dc.

In a word... Yawn. Hype machine media at its finest. Fear mongering politicians doing their damnedest too to keep us worked up. Close the borders! To stop the one international case. Some stupid mistakes early, primarily by the original hospital. But it won't end us or the world... And won't come close.

She's accomplished so much in her twenty one years... Hooray!

Definitely agree about zone "respect" and it applies to both hitters and pitchers. Changing to the set position is not a good idea, papa, because then you'd just have everyone intentionally squat or bend over in "set" to make the zone small - think old fashioned Chuck Knoblach. Because it is "ready swing" position, even guys like Knoblsch stand up a bit and have a zone.

First, why the shoulder? The top of the zone is technically closer to the belly button or just above... But second, technically the zone is "set" by a player in their "active" position - not their stance beforehand and not their stance or position while swinging. How do we pin that down, especially when it can change by the pitch for some batters - but certainly by the week or the month for many? Just not convinced by it.

Not sure they could ever get that right. Just to many moving parts.

Quite

Eric "Got just enough of it" Hosmer strikes again. And so does his silly dance moves.

Has been done... 04 Red Sox over Yankees.

Not quite just up to the majors for many of them, but young and under control. What will be more interesting is if they continue to develop. This is not the Cain and Hosmer that played all year. So does this post season become a breakout moment for them or do they become their old selves - good not great? I bet the latter, but they'd still be a formidable team regardless. But really, Hosmer had less than 60RBI all year as their clean up hitter. This series? Wild.

But in the first two, again, it was small things. Game two hosmer breaks his bat and gets two runs in on a bloop. Game one, Pearce drops the Hardy throw leading to a three run double the next batter instead of end of inning. Pitching struggled but got no help. Meanwhile, great catches and plays save the Royals pitching a few times. Not meant to be is right.

Dogs candle. Geez Spen. ;) Hit paste by accident apparently. And my phone hates me.

Guthrie is in super apology mode on the shirt. I for one believe him, not his style. He says it was given to him by a fan and he was wearing it in clubhouse and forgot to remove it for the conference- not intending to flaunt. Meanwhile - I disagree that the royals are one and done. They are young and good, especially strong in pitching and defense. I think they will be around for a while - probably several division championships coming. But I just think that while they have been better this series, it's been such little breaks that have really turned the games. If someone said they were a better team than the O's, is probably disagree. But better this series and playing better this week, sure. Big game between good teams are decided by little things. KC is getting the little things done, the O's are slipping a bit on them and just not getting the breaks.

Hosmer has really been the guy that's gotten to me, but some of the others are pretty childish too. Yost is also pretty sad to watch... I like Buck's cool demeanor much more the more I watch other managers.

Couldn't score regardless of style... Couldn't hit period, despite getting Guthrie to throw a bit. And still just not sure how we defend the bloop.

Re: Britton... In that first game the problem was part lack of calls but more the bunting attempts by the Royals. The sinker is supposed to miss the zone, but if they aren't planning to swing you've got no reason to throw it.

Two thoughts - no one disagrees that speed can be deadly. It's just no more deadly than any other weapon. And it's nice for a paper to pick up their mantle after the fact.

Watched the Gotham intro episode the other day... not a fan at all. Just way too melodramatic for me. I guess that's very much the comic book style sometimes, but I found myself grimacing and almost laughing frequently - especially the interactions between the main two. Casting was good and the mood was good, but it was just too goofy for me. Felt a lot like those "fairy tale" shows on ABC and other channels these days.

Break down the numbers and you'll see Caleb has been good with some but not others. Nick has been better with a few. Honestly, I think Matt is the best option overall without question. If Caleb sticks around to call for a pitcher or two, that's fine. But I think attributing the staff growth to Caleb is premature... It especially requires us to ignore that we have a new pitching coach. Maybe it took more than a month for him to find his groove with the staff and vice versa

I agree and disagree. I think Buck was worth a lot this year - and really every year with us so far. What I don't know is why or how you think that changed in the last ten days? The bullpen arms are faltering a bit, certainly... but that has both happened at times all year and is not something that's really down to Buck. I'll end it here because we just disagree - and honestly, your whole tone returns to "they weren't this good" which I think you know is just bull - trying to grasp at reasons to say you were right about previously wrong predictions. But I still say that close games are decided by close plays - and just a few of those have gone against the O's this series. Pearce at first. Hosmer's bloop. The ump in game one (oh man that strike zone was atrocious for both sides). Gordon's catch in game 2. Flaherty's error. Little things that wound up with big changes - Pearce's drop was three runs. Hosmer's bloop was two. Gordon's catch was two. Flaherty's error was one directly and at least one more. And that hardly counts the missed chances the O's have actually had at the plate. If even one of those changes in these first two games, it's a 1-1 series and we're not having this convo - though I'd assume you'd be arguing how it should be 0-2 because that little bloop for the O's didn't really count as good baseball, etc etc. They're a far from perfect team and have played two far from perfect games. I'm not saying they will improve in the next game (or any of what could be 5 more)... but I am saying that two close losses playing not-their-best is not an indicator that the rest of the year was just something special. And that in the next game, two or more, we're just one of those plays away from a win. I will admit this - Jeremy Guthrie scares me because the Orioles can NEVER hit their former players... Guthrie, Chen, Hammel, Arrieta... man oh man. I hope we blow him up though.

All I'm saying is that even when they were good, you didn't hear about the speed of those teams. The Giants and Cardinals had the lowest steel totals in baseball along with three Orioles. The Orioles haven't needed the home run this series - it certainly would help, but that's not what's losing them these games. To act as if this team is losing because it's not scoring runs its silly. And in the end, we're taking about two games decided in the ninth or later... But let's chalk it up as playing over their heads for the last 100 games of the season. Not the last month, the last four months were apparently luck. And the Royals were just unlucky that whole time - shucks, their bats were just not getting it done because who knows. But Lorenzo Cain is suddenly going to be the next 400 hitter.

Except when it's not. The Yankees and Red Sox have rarely been speed focused teams but have had some decent success in recent years, I'd argue. Power over speed won us 96 games. The ideas that it doesn't anymore are just as silly as when Joe Morgan tried to argue that money ball didn't work because it didn't run the plays he liked. Each team wins in its own way, and as long as it works what's the question?

This game got boring in the second quarter. ;)

As good as the royals have been this series, they haven't been this good all year - even with their speed. Papa, at what point is a sample size big enough to say a team is what it is... 162 games is probably more than big enough. It's hard to saya teams playing over their heads for that long. Meanwhile, saying a team isn't built for the playoffs is as easy as saying they won't win the world series... You'd be right 29 times out of 30 every year. There is no "built for the playoffs" - you are who you are. The O's aren't missing these two games because the series is any different than another. As Cleetz said, we're a few bad defensive plays away from being up 2-0. And I'd argue with Davis and Manny in, those plays are made. We're a few runners left on away from being up 2-0. The Royals have played some damn good, nearly perfect, ball the last ten days. But they are no better built for a win than anyone else still in it - if so, where they go all season with this offense? Eric Hosmer hits a broken bat jam shot just over Hardy yesterday for 2 runs. But that's built for the playoffs baseball, whereas our ball getting caught on a dive by Gordon is the world returning to normal. What a load.

Over your head or pretty dead on with our predicted win loss based on all the metrics and clearly better than most anyone else in the league. Are you seriously attempting a passive told you so... Because sure sounds like it

Crav, I thought you loved our starters... They just took out three Cy Young winners! The whole team needs to step it up. Pitching on both ends has struggled. Bats have been less than stellar especially when we need them. Defense has let us down across the board when it counts. We're two missed defensive plays or timely hits or untimely walls away from winning those games. We got to their starters better than I thought we would but just more terrible else where. Things can still click. But sure hope is fading