Have you gotten tired of hearing about how awesome Dylan Bundy is yet?
Me neither.
Sunday in Hagerstown, Bundy pitched five scoreless innings for the Shorebirds and surrendered just one hit. He struck out four and earned his first win of the season. South Atlantic League batters are hitting .053 against the Orioles prospect.
So the burning question in Baltimore is: when does the organization move him up?
“Dylan has clearly forced the issue for a discussion about the next phase,” Orioles director of pitching development Rick Peterson told MASNSports.com’s Steve Melewski.
Sources say that the Orioles want Bundy to pitch three 5 inning outings at Low-A before moving him up. Yesterday was his second. It’s my belief Bundy’s next scheduled start, this weekend at home against Greensboro, will be his last in Low-A assuming everything goes as planned. READ MORE >>>
Deep in the heart of Texas a local champion is crowned every year.
The Texas Rangers and Houston Astros interleague matchup, better known as the “Lone Star Series”, awards its local champion with the Silver Boot Trophy every season.
As you could imagine, the Silver Boot has been housed in Arlington for the past five years straight.
This cool local trophy got me thinking that the Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals need to come up with a crown of their own for the Battle of the Beltways. I’ve got just the idea.
How about a trophy that features three lanes of traffic stopped at a standstill. We could call it the Traffic Trophy or Standstill Crown.
If you want to build up a friendly rivalry between two local teams, this is the perfect way to get fans of either the O’s or the Nats more excited about the local matchup.
What would you call the Battle of the Beltways trophy?
Say what you will about interleague baseball, but it puts buts in seats.
120,929 people visited our nation’s capital this weekend to watch the Orioles take two out of three in the Battle of the Beltways from the Nationals. 36,680 came out to game one on Friday, 42,331 on Saturday and 41,918 on Sunday for the series finale.
I was fortunate enough to make the trip to D.C. on Friday and watch Nick Markakis hit the game winner in the 11th inning. Even though Nationals Park isn’t far from home, it was nice to hear the Orioles fans support the team on the road. I’m sure the players were appreciative of the support as well.
The Orioles have won 19 of their last 26 and 9 in a row on the road against the Yankees, Red Sox, Royals and Nationals. Their 15-5 road record is the best in all of baseball.
I’m not sure what Adam Jones, Nick Markakis and Xavier Avery call their jump at the end of every road win, but I’ve decided to call it the “Victory Leap.”
Despite there being a number of story lines during the Orioles matchup against the Nationals, there are some questions that just send players over the edge. Adam Jones was asked by CSN Washington whether he was excited to see Bryce Harper and his answer went something like this:
“Why are you asking me that? Why are you asking me about other people like that? Are you asking them if they’re looking forward to see me? Are you asking them if they [are] looking forward to see Wieters? Are they looking forward to see Markakis? No, have you asked them that?”
I’ve got to admit, when Nick Markakis hit a 383 foot bomb off of Nationals reliever Ryan Mattheus in the 11th inning, I went nuts.
So did the other Orioles fans in attendance at Nationals Park last night.
My eyes followed the ball as it traveled out of the park and hit the second the deck, but I was informed that Markakis might have watched the homer for a bit too long.
Right off the bat Nick Markakis knew it was gone, but did he watch it just a bit too long?
The next two Orioles batters, Adam Jones and Matt Wieters, didn’t receive any pitches to the ribs, but I have to wonder if Markakis will before this series is over. It just seems like the gritty Davey Johnson baseball we all fell in love with in Baltimore.
Nationals phenom Bryce Harper learned the hard way last night that you never run on Matt Wieters, the best catcher in baseball.
After drawing a walk in the bottom of the fourth inning, Harper decided to take off on Jake Arrieta. The result was Matt Wieters first runner caught stealing of the night.
The Orioles catcher gunned out Jesus Flores in the bottom of the fifth as well.
Adam Jones keeps hitting home runs, but it will take more than that for this team to keep up their pace. (Denny Medley, US Presswire)
With their comeback win over the Royals, the O’s maintained their spot atop the AL East standings as they entered an important series against the cross-state Nationals, who have continued their emergence as a contender in the crowded NL East. Every series is important for these Orioles however, who have yet to convince anyone (myself included) that their 25-14 (as of Friday) record is anything but a fun diversion before the division reverts back to the standard order of things. Right now the only thing normal about the AL East is the Blue Jays occupying their usual spot in third.
And there are certainly reasons for concern. The injuries are starting to pile up on this team, and there aren’t any more reserves left in Norfolk that give me reason for confidence. Once Bill Hall was plugged back in at the major league level, you knew things were getting desperate. Mark Reynolds remains out with a strained oblique (which one does not want to risk re-aggravating), and while that gives Ryan Flaherty a good opportunity to develop it strips Buck Showalter of the flexibility to insert anyone other than Nick Johnson into that spot. With Endy Chavez and Nolan Reimold still out, Xavier Avery has performed admirably (his average may be low but he is showing tremendous poise at the plate) but he is not going to be a season-long answer, at least not yet. The current roster is performing well, but there is very little depth for a team that was already thin to begin with. READ MORE >>>
Caps PR guy Sergey Kocharov tweeted the news to fans in the DMV of both teams.
More baseball related hockey news…
Washington Center Mathieu Perrault was spotted sporting a Yankees hat at the D.C. United game this week. Kocharov told fans not to worry about Perrault, “I don’t think he can name 3 players on that team.”
It’s time once again for interleague baseball, which usually means that it’s time for the boring baseball purists to complain and tell you why AL teams shouldn’t face NL teams.
Here in Baltimore, it means it’s time for the Orioles to head to our nation’s capitol to face the Nationals in the Battle of the Beltways, the MASN Cup, the DMV Championship or whatever clever name you’ve decided to give the series.
For the first time in the history of this local series, both the O’s and Nats find themselves in first and second place in their respective divisions.
Tonight Jake Arrieta takes the bump/the plate against Edwin Jackson. Arrieta has struggled over his last two starts (0-2, 11.70 ERA, .388 OPP AVG), but the soft hitting Nationals could be just the cure. Jason Hammel faces Ross Detwiler in tomorrow’s nationally televised game and Wei-Yin Chen faces Stephen Strasburg in the finale on Sunday.
To get you ready to make fun of the Nationals, here’s Nuts About The Nats. See you in D.C. Go O’s!
Xavier Avery, Nick Markakis and Adam Jones celebrate the sweep in KC.
With their two-game sweep in Kansas City, the Baltimore Orioles have become the first team this season in Major League Baseball to win 25 games.
As the graphic in the image above points out, Baltimore have won seven straight road games for the first time since 1999. They did so against the Yankees, Red Sox and Royals.
Hopefully that streak will continue during interleague play tomorrow in D.C.
Yesterday we determined that “yes, in fact it is still okay for Baltimore fans to boo Mark Teixeira.” Today we pose another question to the boo birds of Camden Yards.
Is it time to cut Kevin Gregg some slack and stop booing him?
In Gregg’s last six outings for the O’s he’s surrendered zero runs on just three hits in 8 1/3 innings of work and has walked three and struckout eight. Oh, and he recorded the win in the Orioles fifteen inning Marathon against the Royals last night.
Yet somehow, every time Gregg gets up in the pen, Baltimore breaks the internet with #KevinGreggSucks tweets.
Yes, I know he blew seven saves last season, lost the closer’s role and wasn’t happy with the demotion. But that was 2011, a season in which the Orioles were 19-21 on May 17. They’re 24-14 now, this is clearly a different team.
All I’m saying is, there are plenty of guys in pinstripes and red socks that deserve heckling. Gregg has proven to be no longer deserving of the grief.
The guys introduce a new wrinkle to the podcast, live streaming video. Stupid bets return to the show, the gang discusses how the Orioles can remain atop the AL East and break down Will Ferrell’s return to Saturday Night Live.
Join Zach, Patrick and Matt for this week’s edition of the best sports podcast in Baltimore, the BSR Podcast.
Here are some of the topics discussed on this week’s show:
Video Killed The Radio Star
In addition to providing audio downloads through BaltimoreSportsReport.com and iTunes, the BSR Podcast will now feature a live streaming video version of the show.
Viewers can tune in live to the show right here on BaltimoreSportsReport.com. Record dates and times will be announced via BSR’s socialmedia outlets.
Those who can’t watch live, can tune into the video version of the show every week. It will be featured in the show notes portion of each episode. Here’s this week’s:
Adam Jones and Bill Hall strangely celebrate AJ's go-ahead homer in the top of the 15th.
Adam Jones should get used to hitting bombs at Kauffman Stadium. The American League is going to need that power when he’s starting in centerfield during the All-Star Game.
After going 0-for-6 with two strikeouts during the first fourteen innings of play, Adam Jones came up big again for the Orioles with a solo homer in the fifteenth that ultimately secured the Orioles 4-3 victory over the Royals.
Have you gotten tired of hearing about how awesome Dylan Bundy is yet?
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