We are now just one week away from Orioles Opening Day. It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
In yesterday\u2019s 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 Su\u00e1rez, 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\u2019s improved their Grapefruit League record to 9-11-3 with this win. Four games in Florida remain.<\/p>\n
This deep into spring training, it\u2019s around the point where I\u2019d 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 \u201cWell, it\u2019s a good thing that doesn\u2019t count\u201d category.<\/p>\n
These guys who I think are likely to be in the Opening Day lineup are OPSing over .800:<\/p>\n
Adley Rutschman (.880 OPS)Samuel Basallo (.946)Coby Mayo (1.131)Taylor Ward (.960)<\/p>\n
Additionally, Gunnar Henderson was a hot hitter in the World Baseball Classic when Team USA\u2019s 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\u2019Neill, who only had 11 PA before joining Team Canada, has also had a split spring with interesting things going on.<\/p>\n
Riding the struggle bus for spring with an OPS below .700:<\/p>\n
Colton Cowser (.564)Blaze Alexander (.653)Heston Kjerstad (.669)Leody Taveras (.595)<\/p>\n
Kjerstad probably starts in the minors, especially since his bat has cooled. Taveras isn\u2019t here for his bat. Those other guys, though\u2026 it\u2019s 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\u2019s and Jordan Westburg\u2019s injury situations. Maybe they\u2019ll start to make us feel a little better about them in the next few days.<\/p>\n
Orioles stuff you might have missed<\/p>\n
Two more roster cuts gets Orioles camp down to 47<\/a> (Baltimore Baseball) O\u2019Neill on WBC experience, spring breakout roster, other Wednesday notes<\/a> (School of Roch) Three reasons why this could be a special season in Birdland<\/a> (Steve on Baseball) Bryan Ramos keeps building sleeper case to make Orioles Opening Day roster<\/a> (Orioles.com)
Reliever Jose Espada and pitching prospect Luis De Le\u00f3n were reassigned to minor league camp yesterday. Neither was ever likely to make the Opening Day roster, so no surprises there. De Le\u00f3n is a guy I\u2019ll be following curiously this season.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Are you buying any of this optimism from Steve Melewski?<\/p>\n
If I had thought it worth including Ramos above, he definitely would have made it on the \u201cwho\u2019s hot\u201d list. There is a case for him, if the Orioles aren\u2019t worried about the last infielder on the bench being able to play shortstop.<\/p>\n