kjerstad (.669)Leody Taveras (.595)

Kjerstad probably starts in the minors, especially since his bat has cooled. Taveras isn’t here for his bat. Those other guys, though… it’s time to get it going. Cowser is the expected regular center fielder and Alexander is likely to play a lot this season between Jackson Holliday’s and Jordan Westburg’s injury situations. Maybe they’ll start to make us feel a little better about them in the next few days.

Orioles stuff you might have missed

Two more roster cuts gets Orioles camp down to 47 (Baltimore Baseball)
Reliever Jose Espada and pitching prospect Luis De León were reassigned to minor league camp yesterday. Neither was ever likely to make the Opening Day roster, so no surprises there. De León is a guy I’ll be following curiously this season.

O’Neill on WBC experience, spring breakout roster, other Wednesday notes (School of Roch)
The Spring Breakout game is happening on Friday evening in Sarasota, with Orioles prospects playing a team of Red Sox prospects. As you can probably guess, there is no local broadcast of the game.

Three reasons why this could be a special season in Birdland (Steve on Baseball)
Are you buying any of this optimism from Steve Melewski?

Bryan Ramos keeps building sleeper case to make Orioles Opening Day roster (Orioles.com)
If I had thought it worth including Ramos above, he definitely would have made it on the “who’s hot” list. There is a case for him, if the Orioles aren’t worried about the last infielder on the bench being able to play shortstop.

Orioles begin construction on flag court bar that will open midseason (The Baltimore Banner)
There were multiple announcements involving corporate sponsorships yesterday. As those corporations have not paid me to promote them (but if they want to, my rates are reasonable) I will not be doing so at this time. This one is about a beer company sucking up flag court real estate. This one is indistinguishable from some stupid idea John Angelos could have had. Maybe he even did have it. I hope it doesn’t turn out like an eyesore.

Birthdays and Orioles anniversaries

Nothing of particular note has been recorded for this date in Orioles history. That probably won’t change today unless there’s bad news.

There is one lone former Oriole with a birthday today. Happy 52nd birthday to Rocky Coppinger, an Orioles pitcher from 1996-99. He had a 5.68 ERA in 45 games with the team. Young Mark was excited about him once.

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday to you! Your birthday buddies for today include: explorer David Livingstone (1813), O.K. Corral gunfighter Wyatt Earp (1848), Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren (1891), author Philip Roth (1933), and rapper Yung Gravy (1996).

On this day in history…

In 1284, the Principality of Wales was incorporated into the Kingdom of England after the Statute of Rhuddlan was enacted by the king of the time, Henry I, who had conquered Wales following a rebellion over the previous two years.

In 1831, the first recorded bank heist in American history took place as burglars took $245,000 in 1831 dollars from City Bank on Wall Street in New York City. City Bank still operates today as Citibank.

In 1918, Congress established time zones in the United States and granted approval for daylight savings time.

A random Orioles trivia question

I received a book of random Orioles trivia questions for Christmas. I’ll ask a question each time it’s my turn in this space until I run out of questions or forget. The book gives multiple choice answers, but that would just make it too easy for us, so you don’t get them. Here’s today’s question:

Who was the only player to ever record his 500th home run in Memorial Stadium?

And that’s the way it is in Birdland on March 19. Have a safe Thursday.

Build Your Winning Bracket!

SB Nation’s CBB expert Mike Rutherford and resident bracketologist Chris Dobbertean will answer all your questions this week and help guide you to bracket glory! Drop in SB Nation’s March Madness Feed all week long and we’ll have both on hand! (All times ET)