Category: Sports News

Good morning, Camden Chatters.

The path to getting there might not have been ideal, but the Orioles salvaged a split with the Mariners in the opening series of their seven-game homestand. The O’s have snapped a four-game losing streak by winning their last two, taking last night’s finale by a 7-5 score. A six-run third inning did the heavy lifting for the Birds, who held on despite Kyle Bradish’s second straight lousy start thanks to a great effort by the bullpen. Check out Alex Church’s recap of all the action.

The O’s are right back where they started the homestand, at four games under .500. It’s not exactly where they want to be. Things could be better. But they could also be worse! #analysis

The Orioles arguably could have won all four games of the series. Both of their losses were by one or two runs, and if just one or two things had gone differently in each game, the O’s could’ve made a huge statement with a sweep of the first-place Mariners. But baseball doesn’t work that way, especially not 2026 Orioles baseball. Even in their almost-wins, they keep making some dumb mistakes, like Blaze Alexander getting thrown out to erase a potential sac fly on Monday, or Gunnar Henderson first-pitch hacking into a groundout with the bases loaded in a tie game in the ninth on Tuesday.

We’ve seen what the Orioles can look like when they’re firing on all cylinders. They’ve got the talent to go on an extended run, but most of the time the biggest obstacle they need to overcome is themselves. The fundamental mistakes — sloppy defense, sloppy baserunning, failures with RISP — are holding them back. If they clean up some of that stuff more consistently, they can certainly make a postseason push in an American League that has very few dominant teams.

For now, the O’s will try to extend their modest winning streak as they welcome the Padres to Camden Yards for the first time since 2024, when San Diego took two of three. The Pads have a winning record overall but have been struggling for a couple of weeks now, just 4-12 in their last 16 games. Their offense in particular has struggled badly, nobody more so than former Oriole Manny Machado, who’s hitting .172 with a .597 OPS.

This series is the Orioles’ for the taking, and a good opportunity for the Birds to inch closer to that elusive .500 mark. Will it happen? It’s hard to predict anything with this team.

Links

Rutschman makes impactful return to lineup, Cowser and Alonso homer, Wells comes to rescue in Orioles’ 7-5 win (updated) – School of Roch

It’s great to have Adley back! But also, uh, what exactly is happening in that photo?

Should Orioles manager Craig Albernaz be more demonstrative with umpires? | MAILBAG – BaltimoreBaseball.com

It does seem like Albernaz isn’t particularly expressive with umps when arguing calls. Then again, he is still recovering from taking a baseball off the face a couple months ago. I’d probably be trying to avoid any unnecessary facial movement, too.

Jon Meoli: Cut a year ago by Seattle, Leody Taveras has turned his career around with the Orioles – The Baltimore Banner

Every year it seems there’s some journeyman veteran who makes the O’s roster as an afterthought and ends up being a much bigger contributor than expected. Leody Taveras is that guy.

Pham plans to opt out of Minors deal with O’s (source) – MLB.com

(monotone voice) No. Wait. Don’t go. How will we ever survive?

In his return to majors with the Angels, Trey Mancini authors another comeback story – The Athletic

A great story from Ken Rosenthal about the beloved former Oriole, who just made it back to the majors for the first time since 2023 after nearly retiring earlier this season. I’ll be rooting hard for Trey, and I don’t think I’m the only one.

Orioles birthdays and history

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! You share your day with two former Orioles: Baltimore-born outfielder Damon Buford (56) and catcher Dave Skaggs (75).

On this date in 1986, Orioles DH Juan Beníquez hit three home runs in one game, an especially unlikely feat considering that he hit only six in his entire O’s career. The O’s lost the game anyway, 7-5, to the Yankees.

On this date in 2004, in the first game of a doubleheader at Camden Yards, the Orioles’ Rafael Palmeiro hit his 536th and 537th career homers while the Giants’ Barry Bonds hit his 675th. It marked only the third time in MLB history that two members of the 500-homer club went deep in the same game. Once again, the O’s lost, 9-6, in 11 innings.

Random Orioles game of the day

On June 12, 2006, the Orioles beat the Blue Jays in Toronto, 6-4. Starter Kris Benson delivered a quality start, working six innings and giving up three runs, all of them coming on a pair of Alex Ríos homers. His battery mate, Ramón Hernández, went 3-for-5 and was a triple shy of the cycle to lead a well-balanced O’s offense. Chris Ray got the save in the ninth despite giving up a homer to former and future Oriole Gregg Zaun. The win improved the O’s to 30-35, but they never got even within five games of .500 again for the rest of the season.

Since most of the conversation lately seem to have zigged towards the Nolan Gorman question and somewhat the Riley O’Brien question, I decided to zag in another direction. My curiosity? Of the minor leagues prospects we’ve been watching, who has the most interesting pitch shape metrics (ie. the under the hood stuff)? We seem to be far enough into the season to have built up some stats that can stand up to Small Sample Size (SSS) scrutiny. Since I do the daily down on the Farm Reports, I see the various pitcher usage and line score results every day. That has made me curious about some things that might be going on beyond the line score.

That real-time curiosity met up with a longer-term, nagging deficiency in my knowledge set. It goes like this: Every so often as prospect watcher like @KareemSSN will post an interesting tidbit on a pitcher with stuff I find really cool. He is pretty good at explaining things, but one of things that has frustrated me is I can look at a chart like this and lack the context of what is good, what is bad and what is irrelevant and I have to re-remember all that and I can’t find a reliable source for reference. So I set out to build my own reference, so when something like this pops up, I can open my reference card and interpolate if an SI spin of 2038 with an HB of 13.7 is good, bad or irrelevant. In this case, it’s not great, but very relevant to gauging a Slider’s potential effectiveness.

I’m going to start with a set of numbers similar to what is above, although I can’t help myself and add a few and delete some others. I’m going to pull all the pitch data for our Low-A and AAA pitching prospects and see who has elite level metrics in any of the categories. I will be dropping VREL, Ext and Chase and add in some expected performance measures like xwOBA, xBA, along with actual measures like K and BB rate.

My first crack at this will be to discover which Low-A pitchers have top 10th percentile metrics. This is a “who has a tool that sticks out” kind of question. For those pitchers with a notable metric, I will show a comparison not only to their league, but AAA and MLB standards for the same metric. For fun, I will also include a notable non-Cardinal prospect in the analysis (Seth Hernandez) to give some context to some of the numbers you will see.

A couple of quick notes on the data:

1. The data comes from Baseball Savant (probably not surprising). The minor league side only has data for Low-A and AAA pitchers, so my research will unfortunately exclude High-A and AA pitchers. We have to wait for Liam Doyle to get to Memphis before we get to look under the hood.
2. I’d love to use Chase%, but I can not find it in the exported set that comes from Savant. If anyone has any pointers, let me know.
3. I arbitrarily set a cut off at 50 pitches … any pitcher with less than 50 pitches in that league is excluded. It helped make the data manageable, and also smoothed out most major league rehab pitchers. I’m not comparing prospects to veteran MLB pitchers, I’m comparing them to their peers.
4. The vertical and horizontal movement ranks are non-intuitive. Whereas a low xBA is good (top 10th percentile) and a high xBA is bad (bottom 10th percentile), when it comes to direction, either extreme can be good, depending on the pitch type. For example, a high positive on the horizontal axis on a Sinker (SI) can produce a top 10th percentile, whereas a high negative on the same axis coupled with a Slider (SL) can produce a bottom 10th percentile result, which is equally good, given the pitch type.

Low-A Metric Leader Board

The above table depicts 12 Palm Beach (Low-A) pitches who have at least one pitch metric in the top 10th percentile of their league. These represent the tools the Cardinals have to work with and develop.

The thirteen pitcher is a proxy – Seth Hernandez. If you’ve never heard of him, you will. He is what scouts dream of when it comes to pitch metrics:

• (FF) Four seam fastball that has top 10th percentile in velo AND horizontal movement
• (SL) Slider with top tenth percentile in whiff rate and horizontal movement
• (CH) with top tenth spin rate and whiff rate

With that primer, let’s look at Cardinal Low-A prospects:

• Alex Breckheimer has elite command with his four seamer w/ a top 10th percentile walk rate.
• Cade Crossland’s spin rate and horizontal break on his change-up (CH) are top 10th. His curve (CU) has elite whiff rate and elite horizontal break (90th percentile). This is one of those counter-intuitive ones where the large negative number is a great number. In an odd one, his slider (SL) has a really odd outlier horizontal break – it breaks into RH hitters. That will need fixing.
• Antoni Cuello has top 10th horizontal break on his FF and SL, and has a superior K rate with that slider. It is a put away pitch.
• Dylan Driessen has top 10th percentile induced vertical break on this 4-seam fastball (FF). I always get this backwards but I think this means it has “ride” or “hop” to it. He also has exceptional command over his slider (SL).
• Kaden Echemann has an even better curve (CU) that Crossland with 16” of downward break. Memories of Uncle Charlie with this one.
• Jack Martinez has unusual break on his slider. It doesn’t miss bats, and walks lots of guys, so I don’t see this 10th percentile rating as all that helpful.
• Jacob Odle carries top tenth percentile on both his FF. He had one of the hardest curves in the league, too, before he advanced to High-A.
• John Shelagowski has elite horizontal break on his FF and has elite and near-elite characteristics on his slider (SL).
• Tyler Van Dyke’s FF really rides in on RH batter, with a high K and low walk rate (the velo itself is pedestrian). He also carries very good command characteristics on his SL.
• Ethan Young carries top tenth percentile characteristics on his SI, CH and FF. Looks a little like Seth Hernandez, huh?

Performance Matters

Stuff (and the underlying metrics which show it) are one thing. Performance is another. Which pitchers (in Low-A Palm Beach) are getting the most out of their stuff? Let’s look more at performance outcomes as see how they rate.

In the above table, you will see many of the same names and pitches, this time with how those pitches are performing in real games. There are few new names, as some guys without top 10th percentile stuff are still getting top tenth percentile results, such as Nelfy Ynfante, who really limits hard contact without any top tier stuff.

Some notes:

• Crossland’s change and curve perform well. Sure enough, that odd slider does not.
• Odle’s FF seems to perform a bit worse that the metrics suggest it should.
• Van Dyke’s command sets him apart.
• Jack Martinez seems to get more out of his FF that the metrics suggest he should.
• Ethan Young, with 4 pitches on this chart, should become a name to remember. How many low-A pitchers do you remember that already have 4 average or better offerings?

Summary

So I’m ending this just with Low-A pitchers. Round 2 will include AAA pitchers, in similar format, depending on how commenters react to this first go. This hopefully provides you with some names to watch for, some reasons to watch for them and some explanation about why these guys keep getting used in priority situations.

Closing

Oh, yeah. Remember that cheat sheet I keep looking for to remember what is a really good pitch metric…like for when someone tell us so-and-so’s sinker (SI) breaks arm side 18”. Is that good? Is it elite? Below is an MLB chart and indeed, anything above 17.9” is top tenth percentile. This is for all pitchers in the MLB in 2026.

One interesting thing I think I see in this data. There really doesn’t seem to be a lot a difference in top tenth pitch metrics (spin rate, horizontal break, etc.) between Low-A and MLB. Is that a reasonable look? That tells me that location, command and sequencing is what they learn coming up the ladder, but the raw materials are pretty much in place in Low-A. Valid observation?

Long-term, I might spiff this up by blanking out more irrelevant columns. For example, percentile rank is not crucial for velocity on a Knuckle Curve. For most breaking/off speed pitches, the offset from the FF/SI is more crucial, as well as the spin direction (which isn’t in the data set, as far as I can tell).

Greetings, Brew Crew Ball community. The Brewers had another slightly underwhelming week, as they swept the Rockies in Colorado and won an extra-innings slugfest on Monday night in Las Vegas but ultimately dropped their series with the A’s. Elsewhere in the division, the bottom three teams (Pirates, Cubs, and Reds) struggled, but the Cardinals continue to surprise, as they’ve closed the gap in the division. The Brewers are now back home as they’ll welcome the Phillies and Guardians over the next week.

Feel free to use this thread to chat about (almost) anything you want: video games, food, movies, non-baseball sports, the Brewers, you name it. As long as it’s appropriate and is allowed by our moderators, it’s fair game here.

You know the drill.

This is now an open thread:

The Pittsburgh Pirates are addressing some season-long problems in the bullpen by calling up number seven prospect Antwone Kelly ahead of this weekend’s series against the Miami Marlins.

The 22-year-old right-hander had a 4.50 ERA and a 1.481 WHIP at Triple-A Indianapolis this season, which are hardly sparkling numbers, but as the team continues to middle along with a 4.45 ERA as a bullpen, some reinforcement arms were needed. He did pitch over 100 innings last year with a 3.02 ERA, which helped his cause.

Kelly has a fastball that reaches triple digits and averages 97.6 mph in the Minors, and he also employs a change-up and a cutter. He began the year in the starting rotation for Indianapolis, but was then moved to the bullpen.

The 20th-ranked Pirates bullpen needs all the help they can get, having two major blowups within the past week, giving up a 10-run inning to the Los Angeles Dodgers and blowing 9-5 eighth inning lead to the Houston Astros. The bullpen seems to be getting worse, not better, which is why some fresh bullpen arms were needed. Whether Aruban native Kelly is part of the answer or not remains to be seen, but we’ll be set to find out this weekend against the Marlins.

The Bucs have three home games against Miami this weekend, playing Friday at 6:40pm, Saturday at 4:05pm and Sunday at 12:15pm. We’ll see Braxton Ashcraft, Bubba Chandler and Paul Skenes taking the mound this weekend as starters. Once we get to the bullpen, there’s a good chance Kelly makes his debut. Stay tuned.

The Yankees are going to have to pass the “Playing without Aaron Judge Test” repeatedly over the next several weeks, but they’ve passed the initial run. They’ve won five of six since the Captain’s injury was officially announced, with the offense particularly stepping up in a series sweep in Cleveland. The road trip continues with the team’s first visit to Canada this year, where they’ll look to repay the Blue Jays for Toronto’s domination of New York last year.

On the site today, we turn our sights to the Jays, with Matt previewing the three-game set. Later, Sam recaps Thursday’s American League action, and Nick praises the great Hideki Matsui on the occasion of his 52nd birthday. Also, Peter’s sequence of the week highlights Fernando Cruz, and Jeff discusses how Trent Grisham’s resurgence couldn’t have come at a better time.

Today’s Matchup:

New York Yankees at Toronto Blue Jays

Time: 3:07 p.m. EST

TV: YES, Sportsnet, TVA Sports

Venue: Rogers Centre, Toronto, ON

Questions/Prompts:

1. On the occasion of the Yankees visiting Toronto, do you think the Jays are still a major threat to come back in the division? Or do you think they’ve fallen far back enough?

2. Can you think of a baseball analogue to what happened in Game 4 of the NBA Finals?

St. Paul Saints 1, Toledo Mud Hens 0 (box)

Pitching was sharp on both sides in this one as Sawyer Gipson-Long posted his best start of the season while the Hens were held to four hits.

The right-hander fired five scoreless innings of one-hit ball of his own in this one. Gipson-Long allowed two walks, but he struck out five on the evening. As usual, his slider-changeup combo was very good, but his fastball metrics remain well below average. Ricky Vanasco succeeded him with a scoreless inning of work, and Troy Watson took it the rest of the way. He too pitched a solid three innings, but allowed a solo shot in the top of the ninth for the only run in this one.

Max Clark went 0-for-5 but didn’t strike out, and he was the only Hen who could say that. Corey Julks had two hits to lead the offense, such as it was as Saints veteran Austin Voth struck out eight in his start.

Julks: 2-4, 2B, 2 K

Gipson-Long: 5.0 IP, 0 R, H, 2 BB, 5 K

Coming Up Next: It’s a 7:05 p.m. ET start on Friday in Toledo.

Erie SeaWolves 8, Akron RubberDucks 7 (box)

John Peck came through with a walkoff double after the RubberDucks tied this one up late.

Starter Sean Hunley struggled for Erie in this one, but the offense seized control pretty early after Hunley gave up four runs in four innings.

Brett Callahan is really pressing his case for a move to Toledo now. The left-handed outfielder crushed a solo shot in the bottom of the first for his 12th home run of the season, and his fifth in the last six games. Callahan is holding his own against left-handed pitching and destroying right-handers. The Tigers do things at a glacial pace but Callahan should be moving up after the All-Star break if he can avoid a slump in the meantime.

In the second, singles from Chris Meyers and Izaac Pacheco led to their second run. In the third, they really poured on the offense. Peyton Graham singled with one out and John Peck drew a walk. A two-out single from Andrew Jenkins plated Graham, and then Meyers walked to load the bases. Pacheco ripped a two-run single to right field and then stole second base. E.J. Exposito came through with a two-run single of his own, and it was 7-3 Erie through three innings.

The Detroit area’s own Alex Mooney hit a solo shot off of Hunley in the fourth to make it a 7-4 game, and the RubberDucks chipped away at the lead with a two-run sixth against Johan Simon.

Moises Rodriguez took over in the ninth with a 7-6 lead looking for the save. He got a quick pair of ground outs and his sinker is popping triple digits now that the weather has heated up. That didn’t stop Jaison Chourio, who got a hanging slider and launched it to right for just the second homer against Rodriguez this year.

Tie ballgame.

The reversal came quickly in the bottom half. Graham walked, and Peck smoked a double off the right field wall. Graham raced first to home ahead of the relay, and the SeaWolves had a walkoff winner.

Peck: 2-4, R, RBI, 2B, BB, 2 K, SB

Graham: 1-4, 2 R, BB, K

Pacheco: 2-3, R, 2 RBI, BB, K, SB

Hunley: 4.0 IP, 4 R, 3 ER, 5 H, BB, 4 K

Coming Up Next: The SeaWolves will morph into the Flagship City Kitties on Friday, as they hunt for their fifth straight victory at 6:35 p.m. ET.

Lake County Captains 6, West Michigan Whitecaps 5 (box)

The Whitecaps beat up on Captains starter Melkis Hernandez, only to watch their bullpen blow the lead late on Thursday.

Right out of the gate, a one-out single from Andrew Sojka and a double from a still hot Ricardo Hurtado got the Whitecaps in scoring position, and Sojka scored on a ground out for a 1-0 lead.

Starter Lucas Elissalt leaked two runs in the bottom half on a single-double-single combination, but in the second, Samuel Gil and Junior Tilien led off with singles. Caleb Shpur’s automatic double scored Gil, and a Sojka single scored Tilien. Shpur was thrown out at the plate, but it was 3-2 ‘Caps.

The third opened with back-to-back doubles from Clayton Campbell and Luke Shliger for a 4-2 lead. Unfortunately Gil lined into a double play to snuff that threat from developing further.

Elissalt allowed a Dean Curley solo shot off a high fastball in the bottom of the third that got the Captains back within one. The right-hander has struggled early on this year, but we keep seeing hints of more velocity, and he was really just bit by sequencing. Other than the solo shot he wasn’t hit hard at all and was in pretty good command of his stuff.

Again the Whitecaps pushed across a run in the bottom half on a Campbell sac fly that scored Sojka.

Unfortunately, that 5-3 lead wouldn’t hold up as Preston Howey surrendered three runs in the sixth, and the offense went quiet.

Sojka: 3-5, 2 R, RBI, 2 K

Hurtado: 2-5, 2B, K

Gil: 2-4, R

Elissalt: 5.0 IP, 3 ER, 4 H, BB, 4 K

Coming Up Next: It’s a 7:00 p.m. ET start on Friday with the Captains up 2-1 in the series.

Clearwater Threshers 5, Lakeland Flying Tigers 2 (box)

Malachi Witherspoon’s control was pretty shaky again in this one, and the bullpen kept leaking runs while the offense was pretty quiet.

Witherspoon did settle in eventually, but he coughed up two runs in a pretty laborious first inning. He shut the Threshers down from there and found his command to a degree, but was still pretty efficient. He departed in the fourth and Yendry Gomez cleaned up that inning and spun a scoreless fifth as well.

In the fifth, the Flying Tigers finally capitalized on an opportunity when a passed ball got Nick Dumesnil to second base, and a Beau Ankeney single scored him. In the sixth, Anibal Salas singled with two outs, and Hunter Dobbins doubled him in.

At that point it was a 2-2 game and things were looking up.

In the bottom of the sixth, Luke Hoskins came on for Lakeland and an error on Jude Warwick allowed the leadoff hitter to reach and then steal second base. A double that Javier Osorio couldnt’ snare at third gave the Threshers the lead. Hoskins leaked another run before getting out of the inning, and gave up one more in the seventh as the Flying Tigers’ offense went silent.

Dobbins: 2-4, RBI, 2B, K

Warwick: 2-5, 2 K, SB

Witherspoon: 3.1 IP, 2 ER, 6 H, 2 BB, 4 K

Coming Up Next: The Flying Tigers lead the series 2-1 heading into a 6:30 p.m. ET matchup on Friday.

FCL Tigers 4, FCL Phillies 2 (box)

20-year-old Jack Bushell, another of the Tigers’ Australian pitching contingent alongside Ali Tanner, went through the Phillies like an angry weedeater in this one, striking out 10 and allowing just a solo shot in five innings of work.

Angel de los Santos, a fast-rising 19-year-old shortstop prospect, mashed a three-run shot in the fifth that was the decisive blow in this one.

Just as nice to see was the return of SS/2B Franyerber Montilla. The 21-year-old slick fielding switch hitter blew out his ACL last July, and this was the first we heard about his status. He went 0-1 with two walks and scored a run. He’ll need some time to build up, but my guess would be West Michigan is his final destination, playing second base alongside Bryce Rainer.

De Los Santos: 1-2, R, 3 RBI, HR, BB, K

Steven Madero: 1-3, R, RBI, 2B, K

Bushell (W, 1-1): 5.0 IP, ER, H, 0 BB, 10 K