Baltimore Orioles Scrimmage: Good and Bad Trends
The best news of the spring for Baltimore Orioles fans is that that boys were playing real baseball on Saturday for the first time, this being done in an intra-squad scrimmage game.
What can we read into a five inning scrimmage with modified rules? Absolutely nothing. But for fun, let’s do it anyway!
So here are some obvious trends that have been established already …
The Orioles’ pitching is going to be totally dominant. Through five innings — actually 10, since it is all Orioles — there was only one hit allowed. And everyone was foolishly worried about the 2016 O’s pitching! We all know that the Baltimore lineup is incredibly powerful, and yet they only managed but a single hit off the over-powering pitching!
Ryan Flaherty is the best hitter on the Orioles. Yes, I just wrote that sentence, and it will be the only time I ever write that. But it is now obviously true. He was the only batter to get a base hit. Clearly he is on track for a potential breakout, All-Star season. I repent for being so hard on him the past three or four seasons.
Andrew Triggs is a beast pitcher. Actually, unlike the aforementioned hitter, Triggs has been written about very favorably on this blog. Roch Kubatko said of him today, “Andrew Triggs was the most impressive Oriole today with his five recorded outs, including three strikeouts. His first 10 pitches were strikes. He finished with 13 strikes among his 15 pitches.” Seriously, this kid is for real.
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The worst news we gain from today is that Odrisamer Despaigne is going to be make the team, throwing 19 pitches and striking out this blog’s favorite son, Nolan Reimold. The problem with him making the team is a very grievous one; it means that I have to learn how to spell his name without looking it up every time I need to write it. We’ve already been through variant spellings of Hyun Soo Kim, and at long last I’ve gotten Yovani Gallardo in my head without referencing it. That’s enough Ubaldo-esque names for one team.
The best runner on the Orioles is Joey Rickard. He stole a base! Yes! No kidding! A Baltimore player not named Machado stole a base! This is the stuff of headlines. Actually, he seriously might be the best runner; there’s not much competition on this team that was dead last in baseball in stolen bases. But stealing is wrong, so being the worst at being wrong is actually being the best, which is what the Orioles are.
Seriously, we are getting closer to REAL baseball to talk about!