The ticking clock doesn\u2019t make a sound in baseball parlance. It\u2019s more of a visual thing, counting down until reaching a date and time of particular importance.<\/p>\n
For the Orioles, the exactness is missing in their response to the trade deadline. Though it arrives on July 31, how they react remains in discussion.<\/p>\n
When must the front office reveal itself as sellers or buyers? And is it pink for sell and blue for buy?<\/p>\n
The day started with the Orioles 11 games below .500 and seven behind for the last Wild Card. They\u2019d need to perform an Olympian vault over seven other teams to reach the postseason for the third year in a row.<\/p>\n
The math says it\u2019s a stretch.<\/p>\n
Mike Elias says he\u2019s got to plan for \u201cboth scenarios.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m hoping that we aren\u2019t sellers, but we\u2019ve got to realistic, look at the standings, look at how much time\u2019s left before the deadline, how much time is necessary to execute a deadline, because that\u2019s not one or two days,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way this works, the conversations start to happen around now and kind of comparing notes with other GMs, and that\u2019s been going on the last few days. People are making their preparations, they understand that we\u2019re not committed to a path yet, but we\u2019re doing preparation in both directions and have an understanding of where that might go. So we want to keep playing, keep giving this team that we think is very talented, but unfortunately has started off with a bad record, as much chance as we can. But we\u2019re gonna have to ultimately make a decision at some point here in July.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new ownership group led by David Rubenstein remains supportive, however the Orioles decide to proceed through next month.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been, since they\u2019ve taken over, very healthy, very constructive,\u201d Elias said. \u201cThey\u2019ve demonstrated already between the trade deadline last year, the free agent budget this year, the facility in Sarasota, the hirings on the business side, they\u2019re very serious about applying financial resources to support and grow this franchise. But unfortunately, those of us in baseball, we just haven\u2019t gotten this off to a good start in 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s reasons for that, I\u2019ve talked about it, and we\u2019re determined to not let it happen again. But they\u2019ve been very supportive, understanding that this isn\u2019t something that anybody wanted and it\u2019s not going to plan and they\u2019re gonna help us right the ship.\u201d<\/p>\n
No one is capable of keeping the shelves of the injured list from being stocked. Losses aren\u2019t restricted to game results.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Eleven players are on the IL and infielder Jordan Westburg is day-to-day again after jamming his sprained left index finger into second base last night. Ten of the 13 position players on Opening Day have been lost at some point, and that doesn\u2019t included shortstop Gunnar Henderson, who stayed back in Sarasota with an intercostal strain.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a contributing factor,\u201d Elias said. \u201cI think when we\u2019re underperforming as much as we have, it\u2019s a perfect storm of ingredients for something like that. The injuries have certainly been a big part of it, and a big part of last year, us tapering off. And I\u2019m frustrated for the players.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re Jordan Westburg and you haven\u2019t really gotten a real steady run of play since last June, that\u2019s very frustrating. You see what a huge part of the team he is. (Colton) Cowser, also. Now Adley (Rutschman), for the first time we\u2019re missing him. It\u2019s been really hard to not see all these guys out on the field together for the first time. It\u2019s been over a year.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Orioles are expecting a big bump in the second half with pitchers Kyle Bradish, Tyler Wells, Grayson Rodriguez and Albert Su\u00e1rez returning, and they\u2019ll also get Rutschman and first baseman Ryan Mountcastle back onto the roster. But the cruel twist is that the club may be out of the running for a playoff spot.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think everybody\u2019s gonna have injuries, but the simultaneous nature of the injuries, having Grayson and (Zach) Eflin go down at the same time, having multiple layers of position players at the same time, it\u2019s almost impossible to plan for that,\u201d Elias said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s been pretty deep.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tony Mansolino became interim manager on May 17 and the Orioles are 20-18 under his guidance. The energy level increased along with the wins, but they haven\u2019t made up much ground in the standings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he\u2019s handling it extremely well,\u201d Elias said. \u201cIt\u2019s a very difficult thing to be asked to do, it was very sudden. There\u2019s nothing that can prepare you for it. People don\u2019t really want to be put in that situation. But I do think that the team has responded well to him. They\u2019ve been playing very hard and very loose for him, and I think we\u2019ve seen some improvement in the record, and we\u2019ve gotten things moving in the right direction. He\u2019s doing a good job with a tough circumstance.”<\/p>\n
Elias isn\u2019t ready to lay out his plan for the offseason and detail his approach to a managerial search. Mansolino wears the interim tag, presumably for the remainder of the season, and could be a candidate to stay.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s something, if and when we do start to talk about it, it will be after the draft and trade deadline and a little later into the year,\u201d Elias said.<\/p>\n
The amateur draft is held July 13-14 to again bump up against the All-Star festivities and the trade deadline. Executives throughout baseball are multitasking.<\/p>\n
The Orioles hold the 19th pick in the first round, along with the 30th, 31st in the compensatory round and 58th in the second.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been, and I know other executives are, too, pretty vocal about how problematic it is to have those two events right on top of each other, on top of the All-Star Game,\u201d Elias said. \u201cIt does strain your front office and scouting resources to prepare for both of those. We\u2019re getting into very serious draft meetings right now, so we\u2019ve been slowly preparing all of spring and all of June, but our primary focus will be the draft starting next week. But at the same time, we prepare for the trade deadline, too, so we\u2019ve got draft meetings, let\u2019s say like two large meetings a day from here to the draft, but we\u2019ve also got some trade deadline meetings stacked in there. We\u2019ll have to stay on the phones.\u201d<\/p>\n
The organization\u2019s No. 1 prospect, catcher Samuel Basallo, remains down at Triple-A Norfolk but should earn a promotion later this summer, perhaps after his 21st birthday in August.<\/p>\n
Basallo is batting .269\/.392\/.579 with eight doubles, 15 home runs \u2013 many of them moon shots \u2013 and 35 RBIs in 52 games. He\u2019s caught in 18 to go with his 10 starts in Triple-A last summer.<\/p>\n
His skills as a hitter are on full display this month. They can\u2019t be ignored. He\u2019s slashing .339\/.467\/.678 with six homers and 15 RBIs in 18 games.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope that he debuts this year,\u201d Elias said. \u201cI think it\u2019s really hard to nit-pick anything offensive right now and he\u2019s still getting better. He\u2019s still refining his approach. He had three walks last night, which was good to see from such a young guy. There\u2019s a lot of people really excited about his bat.<\/p>\n
\u201cCatching is the area that there\u2019s still a lot of development left for him, and not all of that\u2019s gonna be in the minors. But his bat is more ready than the catching and that tends to happen, and it\u2019ll be developing in the majors, too. But I think the experience that he\u2019s getting, catching in Triple-A right now, is still really, really valuable. The game-calling, the handling veteran pitchers.<\/p>\n
\u201cTim Federowicz, our manager down there, is an ex-major league catcher, so that\u2019s been really helpful. And you look at it going back into last year, I think he\u2019s only caught like 30-ish games in total in Triple-A, so it\u2019s really not very much because of the injuries that he\u2019s had during this time. It\u2019s getting closer and closer by the day, knock on wood. It keeps moving in the right direction every day. But there\u2019s still a lot for him to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The ticking clock doesn\u2019t make a sound in baseball parlance. It\u2019s more of a visual thing, counting down…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138551,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2374],"tags":[1079,143,47,2538,5,581,1509,4,125,579,578,12642],"class_list":{"0":"post-138550","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baltimore-orioles","8":"tag-adley-rutschman","9":"tag-baltimore","10":"tag-baltimore-orioles","11":"tag-baltimoreorioles","12":"tag-baseball","13":"tag-jordan-westburg","14":"tag-mike-elias","15":"tag-mlb","16":"tag-orioles","17":"tag-orioles-featured","18":"tag-roch-kubatko","19":"tag-tony-mansolino"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114764324897015051","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}