Saturday May 31, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3932

is there anyone off the table?

#DMD reader Bill P. sent an e-mail on Friday afternoon that caught my eye.

"At this point, is there anyone on the roster truly untouchable in your mind?" he asked.

"If someone stepped forward with an incredible package of players and prospects for Gunnar, would you 100% say no without at least considering it?"

"I'm just curious if there's anyone on the roster that you're dead set against trading? Is there anyone off the table?"

First, I'd say this: My guess is the Orioles get zero calls about Gunnar, in the same way the Yankees get zero calls about Aaron Judge. There's no team in baseball who thinks the O's would move Henderson at this stage in his career.

Is he untouchable? To me, yes he is.

Despite a tepid 2025 to date and defensive issues over the last two seasons, I don't see any kind of bonafide reason for giving up on him at this point.

Now, in a couple of years when he is set to be a free agent, might you have to move him at the deadline if you don't think you can sign him? Sure thing. They were forced to do that exact thing with Manny Machado, remember. It's part of the sport.

And at this point, other than idle internet chatter and the occasional wordsmithed comment about "fielding the best team possible within our financial limitations", there's really no reason at all to think this ownership group is going to fork over $400 or $500 million or therabouts for Gunnar Henderson when he reaches free agency.

Right now, though? Gunnar is in the untouchable department.

So, too, is Jackson Holliday. And I'm not saying Holliday is untouchable because he's suddenly caught fire in 2025 and is off to a nice start. I'm saying he's untouchable because he's a #1 pick in the second year of his career and it makes zero sense to lose faith in him at this stage.

It's starting to look like Holliday is the real deal. Time will tell on that one.

OK, so there's Gunnar and Jackson in the untouchable column. Anyone else?

If we go around the diamond real quick, they're probably the only two.

Trade Rutschman? Sure. I don't see him being all that sought after, particularly with his own free agency looming shortly, but if some club came along and they were desperate for him, he's definitely a piece that can be moved for the right price.

Mountcastle? LOL. Of course. Make us an offer. Please.

O'Hearn? Sadly, yes. You have to move him if someone comes along with a decent prospect or two at the deadline. Unless something weird happens, it's pretty much a done deal someone will want him in July.

Westburg? Well, this one's tough. A year ago, before he got slammed on the wrist with that pitch, I would have probably put him in the untouchable department. Now? I'm not so sure.

He can't stay healthy for whatever weird reason. And that, alone, probably makes him someone I'd consider moving if a team rolled in with a deal I couldn't refuse. I wouldn't be actively seeking to move him. But I might have to say yes for the right trade package.

Cowser? Sure. He's like Westburg, though. I'm not running around trying to trade him, but if a deal comes along that I can't refuse and one of the guys who has to go is Cowser, than, yes, off he goes.

Kjerstad? He might actually be the one young player I'm trying to move to a team that hasn't been paying attention and thinks because he hits a home run every couple of weeks that he's a "power hitter". Might he turn it around and become a legit MLB player? Sure, he "might". But I'm not seeing it. Move him if you can.

Mullins? It's almost a done deal at this point that he'll go elsewhere in July. I still think this version of Mullins we've been seeing of late is a bit of an outlier, but he's a very capable player both with the bat and glove who can slide in there and help a team in August and September.

O'Neill? Of course you'd move him. In a heartbeat. You're stuck with him, unfortunately.

The pitchers are all pieces you could/would move. Eflin will almost certainly be traded in July as he's a free agent this winter.

Everyone else is available -- in my book -- including Felix Bautista. I wouldn't go hog-wild trying to trade the closer at the deadline, but I'd put him in the "fleece" category.

If I could fleece a team who desperately wanted a solid (not "great", but "solid") closer, I'd deal Bautista.

Everyone else can be had for the right price.

But I'm probably not out there actively trying to unload Sugano or Povich. I consider those two "keepers" that I only part with if someone makes me a great offer and I know I'd be silly to refuse it. They're staying.

Let's also not forget that guys like Coby Mayo appear to be Major League ready and on the verge of being capable of playing full time when, or if, some of the guys above do get dealt this summer.

This is, of course, a different stance than we (most of us) had this time last year. Then again, the O's had Corbin Burnes last year and Anthony Santander, too, and those guys were huge parts of the '24 success story.

I'd say that this time last year, Adley would have been "untouchable" and Westburg probably would have been as well. Now, a year later, they could both be had for the right price.

I don't even want to start talking about prospects and whether I'd be willing to move them. Unlike last year, when the Birds had to peddle guys like Norby and Stowers to get a "valuable" (?) piece like Trevor Rogers, they're not going to be in that position this July.

In other words, there won't be any reason to even think about dealing Samuel Basallo or Chayce McDermott or Enrique Bradford this summer because you're not going to be buying this time around.

This isn't a "fire sale" sort of situation. If the O's essentially stand pat, other than the three obvious guys who are gone (Eflin, O'Hearn and Mullins), that will be just fine.

There's no reason to just move guys on en masse for the sake of doing it. They're not that desperate.

And let's also state here, for the record, that we're not in favor of a "rebuild". Something like that would probably necessitate trading away a guy like Henderson or Holliday and getting 5-6 prospects in return, 3 or 4 of which can get in there and help fairly soon.

I like to think of it as "re-tooling".

Get a few prospects for guys like O'Hearn, Mullins and Eflin. You might get 4 or 5 out of those three. Hopefully, if you make the right deals, a couple of them turn into full-time players by '27 at the very latest.

You have enough quality right now -- Henderson, Holliday, Westburg, Cowser -- to keep on going without having to completely shutter the whole project and start fresh.

There is the concern about the long term viability of this starting rotation, but that's what you have the draft and free agency for, even though this ownership group looks mostly uninterested in spending big money on pitchers -- or any players, really, for that matter.

In the end, what the club does this July will go a long way in determining what they do in 2026. Let's hope they do the right things.

Friday May 30, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3931

"what lesson are you teaching him?"

A #DMD reader/dad reached out to me last week with a dilemma involving his son, who recently completed a spring sport season for a local private school.

I'm simply using "dad" and not using even his son's initials on purpose. I don't want their identity known for reasons you'll see below.

When the dad e-mailed me last Wednesday and we corresponded back and forth for a couple of days, I asked if I could share his story and he agreed, as long as I would keep their indentity a secret, which I vowed to do without complaint.

The original e-mail, with a few redactions for privacy, is the one I received on Wednesday, May 23.

Drew, I enjoy your website and your coaching columns. I'm not a golfer myself but I know you're a very successful golf coach at Calvert Hall and we do have a mutual friend (redacted), who suggested I reach out to you with a problem I'm having with my son (redacted), who attends (redacted) and recently finished his (redacted) season playing (redacted) at (redacted).

In a nutshell, we are strongly considering transferring for the fall semester. His academics are solid so we're not concerned there, but we're hoping a transfer might enable him to be the player we thought he would be and give him a chance to make a name for himself in the sport with the hope that he could continue to play in college.

My biggest gripe is the fact that he constantly outplays all of his teammates in practice but then when it comes to playing in the games, he hardly gets any playing time. It's very hard for him to understand. He was always told if you practice hard and practice well you will get rewarded with playing time but that didn't seem to be how his coach operated this past season.

Any insight you can give would be greatly appreciated. (redacted) says hi, by the way. Thank you, Drew, for your help.

We went on to exchange a few e-mails over the next 24 hours.

I won't publish those here because some of the content might give-away his son's school, sport and identity, but the one thing I can share here that I do think is important is the idea that transferring to another school is the ultimate best decision for a student-athlete.

I asked the father this question.

"What lesson are you teaching him by transferring?"

That question sparked a couple of e-mails back and forth and, in the end, probably wound up being the reason they decided not to transfer.

Short story: The young man has decided to stay at his school and continue on there with the hopes of earning more playing time next spring.

But there is more to it than that.

One of the topics I discussed with the father was the reality of what happened at practice vs. the information he was given at home by his son.

This is not meant to indict the son for fibbing, stretching the truth or even outright lying about what went on at practice that day.

I always call it: "sharing information that supports your agenda".

Your child comes home and you say, "How was practice today?" and the athlete says, "It was great! I made 6 baskets in the 5 vs. 5 game we always play at the end of practice."

"Who else made 6?" the parent asks.

"No one I don't think," they reply. "My team won 11-10 and I had 6 of the baskets."

"I hope you get to play on Friday night," the parent replies.

When the student-athlete doesn't get to play or plays limited minutes, the parent, of course, says, "I don't understand how he doesn't play more. He led the team in scoring in their practice game on Wednesday."

It goes on from there. The student-athlete comes home and they discuss it further. They're frustrated. The parents, who obviously want to support their child, agree with their assessment that the coach must not be handing out playing time fairly.

What their son didn't tell them were the rest of the details from that Wednesday night intra-squad scrimmage where he had 6 of his team's 11 baskets.

He turned the ball over 3 times in 24 minutes.

He took 4 ill advised shots, including 2 that the coaching staff specifically told him he shouldn't continue to take in practices and games because of ineffectiveness.

On the defensive end, his player beat him 4 times for baskets of his own.

With his team ahead 10-9 and needing a basket to win, he missed an easy give-and-go that would have sealed the game for his team.

That's what the coaches saw.

The young man only saw -- or, at least, only conveniently remembered, the 6 baskets he made.

Now, not every player is like that, mind you. Some will come home and lament the turnovers or their defensive flaws. But a lot of young players will simply look at the 6 baskets -- which supports his agenda of earning more playing time -- and relay only that information to his parents.

Friday comes and there's little or no playing time and the parents are in an uproar and the student-athlete simply nods his head and says "I don't know why I'm not playing."

This example happened a little bit in the situation I outlined above. It took a little bit of digging on my part and some back-and-forth for it to come out, but eventually we got down to it.

This does not make the student-athlete a "bad kid". But it is part of the problem in high school and/or junior sports today, which is, essentially, "not being grounded in reality".

The subject of "practice" is also interesting, particularly in team sports.

"We hand out playing time here based on how you practice..." is what you'll hear from virtually every coach at every level, including perhaps even the professional level.

I totally understand the merit of that philosophy.

But I also think it doesn't come anywhere close to telling the whole story about an athlete's ability to do the same thing in the game that they did in practice.

Here's what I've discovered about practice: If you, as the coach, can't attach a consequence of some kind to practice, it holds very little actual value to the athlete.

We're very fortunate in the sport I coach. I can say -- and do say -- "We're going out for the next 3 days and we're playing 12 holes each of those days. The low 4 scores from those 3 days of golf will get to play in next week's matches."

You can do the same in, say, swimming. "The 3 kids with fastest times in the 100 over the next three days of swimming will swim that event next week."

I've had countless young golfers over the years text me on a Saturday and tell me they shot 77 at Pine Ridge (with their friends) and then the following week, they shoot 84, 83 and 86 in "qualifying".

Once there's something on the line, their games change.

At Pine Ridge, they're playing with 3 friends on a Saturday afternoon and there's nothing on the line. Maybe they don't make every two or three footer. Maybe they hit a bad drive at #10 but were urged to "hit another one" because the cart girl hit the brakes on him just as he was in his downswing. Maybe they missed a 2-footer at 18 for 78 but their friend said, "That was good anyway. Just take a 5 there."

But in the practices, where the scores count, every putt gets holed. There aren't any mulligans off the tee. And if they miss a 2-footer 18, they count that stroke.

When the lineups get introduced later on, the parent shakes his (her) head and says, "I don't understand. He shot 77 last Saturday at Pine Ridge and now he isn't playing?"

That 77 at Pine Ridge could have been 67 or 87. It didn't really matter at all.

As I say to my JV and Varsity players at the end of every season, "The only golf that matters over the summer is tournament golf. You could shoot two 59's at your home course on a Tuesday afternoon, but that wouldn't mean more to me than if you shoot two 70's in a tournament somewhere this summer."

In the case of the dad who e-mailed me, his particular sport doesn't have a "cut and dried" method for doling out playing time based on what happens in practice.

But that's the challenge the coach faces. He (she) needs to create something in practice that has a consequence attached to it.

"If you can't do XXXX today in practice, it means you don't get to play in the game on Friday."

I had an "off" team a decade or so ago at Calvert Hall that was on the fast track to not making the playoffs.

We used various lineups during the season but none of them really seemed to click.

One day at practice, I lined everyone up on the putting green and said, "Everyone gets to hit this 6-foot putt ten times. I want you to pretend that it's to beat (I think I said "Spalding" at the time because they were the best team). If you make this 6-footer, we win. If you don't, we lose."

A few kids putted it and made it and got mock applause from their teammates. A few who putted and missed got laughed at and jeered.

As the routine went on, it became more about poking fun at the guy who missed it than anything else.

Practice ended and I announced the lineup for the next day's match. I awarded the number six spot to a player who hadn't played in a match all year and was likely going to get clobbered the next day. But he was the only kid who took the putting practice session seriously. He made 4 or 5 putts the first go-round, 4 or 5 the second go-round and, again, made at least half of them the third time through.

"And (redacted) gets the number six spot tomorrow because he won the putting contest today," I told the team on the practice green.

One kid blurted out, "I wish you would have told us that before we putted."

The moral of the story, of course, is that he was basically saying, "If I would have known something was on the line, I would have tried harder."

The young man who made the putts and earned that playing spot didn't need that motivation. I told him to make as many as he could and to pretend he was beating Spalding and that was enough "movitation" for him to give me his best effort.

But that exercise also taught me something. In order for practice to matter, there has to be a consequence attached to the performance.

In the end, the young man at the center of this isn't transferring.

"We realize now there isn't anything to be gained from that," his father wrote to me this past Tuesday.

And while I wouldn't go as far as saying "nothing can be gained from transferring", I would go back to my original question.

What lesson are you teaching him...by allowing him to transfer?

And you can also throw in the opposite.

What lesson are you teaching him by saying, "No, you're going to stick this out and make the best of it and overcome these adversities, real or imagined?"

Transferring is, at the root of it all, "quitting".

"I don't like the coach. So I'm quitting this team."

"I don't like the lack of playing time. So I'm quitting this team."

And so on and so on.

I'm not sure there's value in that lesson.

Thankfully, my new friend and his son both agree on that and he'll remain at his school and do his best next year to have a successful season.

	RANDY MORGAN on American soccer
Americans are playing more and more of a vital role in international soccer these days, and Randy Morgan has his eyes on all of them for #DMD. Each week here, he looks at recent performances of American players and highlights upcoming games of importance.

champions league final preview

The Champions League final, European soccer’s ultimate spectacle, takes place this Saturday at Munich’s Allianz Arena, featuring Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) and Inter Milan.

This year’s final brings a fascinating clash in styles between PSG’s relentless and fluid firepower and Inter’s trademark resilience and disciplined system. The matchup should entertain soccer purists and casual fans alike.

These teams are no strangers to the game’s biggest stage, with Inter Milan returning to the final after finishing as runners up in 2023, while PSG lost in the 2020 final to Bayern Munich. Inter Milan has hoisted the European championship trophy three times, the most recent in 2010, while PSG has never won the continent’s most coveted prize.

Road to the Final --

PSG’s journey began shakily in UEFA’s new league-format group stage, finishing a surprisingly low 15th and necessitating a playoff against domestic rivals Brest. PSG quickly righted the ship with an emphatic 10-0 aggregate victory, launching them into a knockout run characterized by nail-biting drama against English heavyweights.

The Parisians were forced to squeak past Premier League champions Liverpool on penalties, despite largely dominating the two games.

Heroics from goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma ultimately sent them through to the final eight. PSG then edged out Aston Villa in a breathless 5-4 aggregate duel.

Their semi-final triumph was less chaotic but equally impressive, dispatching Arsenal 3-1 on aggregate to secure their place in the final.

Domestically, PSG cruised to yet another Ligue 1 title, finishing a dominant 19 points clear of their nearest rivals.

Inter Milan, meanwhile, navigated a steadier course. After comfortably securing fourth place in the league stage, Simone Inzaghi’s squad dismissed Feyenoord with relative ease.

More impressively, they ousted Bayern Munich, thanks largely to key goals from Lautaro Martínez and Benjamin Pavard.

That set up a semi-final matchup with Barcelona that delivered two unforgettable duels. Inter dispatched Barcelona, arguably the best side in Europe this season, 7-6 in a chaotic, goal-filled affair.

After blowing an early 2-0 lead in the first game to settle for a 3-3 draw, Inter staked another early 2-0 lead in the second leg. Barcelona stormed back furiously to lead 3-2, seemingly on their way to the final when veteran center back Francesco Acerbi netted the equalizer in the dying seconds with a striker’s aplomb.

Substitute Davide Frattesi then sent Inter through with a goal in extra time.

In Serie A, Inter fell agonizingly short, finishing second just one point behind Napoli in a gripping Scudetto race.

Statistical Breakdown --

On paper, this matchup pits PSG’s attacking juggernaut against Inter’s compact, efficient defense. PSG’s 33 goals in the competition trailed only Barcelona and the Parisians led the competition in big chances (63) and shots (298), while finishing second in expected goals (xG) slightly behind Bayern Munich.

PSG was a possession-heavy team this season, averaging 61.8% possession in the Champions League (4th highest). They accomplished this with a combination of control of the ball on offense and relentless work to pressure and regain possession on defense.

PSG led the Champions League by a wide margin in both ball recoveries (794) and tackles won (195). They have demonstrated an ability to create chances in various ways, leading the competition in direct attacks and placing third in the number of nine-pass sequences completed.

Inter, by contrast, netted 26 goals from far fewer chances, slightly outperforming their xG (24.3), emphasizing ruthless efficiency over volume. Lautaro Martínez, with nine goals, embodies their clinical finishing.

Defensively, Inter led the Champions League with eight clean sheets with standout keeper Yann Sommer leading the competition in expected goals saved (Post Shot Expected Goals minus Goals Allowed).

Inter was not as aggressive in pressing on defense and was more comfortable allowing opponents to maintain possession, notably defeating both Bayern and Barcelona while being heavily out possessed. Inzaghi’s system has emphasized maintaining shape and balance over pressing and dominating possession.

Tactical Analysis --

Under Luis Enrique, PSG’s hallmark is versatile, possession-based football, typically deploying a fluid 4-3-3. Their midfield trio of Fabian Ruiz, Vitinha, and Joao Neves meticulously controls tempo, while explosive attackers like Ousmane Dembélé and overlapping full-backs Achraf Hakimi and Nuno Mendes generate constant threat.

This high-octane approach, combined with an aggressive high press, ensures PSG dominates possession but can leave vulnerabilities behind their advanced full-backs. However, their center back pair of veteran Marquinhos and the younger Willian Pacho have been excellent at winning one-on-one duels when challenged in space.

The one tactical tweak that helped unlock the PSG offense was the shift of Dembele into a “false 9” role, often dropping back to connect with the midfield while the wide attackers stretch the back line. The midseason addition of Napoli star Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and the emergence of teenage phenom Desire Doue also bolstered the attack, adding several goal scoring threats.

With the lack of a focal striker in the box, PSG tends to generate chances through their wingers, either cutting inside or getting the ball to the end line and finding cut back passes to onrushing midfielders. PSG led Europe in goals on cutback passes this season.

Inter counters with Inzaghi’s patented 3-5-2 system, relying on defensive solidity, disciplined midfield structure, and quick attacks. Their wing-backs, particularly Federico Dimarco and Denzel Dumfries, balance attacking width with defensive diligence.

The midfield, orchestrated by Hakan Çalhanoğlu and Nico Barella, transitions swiftly from defensive blocks to targeted offensive thrusts. Lautaro Martínez and Marcus Thuram offer complementary attacking dimensions—Martínez’s intelligent positioning and Thuram’s physicality and pace pose significant threats.

Inter brings a more balanced approach, with the ability to either sit deep and absorb pressure or press high to force the action.

While not focused solely on counter-attacking, Inter often strike through quick build-ups, either directly through their attacking duo or through line stretching passes to their wingbacks. They often generate chances by overloading one side to open space for one wingback to find the other attacking the back post.

One similarity to PSG is some fluidity in attack. It is not uncommon to see center back Alessandro Bastoni making overlapping runs into the attacking third or Nico Barella underlapping to create danger on the edges of the penalty box, while Dimarco or Dumfries flood into the middle of the penalty area.

The tactical clash is clear: PSG will attempt to overwhelm Inter with sustained pressure and intricate possession, while Inter will likely patiently absorb and counter through quick transitions and set-piece prowess. The battle will largely hinge on PSG’s ability to break through Inter’s disciplined defensive shape without leaving too much space for counters.

Key Matchups --

Midfield Control: These clubs boast two of the best midfields in Europe this season. For Inter, Nicolò Barella will provide tireless energy and aggressive pressing against PSG’s composed midfield operators, Ruiz and Vitinha.

Joao Mendes provides the bite in the PSG midfield, leading the team in ball recoveries and winning possession to set the stage for Vitinha and Ruiz’s progressive passing.

Control of this midfield territory will determine possession dominance and transition effectiveness. Whichever trio displays the poise to fend off the others aggressive ball-winning should gain the upper hand. The contest could easily come down to which team avoids critical mistakes in the midfield.

Fullback Duels: Both sides have extremely talented and technical fullbacks. On PSG’s right flank Hakimi offers vital attacking width and playmaking, while Inter left back Dimarco’s crossing ability and defensive stamina are crucial.

On PSG’s left side, Nuno Mendes will play more restrained, picking his spots to get forward while Denzel Dumfries will often look to stretch the back line and find space in behind.

Each set of fullbacks will need to balance their attacking instincts with leaving vulnerable space behind. With PSG more likely to dominate the ball this will be especially crucial for Hakimi and Mendes. As Barcelona discovered, you can maintain unrelenting pressure on Inter for long stretches only to be undone by one quick, clinical counter attack.

Set-Piece Duel (Hakimi vs. Çalhanoğlu): Both sides boast dead-ball specialists. Hakimi’s deliveries from wide areas for PSG and Çalhanoğlu’s precise free-kick and corner service for Inter could prove decisive in a closely contested match. Inter has more prominent set piece targets in Acerbi, Bastoni, and Thuram. With less of the ball, Inter will need to maximize their chances from free kicks and corners.

Outlook --

This final feels like a classic tactical chess match: PSG’s relentless offensive pressure meeting Inter’s defensive solidity and lethal counterattacks. PSG, bolstered by their domestic dominance and impressive Champions League momentum, enter as slight favorites.

Yet, Inter’s gritty performances against elite opposition, combined with their robust defensive record and veteran experience, suggest a closely fought encounter.

The semi-final matchup between Inter and Barcelona could be a good preview for how this game will play out. The 2023 final is another parallel for this game, when a similarly stout Inter faced a possession-dominant Manchester City, and nearly pulled out a victory while losing the possession battle.

If the game is anything like the Barcelona semi-final we are all in for a treat. That matchup produced two of the most exciting Champions League knockout games in recent memory. PSG’s dynamic attack supported by aggressive pressing and a high defensive line is stylistically reminiscent of Barcelona. Not coincidentally, PSG coach Luis Enrique is a former Barcelona player and manager.

Expect PSG to dominate possession, probing patiently before eventually finding cracks in Inter’s resilient defense. However, Inter’s proven knack for soaking pressure and capitalizing on swift counters ensures this won’t be straightforward.

Inter is not simply going to “park the bus.” They have a plethora of skilled players and are capable of masterfully executed attacking sequences with two lethal finishers leading the line.

PSG are the younger, more exciting team and the betting favorites, but dismissing this Inter team would be a folly. Their recent Champions League final experience gives them some intangible veteran nous, creating a perfect foil for a hungry PSG. This matchup promises a thrillingly balanced finale in Munich.

faith in sports

Big thanks to #DMD reader Jason E. for sending this along. It's a short, 2 minute video of Miami Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa after a game from a couple of years ago.

What happened in the game turns out to generate incredible testimony from Tua.

I hope you'll get the chance to take 2 minutes out of your day to hear what he has to say.

Thanks, as always, to our friends at Freestate Electrical for their continued support of #DMD and our Friday "Faith in Sports" segment here.

Thursday May 29, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3930

good news, bad news

Before we chronicle another Orioles loss, let's...

On second thought, how about we not chronicle last night's 6-4 defeat to the Cardinals that featured the Birds coughing up an early 3-0 lead while falling to 19-36 on the season.

What do we need to cover, after all?

Gunnar and Adley went 0-5 each last night. You're not winning much when that happens.

The O's finished the night going 3-17 with runners in scoring position. For those who might remember, they were 1-14 in the same situation on Tuesday night in the 7-4 loss to the visitors.

Flyers fans, no need to rush for your calculators. Relax and enjoy your Longshore coffee. We got you. That means, over the last two nights of the series with the Cardinals, the Birds were a woeful 4-31 at the plate when there were runners in scoring position.

In fact, it was so bad that woeful called and said, "Man, those numbers are terrible."

Even the generally-reliable Ryan O'Hearn fell victim to the malady in the game's final at-bat, swinging at the first pitch and grounding out meekly to the first baseman with two runners on and the Cardinals starting to wonder if they were going to squander a road win.

The bad news? The recent 3-game winning streak has been replaced by an all-too-familiar 2-game losing skid.

The good news? The White Sox are coming to town for three games this weekend. They're lousy, just like the Orioles.

More bad news? There's no guarantee the O's are going to win the series vs. Chicago. There's just no way of knowing what might happen.

So, that's enough "chronicling" of last night's loss. They all run togoether now. The worst part of this recent 10-game stretch is the O's starting pitching is actually starting to come around a little bit. It's been the bullpen and the lack of offense in key parts of the game that have hurt the Birds the most.

Good news? The starting pitching has seen an uptick recently.

Bad news? There aren't many games where the pitching and the offense both have their chakras in line on the same day.

Speaking of the White Sox, a former member of that club is enjoying his best Major League season ever out in San Diego.

With last night's home run and 3 RBI, former Gilman grad Gavin Sheets is having an awesome start to his 2025 campaign. He's the team leader in RBI with 34, has 11 home runs, and is hitting .275 in 51 games played.

Sheets spent the first four years of his career on the south side of Chicago with the White Sox organization. They non-tendered him over the winter and anyone in baseball could have picked him up. A few teams sniffed around but it was the Padres who stepped forward in late January and signed him to a deal for the 2025 campaign.

Good news? Sheets is playing every day and has made a major contribution to the San Diego offense. He's on pace for a 30-home run, 100 RBI campaign. Or in that vicinity.

Bad news? He's doing it in San Diego instead of Baltimore, which is where his heart is and where he'd someday like to play. I'm sure he's secretly hoping the O's deal Ryan O'Hearn at the deadline so the left-handed-hitting first baseman/DH role opens up here in Charm City.

Good news? The way the Orioles are playing, it's reasonable to think that both O'Hearn (traded mid-season) and Mountcastle (traded off-season?) might not be back in 2026. That would pave the way for Sheets to possibly join the Orioles.

Bad news? Have you been to San Diego before? Once you're out there, it's very difficult to leave.

I'll try and make this one as innocuous as possible to protect the folks involved. You'll understand why, I'm sure.

A few years back, one of my Calvert Hall golfers was highly ranked in the state of Maryland and was drawing interest from several significant Division I college coaches.

My phone rang one day and a voice on the other end identified himself as the head coach of a program who was recently in the final eight of the NCAA college golf championship that was aired on The Golf Channel Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.

For obvious reasons -- since he's still coaching and I'm still coaching and I have prominent players that might interest Division I coaches -- I'll leave out the names of all involved.

Anyway...

On that call a few years back, I mentioned to the coach that the young man he was inquiring about was "the most coachable kid I've ever had", to which he said, "I don't care about that. Can he hit the golf ball straight and make putts? That's all I care about."

I explained that, yes, he could do those things. He could, in fact, do those things better than virtually any high school player I'd seen in the last decade, including other MIAA schools besides my Calvert Hall program.

"I know he can play," the coach said, his voice starting to turn gruff. "But can he really play? When the bright lights are on, does he rise or fall?"

I explained my player's track record, both with me at Calvert Hall and in junior tournaments throughout the region.

And I ended my explanation with, "And, I can't stress enough how great of a young man he is."

"I just need golfers," he said again.

The call wrapped up and that was that and when it all shook out a few months later, that coach chose another (semi) local product and my player went on to play elsewhere.

This week, I watched that coach's team come up short in the playoffs.

The player he chose was in the crosshairs in a big match that ultimately decided his team's fate.

He came up short.

I don't take any particular satisfaction from seeing anyone lose in college golf. In this case, specifically, I felt bad for the young man because I do know of him given his proximity to the area and I once talked with his father at a junior event a long time ago and he seemed like a decent man.

But it was something the coach said afterwards, on the air, that made me smile.

When asked by a Golf Channel reporter about his team and how proud of them he was in defeat, he said, "I couldn't ask for a better group of guys. They're excellent student-athletes and great representatives of (XXXX). And above all of that, they're all coachable. I have great kids."

Good news? The coach, apparently, finally "got it". You don't need the 12 best golfers on your team. Or the 20 best soccer players on your team. Or the 10 best basketball players on your team.

You need the 12 right golfers on your team.

There is a difference, for sure.

Bad news? Had that coach realized that the point I tried to make about "coachability" was an important one when we talked a while back, he might have been holding up the trophy today instead of lamenting his team's elimination.

My "coachable" player might have made the difference for him. Who knows?

Losing: It's never a failure if a lesson was learned.

	"Jack Herb's Hot Corner" #DMD's weekly look at Major League Baseball
Jack Herb chimes in weekly here at #DMD with his insight on what's going on in baseball outside of Baltimore, with predictions, analysis and "Game of the Week" previews.

We had some great match-ups in baseball this past Memorial Day Weekend, as we saw the first player to reach 20 home runs this year, the return of a former NL MVP, and a pitcher throw a complete game shutout in under 100 pitches.

Shohei Ohtani’s bat has been hot going back to last Sunday and he hit a homer in 3 straight games earlier in the week, which made him the first player in MLB to reach 20 homers for the 2025 season.

He has recorded a hit or a walk in 47 out of 54 games played this year and is on track to win his 4th MVP. Even though Ohtani has reached the 20-homer mark in about 20 games less than last year, where he had his 50-50 season, he hasn’t been stealing bases at the same rate.

Perhaps he wants to make sure he stays healthy, which should be of huge importance for the Dodgers, especially since he is looking to make his pitching return later this season.

Ohtani threw a simulated inning to 5 batters this past Sunday and reached 22 total pitches. He threw mostly fastballs, sinkers, and cutters with velocity ranging around 94-97 MPH. Ohtani hasn’t pitched since September of 2023, but the Dodgers desperately need help with their starting rotation.

The Dodgers have used 13 different starting pitchers this season, which is the most in the league. Three of the starters from the Opening Day rotation are on the IL with shoulder injuries; Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, and Roki Sasaki.

We all know about the Dodgers payroll and how heavily they were favored to win the World Series. One of the team's biggest strengths has turned into a question mark for the club. The Dodgers will look to Ohtani to hopefully stabilize the starting rotation.

Ronald Acuna Jr. made his long-awaited return last Friday in the Braves home ballpark. As fans eagerly watched his first at bat since he tore his ACL last May, Acuna blasted the first pitch he saw well over the left field fence. What a way to make your season debut!

Acuna also hit a home run the very next day, but his return wasn’t enough as the Braves lost their weekend series to the Padres.

Getting Acuna’s bat back in this lineup is a huge boost. The Braves need to get back on track, where their division is turning into a 2-team race between the Phillies and Mets. Hopefully with Acuna and the return of their ace Spencer Strider, the Braves can get hot and catch up with the division leaders.

In other news around the league, the Phillies had a 9-game win streak snaped on Sunday against the Athletics. Every game in that series was close.

On Friday, the A’s hit a 3-run homer in the bottom of the 9th but it wasn’t enough to climb back as they lost, 4-3.

On Saturday, Max Kepler of the Phillies hit a solo shot off Mason Miller to tie the game, where the Phillies would then go on to win in extra innings.

In the finale of the series on Sunday, the Phillies were up by one going into the 8th but the bullpen gave up two runs and blew the lead.

Mason Miller got some revenge for the Athletics as he closed out the game and secured the win for the Athletics.

The Phillies bullpen is already ranked towards the bottom of the National League and now it's only going to get worse with Jose Alvarado suspended for 80 games.

Jose Ramirez from the Cleveland Guardians currently has a 21-game hit streak, which is the longest streak in his career. Ramirez is constantly forgotten and is one of the games most underrated players.

He also is a competent defensive player at 3rd base and a leader of the team. The Guardians made it to the ALCS last year and lost to the Yankees.

It will be tough to return to the postseason this year with how their division has been playing, but Cleveland did just have a huge series win over the weekend where they took 3 of 4 against the Tigers.

Players of the Week --

Pitcher: Tarik Skubal of the Tigers pitched a gem last Sunday, where he had a complete game shutout and accomplished this under 100 pitches, which is also known as a “Maddux”, in reference to Hall of Fame pitcher Greg Maddux. Skubal had 13 strikeouts and no walks against the Guardians and the last pitch of the game, reached 103 MPH, which is the hardest thrown pitch ever by a starting pitcher in the 9th inning.

Position: Jose Altuve of the Astros had a great week, where he hit .500 in 24 at bats. Altuve hit 4 homeruns with 7 RBIs and scored 8 times for the Astros. It seems like you can never count out the Astros in the AL West. Earlier this year, this division looked like a 2-team race with Seattle and Texas, but now the Astros are 2nd in the AL West and are within striking distance of the first place Mariners.

Rookie: Nic Enright of the Cleveland Guardians made his MLB Debut on Sunday against the Tigers in a relief appearance and threw 2 scoreless innings with 3 strikeouts. Making it through the minor leagues to the majors is very challenging, but it was an uphill fight for Enright for other reasons. He was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma three years ago and has continued to play professional baseball and live out his dream of making it to the big leagues.

He has been undergoing treatments before and after each season, with 4 rounds of immunotherapy at the end of last season and 4 more scheduled at the end of this season. He wears number 59 which was the number of former Guardian Carlos Corrasco, who was diagnosed with Leukemia when he played with Cleveland and is currently in remission.

Coincidentally, over the weekend in Detroit where Endlick made his MLB debut, Detroit was hosting their Strikeout Cancer Weekend. We will all be rooting for Nic Enright on and oƯ the field, and he is in our thoughts and prayers.

Games of the Week --

Friday, May 30th: Detroit Tigers vs Kansas City Royals (Casey Mize vs Michael Wacha)

Kansas City has not looked great as of late and are barely over .500. This weekend is a big series as they take on the AL leading Detroit Tigers. They will see Skubal on Saturday, which will be an uphill battle for sure. Winning on Friday gives them a great chance to capture at least one game over the next two to take the weekend series.

Saturday, May 31st: Milwaukee Brewers vs Philadelphia Phillies (Chad Patrick vs Jesus Luzardo)

The Brewers will have their hands full this weekend and will face Jesus Luzardo, who has been one of baseball's best starting pitchers this year. Luckily for the Brewers, their division is still up for grabs, and they have been playing well with a 7-3 mark in their last 10 games.

Sunday, June 1st: Boston Red Sox vs Atlanta Braves (Walker Buehler vs Spencer Strider)

The Red Sox have been in a bit of a slump as fans are beginning to get frustrated with the club and manager. 3rd baseman Alex Bregman just landed on the 10-day injured list with a severe right quad strain, which he also suffered in 2021 and missed 50 games back then. The Rafael Devers saga continues as he now refuses to play 3rd base in Bregman’s absence after refusing to play 1st base for the injured Triston Casas. Spencer Strider has struggled since making his return this season and will look to get back on track to help this Braves team make a run at the postseason.

Wednesday May 28, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3929

"when did you start wearing glasses?"

The 2025 Bad News Bears Orioles showed up again last night.

So much for the modest 3-game winning streak.

After storming back from an early 3-0 deficit and taking a 4-3 lead over the Cardinals, the Birds fell apart in the 8th inning en-route to a 7-4 loss at soggy Camden Yards.

If nothing else, you have to give interim skipper Tony Mansolino some credit for positive thinking.

The O's went 1-for-14 at the plate last night with runners in scoring position.

"As I watched the at-bats, it felt competitive, it felt good, it felt like we were in it," the manager told the media after last night's loss. "A couple big hits here or there and it might’ve been a different story, but I appreciate the effort and the battle."

I mean, he's not wrong. The Orioles were in it. At one point they were actually leading in the game, despite their lineup. And a couple of big hits "here and there" would have made it a different story, that's for sure.

But it was the way he said it that was funny. Had you just flown in from Pluto and caught the post-game coverage, you would have thought the Orioles won the game, 7-4, instead of losing, 7-4.

At least he didn't say, "We just needed a few more points..." last night.

As for the lineup, is there some sort of wonky game going on in the front office where they throw names in a hat and whatever they pick at random, they go with?

Front office type #1 - "OK, let's start with centerfield tonight."

Front office type #2 - "I sure hope it's not Holliday. He's never played there before."

Front office type #1 - (reaches into the hat) "And.....it's.....George Mateo."

Front office type #3 - "It's actually pronouced Hor-hay, not George."

Front office type #1 - "Got it. In centerfield tonight, Hor-hay Mateo."

Front office type #2 - "What about right field?"

Front office type #1 - "That's next. (reaches into the hat) - It's......Heston Kjerstad."

Front office type #2 - "I don't know that he's ever played right field. But it's the same as left field, right? Just in a different part of the field."

Front office type #1 - "Let's pick the catcher next. (reaches into the hat) - It's......Chapman Tromp."

Front office type #2 - "Ummmm, sir, it's Chadwick Tromp."

Front office type #3 - "And, yeah, I don't think he's on our team, sir."

Front office type #1 - "Sure he is. We just got him a couple of days ago. Give him a start tonight and let's see what happens."

Front office type #2 - "But, sir, we have won 3 games in a row. I'm not saying we're going to go on a crazy run where we win 15 out of 20 or anything like that, but do you really think using this lineup is a good idea tonight?"

Front office type #1 - "Stop worrying so much. These are competent, big league players. If you hit the baseball to them out there in centefield, they're catching it."

Front office type #3 - "I hope you're right."

I'm certainly not privvy to the ins and outs of why the O's do what they do with their lineup, but the one they started the game with last night didn't measure up. And, yes, I'm well aware they have injuries to Rutschman and Cowser to deal with, in particular. Cedric Mullins has rested recently for unknown reasons. So that makes putting the lineup together a challenge.

Anyway, it's "whatever" at this point. Trot them out there and see what you get, I suppose.

So, yes, it might be a few weeks too early to start discussing who gets dealt at the deadline, but if the O's have 50 losses by the end of June, you might as well start wheeling and dealing.

In other words, the Birds have a month to get their act together or it will be "fire sale" time in July.

Ryan O'Hearn continued to showcase himself as a summer cast-off with another big night, including a 3 run homer that put the O's ahead in the 5th inning.

It would appear that O'Hearn would be perhaps the team's most valuable and sought after available field player at the trade deadline.

Cedric Mullins will also draw some interest, but O'Hearn's defensive versatility and power from the left side of the plate will definitely motivate some contending teams to reach out to the Orioles.

Tomoyuki Sugano got knocked around early last night vs. St. Louis but steadied himself long enough to keep the O's in the game. If not for the fact that he's in his first year in Baltimore, the O's would probably dangle him at the deadline. Instead, it's almost a certainty they'll deal free-agent-to-be Zac Eflin to a contender later this summer.

We'll get back to the O's here tomorrow and over the weekend. They're now 19-35 on the year. There's nothing to get excited about at this point, except perhaps for the draft later this summer.

With warm weather here in The Land of Pleasant Living (not counting today's 58 degree temps), it's time for me to offer my annual reminder about something you certainly don't want to encounter: Lyme disease.

I'm a Lyme disease victim. It wasn't fun.

Lyme disease is a bacterial infection spread through the bite of infected blacklegged (also called: deer) ticks. It can cause a range of symptoms, including fever, fatigue, and a characteristic rash called erythema migrans. If left untreated, Lyme disease can spread to the joints, heart, and nervous system, leading to more severe complications.

The problem with the deer tick is its size. While the more "run of the mill" wood tick is large enough to easily see with the naked eye (and feel with your fingers), the deer tick is very small. Often times, it gets mistaken for a freckle.

The other issue with Lyme disease is the onset of symptoms can happen almost overnight or they can gradually build up over time.

In March of 2011, I suddenly felt a rapid heartbeat that was unlike anything I'd felt before. It went away as quickly as it came on. Two or three days later, the same thing happened to me again. Just like the previous occasion, it disappeared within two or three minutes of its onset.

A few days later, it happened again. I called my family doctor, who urged me to come in and see him.

The next day, during my visit, he looked at me and said, "When did you start wearing eyeglasses? I've been seeing you for 15 years. You never wore eyeglasses before, right?"

I explained to him that back in the Fall, my eyesight suddenly started to wane. "I was always squinting," I told him. "My wife made me go get my eyes checked and the doctor said my eyesight had changed dramatically since my last appointment a year and a half ago. I got fitted for eyeglasses in November."

"So your eyesight just went bad?" my doctor asked. "Just like that?"

"Yes," I confirmed. "It was weird. I just started needing to squint to see things clearly."

"Anything else been bothering you lately?" he asked me.

"Actually, yes," I said. "My lower back has been bothering me a little bit now that you mentioned it."

And then he said the words...

"Have you ever been tested for Lyme disease?"

In mid-June, after a lengthy testing process and a visit to what is called a Lyme Literate Doctor, it was confirmed: I had contracted Lyme disease.

I took the usual course of action. Antibiotics (didn't really help), a small sample of something called the Marshall Protocol (might have helped had I given it a chance, but not being able to ingest any Vitamin D was a no-go for me) and acupuncture (helped more than anything else) were all part of my fight against Lyme disease.

It took me almost a year to start feeling 100% again. It was quite an ordeal.

The disease impacts people in different ways. Most victims deal with muscle fatigue, joint soreness and lethargy that can't otherwise be explained.

My Lyme Literate Doctor assumed my particular case was in the late stages due to my failing eyesight. That's usually one of the symptoms that appears months after the bacteria has entered the human body.

I never saw or found the deer tick.

And I did not have the well-known "bullseye" that typically appears on the skin at the sight of the tick bite. Or, if I did, it was in a location on my body where I couldn't put my eyes on it.

That's one of the misnomers of Lyme disease. You do not always see the bulls eye or even have one.

All of this is a short way of saying: Be vigilant this spring and summer. If you're outdoors, always use a tick repellent spray on your clothes and body. Once you come inside, be sure to check yourself as thoroughly as you can for ticks. In general, once they get on your clothes, they're able to make their way to your skin within 90 minutes.

It then takes a tick several hours to penetrate your skin and "latch on", which is when they're able to transmit the Lyme bacteria into your blood.

If you're vigilant and pay close attention to your skin and examine anything that looks out of place, you have a great chance of catching a deer tick before it does its damage.

And if you experience any of the telltale Lyme disease symptoms, contact your family doctor right away. From there, you may be advised to seek the help of a Lyme Literate Doctor, which is often times the only way your insurance carrier will cover your Lyme experience.

Be alert. Take care of yourself. And enjoy your summer.

They're playing the Memorial Tournament this week at Muirfield Village and the talk on Tuesday was about who isn't playing (Rory McIlroy) and who didn't call tournament host Jack Nicklaus to tell him he wasn't playing (Rory).

In fairness to the whole thing, I'm not sure Jack would even remember if Rory did call last week and tell him he wasn't going to play. But anyway...

That's what we do these days. We get ourselves in a twist because Rory didn't call Jack and say, "Just wanted you to know, I'm not playing in your event next week."

Eyewash.

A big, fat, nothing burger.

What is important is the event itself and who might win.

Scottie Scheffler is +300 to win for the third time this year. He is definitely in "Tiger category" now, where you sorta-kinda just assume he's going to win and either put $100 on him to win $300 or you bet the field and hope he doesn't win so you might have a shot at real money.

My guess is Scheffler will win.

But if he doesn't...

Ludvig Aberg at +2500 is just too inviting to pass up. I realize he doesn't have much history at the golf course, but it does have a bit of an Augusta feel to it (per Jack's design touches) where approach shots and putting are critical. Aberg can win in any given week. This would be a week I'd be on him at +2500.

Daniel Berger at +4000 is also too inviting to pass up. I've been on him for a few weeks now for a big win but his putting hasn't been up to par. He had good ball striking numbers at the PGA but couldn't solve the greens at Quail Hollow. If he putts well this week, he has a chance.

Denny McCarthy is +5000, which is probably where he should be, but his history at this event has been promising, including a playoff loss to Viktor Hovland two years ago. The length of the course (7,500) might be a big ambitious for him, but if his trademark putting quality rises to the occasion this week, he could win. I haven't been "on" Denny much this year because his putting stats have diminished, but if he finds his way on the greens this week he could win.

Corey Conners is +2800, and would be among the tournament favorites if not for his iffy putting. Conners is one of the best tee-to-green players in the world. But he's simply not a great putter. However, if he can cobble together an efficient week on the greens, he could be right there on Sunday. I've been "on" Conners for about a year now, maybe longer. I'm starting to wane on him, though. The results never match the statistical promise. We'll ride with him one more week and see what happens at Muirfield.

Tuesday May 27, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3928

remembering grayson

So as not to confuse the two situations, I held off on writing this yesterday, Memorial Day, because the two circumstances are clearly not one and the same.

Two friends, #DMD readers John L. and Tim D., independent of one another, both sent me an article over the weekend that I wanted to highlight today.

Oh, yes, the Orioles won their 3rd straight game on Monday. Charlie Morton was outstanding. Happy days are here again.

We'll get back to the Birds here tomorrow. There's a whole summer of baseball left to be played. As my son is fond of saying when he falls behind in something and starts to rally, "It's comeback season around here."

I have something to share with you today that is far more important than any late May baseball game. Really, it's more important than any game in any sport.

The story I'd like you to read today is lengthy.

And it's about a golfer.

But the story isn't really about a golf at all. The central subject just happens to be a golfer, although he is sadly no longer living.

Grayson Murray was a very talented PGA Tour player. He wasn't going into golf's Hall of Fame someday or anything like that, but he was a solid, competent TOUR player with a rising talent and the ability to make a very nice living playing the hardest professional golf circuit in the world.

He was also going through a rough time, personally.

Some of that was obvious to those close to him and some of it was much more private.

Grayson Murray took his own life last year.

The story I'd like you to read about him is right here.

Settle in. It's a long story.

But there's a lot to learn from it. And I hope you'll take the time to go through it and not only learn about the good of Grayson Murray, but the other stuff that drove him to the point of thinking there was no light at the end of his tunnel.

Learning about the "bad", if we should call it that, will potentially help you notice the warning signs of a friend or family member down the road.

I've had two friends take their own life.

Jack was one of my best friends in my early 20's. He was a Glen Burnie native and went to elementary school and high school with me.

At age 27, he shot himself.

I never got the chance to ask him why, but I also never really took enough notice of the warning signs, either. There was nothing in bold letters that said, "Jack might kill himself", so it never really entered my mind. Mercurial? Sure. Was he a bit edgy at times? He was, yes. But he had a heart of gold.

Jack owned a pizza shop in Glen Burnie for a year or two circa 1988 and would, every day, give away one free pizza to someone at random.

"I just like doing it. I like seeing the surprise look on their face and their smile," he would say when asked why he did that when the person was obviously already in the store, money in hand, waiting to support his business.

Jack and I played a lot of golf together, back when I wasn't very good and he was mostly just playing because he liked hanging around me, I guess.

Once, at Carroll Park, a random player who got paired up with us suffered a shoe "blow out" on the 9th hole that wrapped around the Montgomery Wards building.

It was funny in the moment. The guy -- probably in his early 20's -- had the entire bottom of his shoe come off during one of his vicious swings.

Jack laughed. The guy didn't think it was nearly as funny.

"What size shoe do you wear?" he asked the guy.

Ten minutes later in the parking lot, Jack was giving the guy a pair of his golf shoes that were a close fit, size wise.

"They just need new spikes and you're good to go," Jack said as the guy tried on the shoes and walked around in them.

"Seriously, take them," Jack urged. "I don't wear them any longer. They're just sitting here in my trunk."

On the way home, I told him how cool it was that he gave up his shoes. "Well, I felt kind of bad for laughing at him," he said.

That was Jack. He'd give you the shoes off of his feet.

Joe was a Parkville bar owner that I played a lot of golf with at Clifton Park in the late 1990's. When you look up the phrase "heart of gold" in the dictionary, Joe's face is there.

If you would have said to me, "Of everyone you play golf with at Clifton, pick out the one guy living his best life who would never consider taking his own life", I probably would have said, "Joe..."

Those who know the routing of Clifton Park know there's a par 4 hole (#12) that runs along Belair Road. There's a lot of activity there, including row homes, a bus stop and a small "park" across the street where neighborhood kids gather.

One day, on the tee, a group of three area youngsters approached our group as we waited to tee off. "We're selling water and soda, Mister," one of them said to Joe.

"How many do you have?" Joe asked.

One of them rooted through an old, ratty cooler they were carrying with them.

"15, 10 waters and 5 sodas," the kid replied.

Joe reached into his wallet and took out two, twenty dollar bills.

"You guys don't want to be selling that on the golf course," he explained. "You're going to get yelled at by the marshal who is driving around. They might even call the cops. They sell that stuff in the concession stand and they don't want you out here cutting into their business."

"Take this," Joe said, handing them the $40, "and move on now. Keep the drinks. But you need to move along."

"Thank you, Mister! One of them said. He took out a soft drink and handed it to Joe. "Please take this one. Just one of them," he said.

"Put it in that golf cart right there," Joe said as he motioned to one of the two carts. Not only did Joe help the kids, they were so moved by the act they insisted he take a soft drink from them.

"At least they're out here hustling," he said to us as the kids crossed over Belair Road. "They're not breaking into someone's house or someone's car. They're trying to make a buck the right way."

That was Joe, in a nutshell. Heart of gold.

There was nothing outwardly visible that made me ever think he was hurting inside. He did a great job of hiding it.

When you read the Grayson Murray story, you'll see some similar characteristics to my friends Jack and Joe.

All three of those guys did things for people that largely went unnoticed. They were also fighting demons along the way.

Perhaps their stories will also guide us into a better way of thinking when we encounter a friend or family member who is having a tough time or who makes a mistake or who wants do to their best but is having a hard time making it happen.

It might even be a stranger we meet who is having a tough day. We have no idea what's really going on in their life.

So, on this day after Memorial Day, where we honored those who gave their life as a sacrifice, let's also take a minute today to reflect on those who, for reasons we sometimes don't know, decided life wasn't worth living any longer.

Those people all left behind family members and friends who wish they could have helped, somehow.

If only we knew.

I hope you'll take 10 minutes today to read Grayson Murray's story.

Maybe it helps you and someone you know or love.

Monday May 26, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3927

not a manic monday

It's really not appropriate to say "Happy Memorial Day", so I went to the internet -- where we all go when we don't know the answer to something -- to learn what is the right thing to say today.

It turns out, there really isn't anything you say as a "greeting" per se.

You say "Happy Easter" or "Happy Thanksgiving" or "Merry Christmas", but you never say "Happy Memorial Day". It's awkward, to say the least.

We're remembering and celebrating those who perished while serving our country in the military. They, of course, gave the ultimate sacrifice to our nation.

I had a cousin who fought in Vietnam. I also had a neighbor across the street from me in Glen Burnie who went to Vietnam. They both survived. Others, of course, were far less fortunate.

We remember them today, along with all of the others in our military branches who died while protecting us.

Well, well, well.

Like the headline says, this is not a manic Monday after all.

The Orioles won on Saturday and they won on Sunday.

That, as they say in sports, is called a "winning streak"

After losing the first two games of the series in Boston, the Birds bounced back to win 2-1 and 5-1, with Sunday's victory including a rare 2-point "Little League home run" by Ryan O'Hearn, fueled by the Red Sox throwing the ball everywhere they shouldn't have on the play.

So, this afternoon when they kick off a 3-game series with the St. Louis Cardinals, the Birds will be looking to do something they haven't done once all season. That is...win 3 games in a row.

That is an amazing stat, right?

The Orioles have reached May 27 and they've yet to win three straight games in the 2025 season.

Today might just be the day, though.

Wait, is Charlie Morton really starting for the O's today or is that just an internet rumor? If he's starting, there goes the 3-game winning streak idea.

Actually, it would be very O's-like to have Morton throw shutout baseball for 5.1 innings today. I mean, no one expected that start from Trevor Rogers on Saturday at Fenway Park, right? Maybe Morton has one of those left in his career. Maybe it's today. Maybe?

Anyway, the O's are now 18-34 and they have a chance, perhaps, to make some hay this week, what with the Cardinals in town for three and then the White Sox come stumbling in for a weekend series in Charm City.

OK, I'll be the guy that says it: Two sweeps over St. Louis and Chicago and, suddenly, the Orioles are 24-34 and, well.......I'll just stop there.

Ben Griffin won for the 2nd time this season on the PGA Tour yesterday, and, at least for now, has to be on the "considered" list for Keegan Bradley's captain's picks at the Ryder Cup.

Yes, one of those two wins was a 2-man event at the Zurich Classic, but it was a win nonetheless and the TOUR counts it as one, so we'll count it as well.

Griffin held on down the stretch with some gutsy par saves on Sunday at Colonial CC, which won't be confused with Bethpage Black anytime soon, but it was the way that he won that might specifically interest Captain Bradley.

In the Ryder Cup, you need players who can fight off the urge to collapse and hang in there on the last couple of holes when their match is in the balance. Griffin looks like he has that quality. It wasn't "pretty" golf over the last nine holes, but he was able to keep his head on straight and get the ball in the hole as quickly as possible while holding off Germany's Matti Schmid.

Griffin, 29 years old, moved from 18th to 13th in the standings after yesterday's win in Fort Worth. The top six players (currently Scheffler, Schauffele, DeChambeau, Thomas, Morikawa and Henley) are automatically on the team when the standings are frozen in late August after the FedEx Cup.

Bradley then has six captain's picks to complete his roster for the Ryder Cup in late September.

Based on what he currently has at his disposal in spots 7 through 12, it would appear almost a slam dunk that even if Justin Thomas and Collin Morikawa fall outside of the top 6, Bradley will add those two.

Obviously, the two who would (mythically) replace them in the top 6 would automatically be on the team. But there's room for the addition of someone like Ben Griffin, who is the only American besides Scottie Scheffler to have two wins this season. Oh, and don't forget, he also produced a nice T8 finish at last week's PGA Championship.

If Griffin can secure another top 10 at the U.S. Open or British Open (Ryder Cup points are double in those events) and perhaps win one more time this summer, Bradley would almost have to add him to the team.

I'm a big fan of "new blood" at the Ryder Cup. We've seen enough of Spieth and Fowler and Kuchar over the years. If one of those three somehow makes it on points, fair enough. Spieth and Fowler are both near 30th in points so they're longshots at best and Kuchar hardly plays any longer so you can forget him.

That said, Bradley's other friends who have been previous captains have made the occasional weird choice, like adding the likes of Spieth and Fowler when others deserved it more than they did.

I'd much rather see someone like Griffin earn a captain's pick, particularly when they're playing so well this season.

Two years ago, this Ryder Cup at Bethpage was projected to be a mammoth U.S. beat down of the European side.

Four months out and it's anything but that at this point.

In fact, right now you'd have to think the European squad might even be a slight favorite.

Bradley's captain's picks are going to go a long way in determining the outcome.

I'm hoping Ben Griffin is one of them.

	"Randy On The O's"
Randy Morgan takes #DMD readers through the recent week in Orioles baseball as the Birds try to earn a third straight A.L. playoff appearance.

Week Record: 3-4

Season Record: 18-34

AL East Standing: 5th (14 GB of NYY)

Player of the Week: Ryan O’Hearn - .548 OBP 1 HR 4 RBI 4 BB

The good news is the Orioles finished the week on a two game winning streak. The bad news is it was another losing week in which they were outscored 41-31, leaving them with the third worst record in MLB.

On Monday, the Orioles battled back from a 4-1 hole against Milwaukee, tying the game on Cedric Mullins’ clutch three-run homer in the seventh. However, Yennier Cano allowed a decisive two-out RBI single to Brewers catcher William Contreras in the eighth inning to drop the game 5-4.

The struggles continued on Tuesday as rookie Chayce McDermott’s rocky outing (4.2 IP, 3 ER) contributed to a 5-2 loss. Jackson Holliday provided some spark late with an RBI triple, but Milwaukee tacked on several insurance runs and their bullpen shut the door.

The O's finally broke an eight-game losing skid on Wednesday, winning an 11-inning thriller 8-4. Adley Rutschman’s towering three-run homer highlighted a four-run 11th inning. Starter Tomoyuki Sugano provided another quality outing, allowing two runs over six innings, but Félix Bautista blew the save in the ninth before the O’s won in extras.

Rain on Thursday led to a scheduled doubleheader on Friday, which turned into a doubleheader on Saturday after the late Friday game was postponed.

Thankfully the O's weren't forced to play a nightcap after they were embarrassed in a 19-5 blowout loss on Friday afternoon. Boston exploded for 13 runs in the eighth inning, highlighted by Rafael Devers’ grand slam and eight-RBI performance. Utility infielder, Emmanuel Rivera, absorbed much of the damage, coming on to pitch after the outcome was a forgone conclusion.

In the opener on Saturday, the Birds fell 6-5 despite holding an early 5-1 lead. Ramón Urías had a key two-run double and a Gunnar Henderson double extended the lead in the 5th, but Boston battled back, tying the game in the 6th. That led to the head-scratching decision to pitch to the red-hot Devers in extra innings, where he promptly ended the game with an RBI single.

The Orioles rebounded in the nightcap, winning a tight 2-1 contest. Andrew Kittredge picked up his first win as an Oriole, pitching a scoreless inning in relief after an outstanding season debut for Trevor Rogers (6.1 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 5 K).

Ryan O'Hearn drove in a run in the 8th and a Dylan Carlson double added a second in the 9th, proving crucial after Abraham Toro homered in the bottom of the inning.

The O's finished the week with a 5-1 victory on Sunday at Fenway behind Dean Kremer’s excellent 5.1 scoreless innings. Ryan O’Hearn and Dylan Carlson homered, while O’Hearn also added two more on an 8th inning double, where he ended up scoring after a series of Boston errors.

O’Hearn made the Player of the Week honors easy, posting a .548 OBP with a homer and four RBI, including multiple timely hits. O’Hearn has been the one consistent hitter throughout the season, sporting a .956 OPS. Unfortunately, given the state of the team, this may just mean that O’Hearn becomes a valuable midseason trade chip.

Others deserving a mention this week were Dean Kremer, who struck out ten over 10.2 innings, delivering a 3.38 ERA on the week. Tomoyuki Sugano was solid once again and Bryan Baker was stellar out of the pen, delivering 4.1 shutout innings.

Down on the Farm:

AAA Norfolk posted a 3-3 record against the St. Paul Saints this week. Samuel Basallo and Jud Fabian helped lead the offense. Basallo hit two massive homers on the week while posting a .385 OBP. Meanwhile Fabian got on base in half his plate appearances, including a homer and a triple. Cameron Weston had another impressive outing, throwing six, one-run innings.

At AA Chesapeake, Braxton Bragg had the standout performance, fanning eight over six innings while allowing two runs. The 24 year old Bragg lowered his season ERA to 1.01 with a 0.94 WHIP, he has struck out 61 over 44.2 AA innings.

Question of the Week:

Does this Orioles team need an “adult in the room”?

The firing of Brandon Hyde unsurprisingly had no immediate effect on the team. The Orioles continued their losing ways under Tony Mansolino, including another embarrassing blowout in Boston.

One moment on Saturday stood out especially during the week. After blowing a three-run lead in the early game, the O’s were forced to extra innings. They failed to score in the top half of the 10th then faced the scorching hot Rafael Devers in the bottom half.

With the ghost runner on second and first base open with one out, the Orioles decided to have Gregory Soto pitch to Devers. There was almost no harm in walking him, with the winning run already on second, yet the O’s pitched to him and he ended the game. The Fox broadcaster was perplexed the entire time.

The continued losing and incidents like this make fans wonder if the team needs the proverbial “adult in the room” to manage the team the rest of the season. Tony Mansolino may be a deeply knowledgeable baseball man, but he has little experience managing at this level.

While this season may be a forgone conclusion at this point, the young core of this team will be expected to quickly bounce back and return to contention next season. Playing out the string on this devastatingly disappointing season can be a learning experience for those young players, but the front office needs to ensure they aren’t learning the wrong lessons.

With an inexperienced, lame duck coach at the helm, it’s not hard to imagine players losing their edge, getting complacent and picking up bad habits. Perhaps a veteran manager, who has been through ups and downs and led teams back from downturns, might be a useful addition for the rest of the season.

Obviously Buck Showalter immediately comes to mind given his connection with the team and his availability. Even if there were no guarantees beyond this season, it would seem an experienced man at the helm might help this team make the most of a bad situation.

Maybe the question is whether the Orioles could entice anyone with those credentials without a long term commitment.

It is understandable if the team wants to keep their options open to hire the best manager in the offseason. Though, you would think that everyone has their price, and given the deep pockets of the ownership, shelling out for someone to grow the team in this lost season seems like a good investment.

starting to look...bleak

My son is an occasional #DMD reader.

I never really knew until recently, when he remarked about something I wrote during my Masters preview and said, "So, Dad, I was reading your website today. Do you really think this is the year Rory might finally win the green jacket?"

Yesterday we were driving home from Eagle's Nest after the O's threw away another game in the doubleheader opener and he said, "Well, Dad, can we push the panic button now?"

He was referring to a piece I wrote here in early May where I suggested we don't push the panic button in light of the O's slow start to the 2025 season.

I didn't say anything. He quickly followed up with, "You wrote a month ago it wasn't time to panic. Can we panic now?"

Alas, yes, it's time to panic.

Actually, we're beyond the panic stage at this point.

Somehow, I went from "don't press the panic button yet" to "missed the opportunity to push the panic button". I guess I was too busy watching the team disenegrate to actually panic.

The Colorado Rockies have 9 wins this season. They are, without question, the worst team in baseball.

Then it's the Orioles and White Sox next. They both have 17 wins.

The White Sox, you'll remember, were this year's Rockies last year. They couldn't win a game to save their lives. They're better this year, but not by much.

We're 51 games into the season and the O's have 34 losses already.

There was a silver lining moment yesterday when Trevor Rogers served up the team's best start of the 2025 season in the 2-1 nightcap win over Boston at Fenway Park. Now, don't get too excited. Rogers is just as likely to give up 6 runs in 3.2 innings of work in his next start as he is to have french toast at breakfast this morning.

But for a day, at least, the O's got a useful start out of someone they otherwise weren't expecting anything out of this season.

This sounds crazy but here goes: Maybe Rogers strings together 6-8 good starts over the next month and the O's can peddle him to a contender in early July. I know what you're thinking. And, no, I'm not day drinking already on this Memorial Day Sunday. It's just a thought.

Tony Mansolino was in the crosshairs in Saturday's opening game when he elected not to walk Rafael Devers in the 10th inning with the winning point run at second base. Devers promptly singled in the winning run to complete Boston's comeback from an early 5-2 deficit and win 6-5.

Afterwards, Mansolino, apparently forgetting that in extra innings, if the home team scores the go-ahead run, the game ends, said: "But if you put him (Devers) on right there, it gets messy and then you’ve got to go Soto against Refsnyder."

Devers was 6-for-11 against Greg Soto and is baseball's hottest hitter in May.

There was already one out in the 10th when Devers came up to hit.

Putting him on there changed nothing.

Refsnyder (right handed) was still going to come in as a pinch hitter to face Soto (a lefty) and there was nothing the O's could do about it because of the 3-batter minimum.

The only possible way pitching to Devers made sense was if he drilled a liner that was caught and the runner on 2nd got doubled off.

Other than that, a 7th grader just learning the nuances of baseball would have intentionally walked Devers in that situation.

Mansolino opted to pitch to Devers and he knocked in the game-winning run point on a single up the middle.

If public opinion on Twitter determined a manager's fate, Mansolino would have been canned right then and there. 1,000 votes, 1,000 "fire the guy right now" ballots cast.

Fortunately, the O's managed to save face in the nightcap with the 2-1 win although even that got sticky in the 9th when Seranthony Dominguez gave up a home run but managed to hang in there for the save and a much needed Birds victory.

The lineup the Birds opened with in yesterday's second game might not have won a best-of-3 in the College World Series, but it was somehow good enough to eek out a victory over the Red Sox, who are mysteriously 27-27 on the season despite only having four good players.

So, yes, it was good to (finally) win one on Saturday.

But reality has officially set in.

There are 111 games remaining. For the O's to reach 81 wins they would need to go 64-47 from here to the finish line. That seems unlikely, but we're positive thinkers here, as you know.

For the O's to get to 90 wins and (likely) secure a playoff spot, they'd have to 73-38 over their last 111 games. Yeah, I don't see that one happening, either.

I just throw in those two possibilities to remind you we never quit. There's always hope.

But the reality is, the O's are probably going to be in "sell" mode at the trade deadline unless something really weird happens.

Maybe they win 25 of their next 40 and they're suddenly approaching the .500 mark in early July and they have to start thinking "buy or sell?", but I doubt it.

It's far more likely they continue to sputter along and win 4 of every 10 they play over the next 40 games and they're 33-58 in early July.

The subject of the manager still lingers, of course.

After yesterday's disaster in the doubleheader opener, how can Mike Elias not try to bring in a qualified guy right now?

Sure, that's easier said than done.

Joe Maddon, Joe Girardi, Skip Schumacher, et al aren't coming in to fix this on a wing and a prayer. And, don't forget, as soon as they get that initial call from Mike Elias asking if they're interested in the vacant O's gig, their first call will go to.......Brandon Hyde.

"Hey, Brandon, sorry about the situation in Baltimore. I'm just letting you know...they reached out to me. Tell me about the place. Good environment?"

Hyde: "Yeah, the restaurants around the stadium are nice. They have this place, Federal Hill, with a bunch of nice bars and quaint eateries."

"That's great, but what about the front office? The organization? How did they treat you?"

Hyde: "And then there's Canton and Little Italy. Those areas of town are really cool as well. There was this breakfast place in Little Italy that makes the best sausage and egg sandwiches in the morning."

"That's great. But what about baseball stuff? The organization?"

Hyde: "OK, sure. Here's the deal. You basically get the lineup handed to you every day at 2:30 pm and you're told, 'This is who should play tonight. You figure out the batting order and everything else but these 9 guys should hit to start the game.'"

Now, maybe Joe Maddon wants to manage again so badly he doesn't care about front office interference. The same for Girardi. He might be itching to get back into managing just enough to have Mike Elias and some 27 year old kid from Princeton with an analytics degree tell him how to piece together a baseball lineup.

I have no idea how any veteran manager without a job would take to being told what to do.

And maybe that's why Elias can't bring one of them in now. Or maybe he doesn't want to bring one in now. Maybe, and I'm just spitballing here, he wants to see if he himself gets canned so he can drag one of those three guys along to his gig in Colorado or Chicago or Miami next season.

I don't know.

What I do know, though, is the Ravens have a very comfortable 2025 schedule and I can't wait until August to see which free agent rookie wide receiver catches two touchdowns in the 33-19 pre-season win over Dallas.

Saturday May 24, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3925

what do you want them to do?

My funny O's-hating-buddy Chris checked in via text yesterday during the Red Sox 13-run 8th inning uprising at Fenway Park.

"Who should they bean in the nightcap, Devers or Refsnyder?" he asked.

He knows how much I hate baseball's unwritten rules.

And he also knows how much I hate it when people whine when they get beat.

"What do you want them to do?" I asked. "Swing and miss on purpose?"

"It's bush league to score like this when they have an infielder in there pitching and you know it!" he shot back.

"It's bush league to lose 20-3," I replied.

Alas, the final score wasn't 20-3. It was 19-5.

Now, here's what I will say about Boston running up the score yesterday. If the O's ever get the chance to someday do the same thing to do them, then by all means, run it up.

Sadly, my friend Chris thinks the way to retaliate isn't by running up the score yourself someday down the road, it's by throwing at someone in the next game.

I just can't subscribe to that. I do think the Orioles should remember the Red Sox laughing and giggling at them in the 8th inning yesterday. Oh, yes, remember it. Remember it well.

But "remember it" doesn't mean trying to (potentially) intentionally injure another athlete.

"Who gets beaned in the nightcap?" Chris asked. In other words, someone had to get hit by a pitch in the second game of the doubleheader in retaliation for Boston still trying to pile on in the 8th inning of the opener when Emmanuel Rivera was brought in to pitch once the game got out of hand.

There was no nightcap, of course. It was rained out. So they'll play two today at Fenway Park.

In general, I'm not one to worry about the whole "running up the score" thing in sports.

If you're upset because the other team is scoring, then go ahead and stop them from scoring.

That seems like a reasonable solution.

Now, I'll admit that perhaps running up the score isn't prudent in youth sports. I can see the potential damage to a 10-year old boy or girl losing a football game 54-0 or a soccer game 12-0 or a basketball game 56-6.

There are certain "blowout rules" in youth sports designed not to allow those things to happen in the first place. And that's a good thing.

But once, say, you get to the high school and college level, the score is the score is the score. If you don't like the score, do something about it.

At the major league level, whining about getting blown out is amateur-hour stuff.

There was a Ravens game a while back where the Bengals kicked a field goal in the final minute to avoid getting shut out in Baltimore and Ravens defensive Wink Martindale lashed out at Cincinnati head coach Zac Taylor after the 27-3 Baltimore win.

Talk about a #clownshoes moment.

Zac Taylor is supposed to just roll over and let you shut out his team and win 27-0?

The Bengals are supposed to stop trying just because you want to win and shut them out?

Maybe that's one reason why I love golf so much. If I'm beating you by 8 shots on the 18th hole and you pump two balls out of bounds, I would never, ever stand there and laugh at you.

In fact, you'd do the exact opposite. You'd merely look down at the grass or fiddle around with one of your clubs while your opponent reached into his bag (again) and said, "That first one was a Titleist 2 with a black dot. The second one was a Titlest 4 with a black dot. And this is, uhhhhh, a Maxfi SD with a green stripe under the word Maxfli."

I guess the thought of karma in golf is so strong that I know, without question, it very well could be me hitting two balls out of bounds the next time I get to that tee.

So there's no jeering or laughing or snickering at your opponent in golf. There's just silence and fear that it could be you suffering the same fate someday down the road.

Anyway, back to baseball.

In yesterday's 19-5 loss, Emmanuel Rivera came in to pitch in the 8th inning and gave up 8 runs while recording all 3 outs. What was Boston supposed to do there? Just swing and miss and get the inning over with?

Fair enough.

But were the Orioles also going to do that in the top of the 9th?

They wanted/expected the Red Sox to stop trying in the bottom of the 8th. Were the O's prepared to do that as well in the next inning?

In a weird kind of way, I'd actually be OK with that scenario. You know, the O's manager signals over to the Boston dugout and essentially says, "We're done trying" and the Red Sox give a signal that they understand and everyone just swings and misses and the bottom of the 8th and top of the 9th take about 2 minutes to complete.

All good there. On to the nightcap we go.

But the O's bring in a field player to pitch which essentially says "we're no longer trying" and then, in the top of the 9th, their guys are still up there swinging away and trying to put points runs on the board.

That's why Boston piled on in the 8th inning yesterday. They had no idea what the O's were going to do in the 9th, but it was logical to assume the Birds would be up there swinging away and trying to score (and they were, tacking on two runs in the 9th).

The whole thing is weird.

It's professional baseball. Everyone needs to try until 27 outs are recorded. That's the way it should be, all the time.

If you get your feelings hurt because the other team is better than you, figure out a way to stop them from being better than you.

Friday May 23, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3924

manager? do we need one?

Another topic discussed during my weekly visit to Glenn Clark Radio this past Wednesday was that of the Orioles and their managerial situation.

As in, do they need one now, in July, or not until next season?

Their current manager, definitely an "interim" at best, has consistently referred to runs as "points" in his post-game press conferences of late. I don't know that I've EVER heard anyone associated with baseball call them points instead of runs, so that one is hard to figure out to say the least.

Then again, during his brief meet-up with the media earlier this week in Milwaukee, the club's general manager said "I felt it was necessary to make a head coaching change", which is also perhaps the first time I've ever heard a baseball person call the manager a head coach.

So, anyway.......

Tony Mansolino is not the Orioles long-term fixture as manager.

I think we all know that.

For laughs -- I guess -- I did hear a Baltimore radio show caller ask the question earlier this week. "What if Mansolino turns this thing around and the O's somehow get back in the playoff race by September?"

I guess that's a question you have to ask just for the sake of asking it, but I can't imagine that's going to happen and, if it did, the O's would probably have already replaced Mansolino anyway.

I don't remember what the show host said in response to that question, but I know what my answer would be if I were Mike Elias and Mansolino asked me: "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it."

In the meantime, let's talk about things that actually are important.

What should the Orioles do......now?

Should they try to bring someone in within the next couple of weeks with major league cachet and have him try to get this thing turned around?

There are some names out there, currently unemployed, who might be willing to consider a mid-season hire. Joe Girardi, Joe Maddon and Skip Schumaker are the most notable names who could be interested in coming to Baltimore to scratch their next managerial itch.

Schumaker is probably the hottest "non-working" name in baseball right now. It's almost a given he's going to be the next manager of someone, either this summer or in the off-season.

There's also a weird rumor floating around town that Buck Showalter would entertain an Orioles 2.0 adventure if asked to return to Charm City.

So there's four names for you. Each of whom has a managerial pedigree that would allow them to hit the ground running if they took over this month or soon thereafter.

Or would Elias prefer to have a newbie take over? A fresh face, so to speak. Either someone in the organization already (Buck Britton, anyone?) or a former big leaguer cutting his teeth in another organization and eager to step up to the next level. There have been local calls for ex-Oriole Ryan Flaherty, perhaps.

While discussing all of this and all of the candidates, though, one sticking point still remains.

Does Mike Elias want a "real" manager?

Or does he -- along with his staff -- already sorta-kinda serve as the team's de facto manager without actually sitting in the dugout.

Clark and I talked about this on Wednesday.

It's my belief that sometime in the not-too-distant future, there will be a baseball team who decides NOT to employ an actual in-the-dugout manager.

Instead, they'll simply have an administrator of some kind in the dugout relaying messages from the front office on what the next strategical step is, whether that's a pinch hitter or a relief pitcher.

Someone will be designated to provide that information to the players, but all decisions in-the-game will be made in the press box, not all that different than when an offensive coordinator sits in the press box and sends the calls down to the field from there.

The Orioles organization, and baseball in general, relies more than ever before on statistics and data and "advanced metrics". Why pay Skip Schumaker $5 million to decide who should pinch hit in the 8th inning when he's already not the one deciding anyway. The information in front of him that's been curated by the team's baseball ops staff tells him who to pinch hit.

Schumaker merely says, "Heston, grab a bat...you're up for O'Neill batter-after-next."

At some point down the road, there will be ZERO need for a manager, in the same way there's really ZERO need for you to drive your own car now. It drives itself. You just happen to be sitting in there going to the destination of your choosing.

I don't like this change-to-come, by the way. I actually despise it.

But it's coming.

There's no need for a manager when the people upstairs are already the ones telling the manager what to do, who to play, when to play them and when to take them out.

All you need is someone to shepherd the players from city-to-city and create a couple of loose clubhouse rules so the place doesn't turn into a zoo. But actually "managing" the games? People like Mike Elias are getting away from that, I suspect.

I'm all for Joe Maddon, by the way.

Or Joe Girardi, even.

Schumaker is fine as well.

If I ran the club, I'd be bringing in someone now to try and make up enough group that maybe, just maybe, we can play a series in September that halfway matters.

Letting the team spoil in the hot summer sun seems like a bad way to go, in my opinion.

Then again, maybe even a new head coach can't get the team to score enough points over the last 110 matches to make a difference anyway.

faith in sports

Inky Johnson is a G.O.A.T.

Plain and simple. He's a G.O.A.T.

Today's video is one from our "greatest hits collection". It has one of the best lines I've ever heard when it comes to sports.

"Oh, you want me to tell you 'good job' because you did something you said you were going to do. You want validation because you said you were going to do it and then you did it?"

This video below is awesome for anyone in any profession, anywhere. It's part of my annual pre-season golf meeting at Calvert Hall. It fits athletes young and old, for sure.

Thanks, as always, to our friends at Freestate Electrical for their continued support of #DMD and our Friday "Faith in Sports" segment here.

Thursday May 22, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3923

thursday stuff

OK, well that was a welcome sight on the scoreboard in Milwaukee yesterday.

BALTIMORE 8 - BREWERS 4

I know there was some hand-wringing about Felix Bautista blowing a 9th inning save opportunity, but in the end, a win is a win is a win.

There was, of course, a rare Adley Rutschman sighting contribution as well, in the form of a big 3-run homer in the 11th after the O's had taken a 5-4 lead.

I haven't been able to write this in a while, so I'll take particular glee in typing these words below.

The beer........it's ice cold.

During yesterday's appearance on Glenn Clark Radio, the outstanding show host and I got into a discussion about Caitlin Clark and, as Glenn described, the "perverted followers" she apparently has that stalk her every move both on and off the court.

I don't know that I'd say everyone who dives in on Clark is a "perverted follower", but to each his own. Clark is just as fond of a nice, hot take as the rest of us.

I will agree, though, that it's interesting to see how people all over the country are attached and attracted to her in a way we haven't seen from a female basketball player in............well...........maybe forever?

As I left Clark's studio yesterday and started thinking about, I couldn't come up with anyone else, honestly. Now, a women's basketball enthusiast I'm not. I will readily admit that.

But.........

I can't remember the last time I went to a website or looked at the TV schedule to see if, perhaps, a female basketball player played earlier in the evening or is playing, perhaps, tomorrow evening.

I'm doing it now with Caitlin Clark.

Maybe I'm one of those, ummm, crazies that Clark referenced.

But here's the thing.

I don't know why.

Like, I'm not really all that much into basketball, period. I basically have as much interest in watching a WNBA game under normal circumstances as you, your neighbor, and your neighbor's neighbor.

Which is, of course, no real interest at all.

I still don't know anyone in my life, I don't think, who has ever actually gone to the ticket window and purchased a ticket to a WNBA game. I know people who have gone, yes, but they always sheepishly admit they got freebies from work or some other complimentary outlet.

So not only do I not really care about basketball, I have even less interest in women's basketball.

But I'm interested in Caitlin Clark and the sideshow stories that accompany her, whether that's her incredible training methods or this current saga that's developing between her and Baltimore native Angel Reese. Which, I guess, means I actually am interested in women's basketball after all.

I just don't know why.

The aftermath of Scottie Scheffler's win at the PGA Championship includes an interesting nugget about the Ryder Cup next September.

Bryson DeChambeau, thanks to another solid finish at a major, is now almost a virtual lock to finish inside the top 6 and automatically make the American squad.

He has just over 10,000 points right now, which, even if he didn't do anything again in the final two majors, will probably be enough to keep in the top 6.

That means Keegan Bradley won't have to use a captain's pick on a LIV golfer. That also means he will have six other guys to choose from at the end of August when he adds to his roster with his picks.

Right now, those guys in the standings at 7 (Harris English), 8 (Maverick McNealy), 9 (Andrew Novak), 10 (Brian Harman), 11 (J.J. Spaun) and 12 (Patrick Cantlay) aren't exactly going to throw fear into the European side. The only guy out of those six that you might be worried about would be Cantlay, although Harman is actually a better match play competitor in my opinion.

The good news?

Jordan Spieth is at #32 and Rickie Fowler is at #59.

Neither of those guys is getting picked this year, unless something almost unimaginable happens like one or both of them happen to win the U.S. Open and British Open. And I just don't see that being on the radar.

The bad news?

Those six currently ranked 7 to 12 aren't going to help the U.S. beat Europe at Bethpage, that's for sure.

There are still two majors remaining and the tide will certainly shift with those two events and the FedEx Cup thereafter. The points accrued in those events alone will probably go a long way in finalizing the 1-through-6 rankings and those who finish 7-12 as well.

But as it stands now......the American squad is going to be less than stellar at this year's Ryder Cup unless Bradley has some creative captain's picks up his sleeve.

Actually, maybe Spieth and Fowler should clear their calendar after all.

Just kidding...

	"Jack Herb's Hot Corner" #DMD's weekly look at Major League Baseball
Jack Herb chimes in weekly here at #DMD with his insight on what's going on in baseball outside of Baltimore, with predictions, analysis and "Game of the Week" previews.

MLB’s Rivalry Weekend was a huge success as viewership and attendance both set record highs since 2012 for the weekend before Memorial Day.

What was interesting about the weekend slate of games specifically were out of the 15 series played, there were 7 sweeps.

The Nationals, Angels, Mariners, Phillies, Cubs, Reds, and Giants all swept their opponents. The most surprising sweep was the Angels taking 3 straight from the Dodgers on the road. I don’t think anyone saw that coming.

The Subway series between the Yankees and Mets lived up to its expectations as the Yankees won the series on Sunday Night Baseball, which was the most watched edition of ESPN’s Sunday game in 7 years.

Yankees fans appeared to get into Juan Soto’s head as he had a very underwhelming weekend. Even though he had 4 walks across 3 games, he only had 1 hit and didn’t drive in any runs. His play overall appears to lack effort as critics are pointing out he doesn’t hustle out of the box and has no range in right field.

Soto has never been known for his defense. In fact, he has consistently been ranked in the bottom half of right fielders defensively year after year. Baseballsavant.com ranks Soto’s range in the 5th percentile among MLB right fielders and his arm value in the 37th percentile.

You would like to see the defensive metrics a little higher given he signed a 15-year, $765 million dollar contract this past off-season.

Now, obviously, the Mets were well-aware of this when they signed him, and the bottom line is he wasn’t paid for his defense. He earned his contract because of his bat.

The "hustle out of the box" is an interesting point. We saw last weekend Soto lightly jogging to 1st base on ground balls and more recently against the Red Sox, Soto hitting a ball off the Green Monster that could have been a double, but he only made it to 1st base.

The rumors circulating now are that people believe he’s unhappy and perhaps made a mistake signing with the Mets instead of returning to the Yankees. I think that’s a little far-fetched and that rumor was most likely started in the vicinity of Yankee Stadium.

Soto has not had a great start to the season as he’s batting .247 with 8 homers and 20 RBI. Fans are frustrated and have high expectations for him. I would be shocked if he doesn’t turn it around for the Mets this season.

The Phillies have been playing great baseball this season and currently have a slim lead in the NL East, but they just had a devastating blow to the back end of their bullpen as Jose Alvarado was suspended 80 games for a PED violation.

Alvarado won’t be able to return to the Phillies bullpen until mid-August, but the real kicker is he’s now ineligible to pitch in the postseason should the Phillies get there.

Alvarado has been the Phillies most consistent reliever, which is particularly troubling when you realize Philadelphia has the 4th worst ranked bullpen in the National League with a 4.66 ERA and 8 blown saves.

This is a Phillies team that has chased the elusive World Series trophy the past few seasons and has come up short.

Losing one of the game’s hardest throwing left-handed relievers is a big loss and it will be challenging to find a replacement. Jordan Romano, former Blue Jays closer, was acquired this past winter by the Phillies, but has struggled with a 7.27 ERA and 2 blown saves already in 5 save opportunities.

Romano is the likely candidate to take over the closer role, but I see the Phillies using a platoon approach until they make a trade for a closer at the deadline. Unfortunately for the Phillies, every team in contention for the playoƯs will also be shopping for a closer to solidify their bullpens. This will end up costing the Phillies valuable prospects to land a deal at the deadline.

Brandon Hyde was relieved of his manager duties last Saturday by the Orioles as the team has had a terrible start to the season with no signs of turning it around. I don’t know where to even begin with this team.

One night it’s the pitching, another night it’s the offense, another night it’s the defense. Most nights, actually, it’s all 3 of those things.

Randy Morgan and Drew have discussed the issues with the club this week, so I won’t go into too much detail with the Orioles struggles. I think it’s safe to say this season is a wash. With injuries to key players and core players not performing on top of free agent acquisitions from last winter also not performing, it creates the perfect storm for a losing season.

The Orioles had opportunities last winter to bring in guys to supplement the young core, and they didn’t do it.

Who is to blame for the result of this season? Hyde deserves some of it, but not all. Elias certainly does as well. He deserves more blame than Hyde in my opinion.

The players ultimately need to win the games and play well, which hasn’t happened since the first half of last season. For the rest of the year, focus on getting healthy and continue to develop the young core of players.

The O's should listen to offers at the trade deadline and look to add pitching prospects that are or near MLB ready, as long as the trade makes sense.

I liked Randy Morgan’s point he made on Monday of letting the young talent play, like Coby Mayo, Chayce McDermott and Brandon Young.

Let’s see what we have with these guys and give them a legitimate chance to play on a regular basis. There’s not going to be a better time than now to go through the growing pains of developing young prospects at the big-league level.

Players of the Week --

Pitcher: Sonny Gray of the St. Louis Cardinals had a great outing on Monday where we went 6 innings and gave up 3 hits, 1 walk, no runs, and punched out 10.

What’s more impressive is he did that against the Detroit Tigers, who have the best record in baseball eight weeks into the season. Gray is a bit of a journeyman, entering his 12th season in the majors. He was the Cardinals opening day starter this year and the leader of the rotation. The Cardinals will need to rely on Gray to give their team a chance to win every 5th day as they look to make a run for the NL Central.

Position Player: How about Will Benson of the Cincinnati Reds and the week he just had? Benson batted .455 this past week with 5 home runs and 10 RBI. Benson went 4 consecutive days last week with a home run, highlighted by his 2 homer, 3 RBI day he had on Sunday against the Guardians.

We’ve discussed the Reds here at the Hot Corner in the past. They currently are 25-25 going into Wednesday’s game. I like the Reds and think they can make a run for the NL Central, similar to the Cardinals. Regardless, this Reds team is fun to watch. A small market club with a talented team. It’s hard not to root for them.

Rookie: Mick Abel of the Philadelphia Phillies made his MLB debut against Paul Skenes and the Pirates and he did not disappoint.

Abel went 6 innings and gave up 5 hits, no walks, and had 9 strikeouts while also recording the win as the Phillies defeated the Pirates 1-0. The Phillies have enjoyed solid starting pitching this year, led by Zack Wheeler and Jesus Luzardo. It’ll be interesting to see how Abel fits in with this rotation moving forward.

Perhaps they’ll try moving him to the bullpen, where help is needed. I do feel bad for Skenes in this start. He went 8 innings and gave up 1 run and recorded the loss. He’s 3-5 on the year with a 2.44 ERA.

Games of the Week --

Friday, May 23rd: LA Dodgers vs New York Mets (Clayton Kershaw vs Griffin Canning)

Two of the best teams in the National League face off in a rematch of the NLCS last year. Kershaw struggled in his 2025 debut last week. Will he be able to get back on track on the road in New York, where the crowd will surely be buzzing?

Saturday, May 24th: Arizona Diamondbacks vs St Louis Cardinals (Merrill Kelly vs Matthew Liberatore)

These teams have similar records and are both looking to make runs at their divisions. This is also a great pitching matchup where Kelly has a 3.26 ERA and Liberatore has a 2.92 ERA.

Sunday, May 25th: Cleveland Guardians vs Detroit Tigers (Tanner Bibee vs Tarik Skubal)

This is a big series for the Guardians as they look to catch up with the red-hot Detroit Tigers. The Guardians are currently 5.5 games in back of the Tigers in the division. Losing this series or, even worse, a sweep, and the division starts to get out of reach for Cleveland.

Wednesday May 21, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3922

how long does mike get?

Mike Elias met with the media in Milwaukee yesterday, a few hours before the O's settled in to take their 8th straight loss, 5-2, to the Brewers.

There was nothing to it, really.

The Orioles GM said everything you expected he'd say.

"It's tough anytime you fire someone."

"This is ultimately my responsibility."

"We're still focused on getting this turned around quickly. There's a lot of baseball left to be played."

"No one's quitting or giving up."

The obvious question moving forward is: "How much patience does David Rubenstein have for this losing and the team/roster that Mike Elias put together?"

I don't know if there's a concrete answer in place, but it's always important to remember that Rubenstein didn't hire Elias and his staff. He inherited all of them.

I'll try to do my best to provide some balance to the Elias situation, but as the losses mount and the summer of '25 becomes more about the beach and 5 pm cocktails and less about the baseball team's chances for an Autumn to remember, it's getting harder and harder to balance anything out in favor of Mike Elias.

This, I do believe: In the same way that Brandon Hyde didn't suddenly become a terrible manager, Mike Elias didn't suddenly turn into a pumpkin as a general manager.

I'm personally not an analytics guy through and through. I do see their value, for sure. And I understand the role they play in picking a lineup or making an in-game decision of some kind.

But -- I'm sounding like Buck Showalter here, I know -- analytics can't replace 20 years of baseball experience or 20 years of going-with-your-gut or 20 years of "that guy hasn't thrown a strike in 10 minutes, I have to get him out of there."

So, while I understand that Elias is a "numbers guy" and so, too, are those on his staff, relying on data for every single thing you do is not the best idea. That's what I think, anyway.

This year, clearly, is an outlier.

Something went horribly wrong.

Injuries, which are never predictable, have certainly helped derail the O's thus far. Anyone who suggests injuries haven't hurt the club is silly.

Every team gets them, of course, but the O's got their case of the injury bug in March, April and May, rather than July, August and September.

It's not only injuries. Not by a longshot. But the team's performance on the field has certainly been impacted by the loss of guys like GrayRod, Eflin, Westburg and Cowser, just to name four.

Elias can't do anything about the injuries, but he can do something about the signings he authorized over the winter. The only MLB veteran thus far that's paid any sort of qualified return-on-investment has been Ramon Laureano. The rest of the off-season additions have largely been useless.

There is also Tomoyuki Sugano, the Japanese pitcher. He's been decent. But that was like stepping up to the black jack table and having the dealer throw you a jack and a ten. You just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

He could have also thrown down a five of spades and three of hearts and you'd be in trouble. But you gambled he'd give you the ten and the jack and you were right.

MLB veterans with experience that you sign, guys you know and have vetted (presumably), are the ones who tell us if you know what you're doing -- or not.

James McCann was replaced by Gary Sanchez. McCann famously took a fastball to the face last year, rubbed some mercurochrome on it, and trotted back out there. He was, by every account, a well respected veteran who added something both on the field and off the field.

Sanchez had about as many hits Procol Harum had in the 60's, then got a hang nail in May and hasn't been heard from since.

Whether McCann's locker room presence was overly significant is something we all don't know. But it's almost a definite that Sanchez has (had) zero locker room impact.

I don't know what Santander brought to the locker room and, yes, I know he's off to a sluggish start in Toronto, but you effectively swapped Santander for O'Neill because you didn't want to pay Santander what he was worth.

So, you got what you deserved out of that trade-of-talent. Nothing.

Now, let's throw one final thing out there. The internet is filled with stories about Elias and Rubenstein. Do they both collectively want to spend money on baseball players? Do they both want to "Moneyball" their way through the off-season? Does Elias want one thing and Rubenstein another?

Various media folks try to give you those answers, but I'm not sure I'm convinced that anyone really knows the truth.

My suspicion is probably this: Rubenstein doesn't want to come across as cheap because he knows that was the scarlet letter Peter Angelos eventually wore as the owner of the franchhise.

Elias knows you have to spend money on baseball players in order to have a reasonable chance of winning. If you sign scrubs or draft scrubs, you become the White Sox and Rockies.

But he doesn't want to sign, let's say, Anthony Santander right now and, two years down the road, Rubenstein says, "You want $70 million a year for Gunnar Henderson? Are you insane? We gave Santander $25 million a year and he's doing just fine. Talk Henderson down to $45 million a year and I'll think about it."

I don't think Elias is "anti-spending-money" on players. I do think, though, he's afraid of losing a guy in three or four years and, thus, figures it's prudent to save his chips for a day down the road.

Meanwhile, by passing on (potentially expensive) quality free agents now, you go from a playoff team to a division bottom feeder and you've lost your shine, so to speak.

This also brings up another relevant question: Who is the team leader?

We've posed this question before. Is it Ryan O'Hearn? Cedric Mullins?

It's no longer Brandon Hyde. That much we know.

Does Elias show any kind of leadership qualities at this point that players will respond to over the next few weeks?

I don't know. I think you have to be there, in the locker room, on the team plane, in the hotel, to know the answer.

But I do know this: The spotlight now shifts from Hyde to Elias.

These are, after all, his players. He brought them all (mostly) to Baltimore. If they're stinking it up, their performance is on them, of course. But Elias is the one who decided Charlie Morton still had something left in the tank, Tyler O'Neill was a good fit, Gregory Sota was a good pick up last summer, and so on.

He's the GM who called the Marlins and said, "We have these two kids, Norby and Stowers. How about I give you them and you give us Trevor Rogers?"

Elias is the one who didn't trade for Crochet or Cease. He's the one that passed on Pivetta or Wacha as free agents.

Firing the general manager during the season seems very unlikely, especially if the team continues to flatline and eventually gets to, say, 30-50 at the halfway point of the season. Why fire anyone at that point? Just let it burn and make sure you get the pets out of the house.

Then again, you might want to start fresh on June 1 and give the new GM and whatever staff he (or she) puts together a month or so to prepare for the upcoming MLB draft.

But what GM of any value is out there available and flapping in the breeze in June? Most of the highly competent folks in baseball have jobs in......baseball.

I don't know if firing Mike Elias is right or wrong, prudent or dumb.

I do know, though, that he never thought he'd be sitting in the dugout in Milwaukee on May 20, defending his baseball acumen and trying to explain how this whole thing fell apart so quickly in 2025.

The injuries definitely conspired against him.

His best players not firing on all cylinders from day one of the regular season didn't help, either.

It's all caved in on him without much notice.

And then he had to fire the manager, which I'm sure is not a move he really, deep down, wanted to make.

It's not Brandon Hyde's fault that Ryan Mountcastle hasn't figured out how to lay off the ball down and away when he has two strikes on him.

Adley Rutschman has declined faster than CNN's ratings over the last two years. How is that Hyde's fault?

But, as we know, "someone" has to be the fall guy and it turned out to be the manager, even though I'm sure Elias knew that was only a band-aid that would temporarily stop the bleeding.

The Orioles are still facing major surgery at some point soon.

Will Elias survive the collapse? Does the remainder of the season serve as a "make or break" four months for Elias? Or will Rubenstein and O's ownership eventually want their own people in the GM office no matter what happens?

Important questions indeed.

Tuesday May 20, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3921

feeling sorry for them now

OK, so this is starting to get bad with the Orioles.

I mean, enough is enough, baseball gods.

The team stinks, obviously.

They had to fire the manager before Memorial Day.

And, now, they still can't win, even with a new guy at the helm.

I'm sure Brandon Hyde is snickering somewhere, wherever managers who just got fired but are still getting paid decide to go after they no longer have to report to the clubhouse every day at 2:30 pm.

It was a 7th straight loss last night in Milwaukee, 5-4, as the O's battled back from a 4-1 deficit on a Cedric Mullins 3-run homer, only to give up the eventual game-winning run in the bottom of the 8th.

At some point, it has to get better. Right? Right?

What happens first?

A) Orioles win a game

B) Lamar hints at a new contract because his current one is below market value

C) Kevin Willard leaves Villanova for Duke

There's nothing else to say, really, about the Orioles at this point. So, rather than beat a dead horse, we'll let it lay on the side of the road for a few days and bake in the sun.

And, here's the thing, there are signs of the offense starting to come to life and percolate just a little bit.

Maybe I'm trying to be overly optimistic, which is a character flaw I'll own, but six runs on Saturday, four runs on Sunday and four again last night is at least something to build upon moving forward.

For those doing the math, the Birds are 15-31. In order to win 86 games and have a possible shot at a playoff spot, they would have to go 71-45 from now until the end of the season.

I know what you're thinking.

(Well, Flyers fans are thinking, "Wait...is 71 plus 15 really 86?" Yes it is.)

You're thinking, "Yeah, I don't see 71-45 in the cards for these Orioles."

I'm an optimist by nature but I'd agree with you.

Meanwhile, one of the interesting sidebars to this fiasco of a season is something Randy Morgan brought up yesterday.

Who gets traded (or made available) at the deadline?

I mean, I guess the discussion begins with: Who wouldn't you trade away?

Gunnar is a "not available".

Holliday is a "not available".

I think Westburg is a "not available", but, speaking of "available", it would be nice to see him play for longer than a month without getting hurt.

Other than that, make me (or, the O's) an offer on anyone else.

You can have 'em all.

But, like always, we're not giving people away for the sake of giving them away. You need to come up with something beneficial in return, unless it's Charlie Morton or Ramon Laureano you want.

Heck, at this point, Laureano is probably 3rd in the team's MVP voting through 46 games.

We might be building around him for the future. Who knows?

Scottie Scheffler moved past an elite group of professional golfers on Sunday with his 5-shot win at the PGA Championship.

The triumph was Scheffler's 3rd career major title, which means he has now/already won more majors than a fairly prominent group of Hall of Fame golfers, including:

Greg Norman

Bernhard Langer

Jose Maria Olazabal

Ben Crenshaw

And, with three majors, Scheffler now has one more than a stable of current top players like Dustin Johnson, Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau and Collin Morikawa, each of whom has two majors in their career(s).

Someone asked me on Sunday if I thought Scheffler could get to 10 major titles.

That's going to be awfully hard to do, simply because you can, as Rory McIlroy just showed us, going through a period of time where you're playing great golf but you can't win a major.

Scheffler might very well win another one this year, then go all of 2026 and 2027 without winning one. Who knows?

One thing for sure, though. This "run" of Scheffler's that started back in 2022 is more "Tiger like" than anything we've seen in golf over the last 25 years.

He's won 15 times since February of 2022.

Fred Couples also won 15 tournaments...in 27 years on TOUR.

And that's not a slight at Freddie. 15 tournament wins on the PGA Tour is an incredible feat.

Scheffler's won 15 times in 39 months.

And there's really no sign of him doing anything but winning for the forseeable future. This is most certainly not a fluke.

The U.S. Open will also be tailor-made for him, as was Quail Hollow GC last week. At Oakmont CC next month, he'll enjoy a bomber's paradise where iron play and approach to the greens will really be at premium. And, while the greens this year might be a tad more tricky than last year at Pinehurst #2, they'll be far easier to hit this time around.

Yes, in case you're wondering, Scheffler is a great bet to win at Oakmont CC in mid-June.

Lost in the aftermath of Sunday's win for Scheffler's was the delightful back nine egg laid taken by the two LIV challengers, Rahm and DeChambeau. Rahm was in the hunt for his 3rd career major until he fell apart over the last three holes. DeChambeau, at one point tied for the lead late in Saturday's third round, couldn't get it done under the gun on the back in Sunday's final round.

I'm sure you were just as thrilled as I was to watch those two fire and fall back.

In the end, the guy I thought would win did, in fact, win. But it was a "perfect ballpark" for Scheffler who, like Rory, had his driver removed from play by the PGA Tour last Tuesday for "non-conforming" characteristics of the clubface.

But unlike Rory, who couldn't hit a fairway for four days, Scheffler simply put a new driver in play and clobbered everyone with it.

A lot has been made about McIlroy's situation, but the reality is a player's club can become non-comforing without any real knowledge on their part. When a baseball player corks a bat, they know it's corked because they (or someone representing them) did the corking.

When a driver's clubface becomes "illegal", it's almost always due to wear and tear in the shaft that leads to an increased MOI (moment of inertia) in the club head itself. It's far too technical for my Glen Burnie High School education and I don't swing hard enough to ever worry about "wearing down the clubface" on my driver, so I'm just passing along what I've heard along the way.

Scheffler put a new driver in play and won with it.

McIlroy put a new driver in play and couldn't hit a fairway if his life depended on it.

One of those two is the best golfer in the world right now and the other is a great golfer. It would be cool to see them face off in the final round next month in Pittsburgh.

Monday May 19, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3920

the morning after the morning after

My son, a senior at Calvert Hall and a member of the team that won the A-Conference championship on Saturday, delivered the news to me as my team was warming up just after 12 noon.

"Dad, the Orioles just fired Brandon Hyde."

He didn't do it on purpose, of course, but Ethan's information momentarily distracted me from the task at hand.

I was not in the "Fire Hyde!" camp like a lot of others in town. I wrote here that I thought he would get fired if the O's somehow got swept by the lowly Nationals. Alas, both things happened, just not in the anticipated order. Hyde got fired first. Then the O's got swept.

I thought about Hyde for a minute as I watched my starting six rip practice shots into a beautiful, Chamber of Commerce blue sky at Caves Valley.

I met the erstwhile O's skipper only once. It was last summer at the Country Club of Maryland. He was seeking some morning solace walking 9 holes by himself and I was on the putting green waiting for a friend I was meeting for coffee and to discuss a golf camp we were running together.

It was early June. The O's were rolling.

He was walking off the 9th green and stopped on the putting green to practice. I introduced myself.

"It's great to have winning baseball back in Baltimore," I told him. We small-talked about other stuff for two minutes. You know, the usual. I told him I was from Glen Burnie originally, was there at Memorial Stadium at 1:00 am when O's got back from Philly in the '83 World Series and can't wait to sit in Camden Yards for a World Series game someday soon.

"We have the players to do it," Hyde said. "We have some great, young talent."

And that was it. That was the only occasion I ever had to talk with Brandon Hyde. Although I know he was a regular 9-hole walker at CC of Maryland, I never again encountered him there.

But that comment stuck with me.

"We have the players to do it. We have some great, young talent."

I'm proud to say my Calvert Hall team won its 2nd title in 3 years later on Saturday. We beat a very good Spalding team, 16.5 to 4.5, to finish the season at 13-1. It was, by almost any standard, not only perhaps the best season in the history of the school's golf program, but one of the best seasons any Calvert Hall team has produced since the school moved to its current location 70-some years ago.

We had great, young talent.

Coaching matters. I happen to have two amazing assistant coaches, Brian Hubbard and Nick Smearman, who were both huge parts of our 2025 success. As I said to them in the 12th fairway on Saturday as we were wrapping up our win, "None of this happens without you two."

Hubbard has been with me since 2019. Smearman played for my championship team in 2013 and joined my staff just this past season.

Both of those guys know golf and they know how to compete and they know when to push and when to hug. In other words, they know when it's time to coach and when it's time to leave things alone.

I couldn't have two guys who are more perfect fits to be with me. God is great, indeed. Those two epitomize Calvert Hall and the golf program I've been a part of since 2013.

During matches, each of us walks with one of the three groups that contains two players from each team.

As it turned out this year, the three of us settled into our routine. I routinely walked with the group that contained Brooks Manning, an outstanding junior team captain who played great golf all season. Saturday, he partnered with Enzo Pobletts, and I walked with those guys at Caves.

Hubbard walked with Ryan Hoffner's group all season. Hoffner, like Manning, is a junior team captain, and a 2-time All-Conference player who has played every match for the last three years. His partner on Saturday was James Jean-Baptiste, a junior who played terrific golf in 2025.

And Smearman, all season long, walked with the "5-6" pairing, the final group on the course, which for us this season never once changed. It was senior Clayton Wright and freshman Landon O'Hara from the first match until the final putt dropped on Saturday at Caves.

Some others played in conference matches for us along the way. Every guy on the team played in either a conference match or non-conference match in 2025.

As coaches, we're merely there for support and, if needed, to add a third voice.

"How much do you think this plays uphill?" a player might ask.

"Make sure you get this ball to hit right of the pin," I'll say. "Check your notes. Everything goes hard to the left once it hits the green."

"Do your best to leave this chip short of the hole. Your guy is going to make bogey at best here. Give yourself a good putt at par," a coach will add.

And that's it. We offer advice when asked or we step in only when we feel like it's necessary.

There was a scene last month in the moment after we won the team stroke play title -- a mid-season tournament of sorts that counts a team's best four individual stroke play scores over 36 holes -- where I saw something that my players didn't and was able to bring that to their attention.

As the league Commissioner announced Calvert Hall as the winner, the teams and spectators surrounding the scoring area gave us polite, appropriate applause.

Except for one team, that is.

One team in the conference stood there -- all 9 or 10 of their players -- with their arms across their chests. It was, very clearly, an intentional decision on their part.

I noticed it.

My players, who were busy receiving the team trophy, didn't see it. But I did.

And in the quick post-round meeting I had with my guys, I brought it up to them.

"Just remember that," I said. "File it away and remember it."

We saw that team again later in the season. The final score would indicate that, ummmm, it was remembered.

As I stood there with Brian and Nick on Saturday and watched the team celebrate the victory, I couldn't help but think of Brandon Hyde and his staff.

They knew as much about baseball when the O's were great for two seasons as they knew about baseball this season when the team got off to a terrible start.

It was, of course, always mostly about the players. They throw the ball. They hit the ball. They field the ball.

The coaches matter. They surely do.

But it's always about the players.

This year, the players on the Orioles aren't playing up to their capabilities. No one really knows why that is. But it's been happening almost since day one of the season.

And because you can't fire all two dozen players, you have to fire one "other" person just to show that what's happening isn't acceptable.

Hyde, sadly, became that "other" person on Saturday.

"We have some great, young talent," Hyde said to me that day.

As it turns out, so do we at Calvert Hall golf.

I have the best players in the conference to coach. It's a privilege, really.

They are outstanding golfers and engaged, enthusiastic student-athletes.

Above all, they play golf "the Calvert Hall way", as we like to say.

"No chirping on the internet," I would tell them after every win this season. "Don't write anything crazy on your social media pages. Let your golf clubs do the talking."

In 2025, their play and record did all the talking.

	"Randy On The O's"
Randy Morgan takes #DMD readers through the recent week in Orioles baseball as the Birds try to earn a third straight A.L. playoff appearance.

orioles week in review

Week Record: 0-6

Season Record: 15-30

AL East Standing: 5th (11 GB of NYY)

Player of the Week: Jackson Holliday - .321 AVG 2 HR 2 DB 5 RBI

Zero. Zero, as in the amount of wins for the Orioles this week. Zero, as in the Orioles chances of making the playoffs after this week.

The embarrassing week cost manager Bradon Hyde his job. A move that won’t likely solve anything but was about the only thing that could be done at this point. The man who made the move, GM Mike Elias, is now squarely in the spotlight and probably next on the chopping block if this disaster continues.

A rainout on Tuesday meant a doubleheader for the O’s on Wednesday. In the opener, Gunnar Henderson gave Baltimore an early 3–0 lead with a two-run homer, but Dean Kremer surrendered four runs in the fourth, highlighted by Christian Vázquez's three-run blast. Ramón Laureano was ejected in the sixth inning, symbolizing the team's growing frustrations, as the Birds fell 6-3.

In the second game of the day, the O’s came back from a four run deficit to take the lead with a six run explosion in the third, capped by Cedric Mullins' grand slam and a solo homer from rookie Heston Kjerstad. However, the Twins rallied late, punctuated by Kody Clemens’ go-ahead three-run homer off Yennier Cano in the eighth inning and the Orioles lost 8-6.

In the series closer on Thursday, Minnesota starter Chris Paddack silenced Orioles bats, tossing seven shutout innings. Tomoyuki Sugano allowed four runs over 6.1 innings. Baltimore managed just six hits and went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position, ending with a 4-0 loss and a disappointing sweep.

Despite fifteen hits on Friday, the O’s still couldn’t prevail, losing 4-3 to the Nats. The BIrds stranded fifteen runners. The Orioles took a 3–2 lead into the eighth but couldn't hold on, with a James Wood homer in the 8th followed by a costly throwing error by Félix Bautista in the ninth that allowed the Nationals' winning run to score.

Hours after Hyde's firing on Saturday, the Orioles suffered a nightmare six-run first inning. Kyle Gibson recorded only two outs before being pulled. Jackson Holliday provided a bright spot with a homer and three RBI, but the O’s dropped another one, 10-6.

On Sunday, Holliday went deep again, along with Mullins and Gunnar. Though it wasn’t nearly enough after a brutal start for Zach Eflin who allowed eight runs over 5.1 innings. CJ Abrams led off the game with a home run and added another in the 2nd, pacing a five-homer day for Washington. Those blasts powered the Nats to a 10-4 win and left the O’s with nothing to show for in the entire week.

Given the circumstances, it's hard to find much positive to talk about this week. Lost in this miserable slide is a true breakout for former first overall draft pick Jackson Holliday. The young lefty continued his surge at the plate this week batting .321 with two homers and five RBI.

Down on the Farm --

Norfolk struggled to a 2-4 record against the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp this week. Top prospect Samuel Basallo led the way for the Tides, bashing three homers and driving in seven to go along with a .435 OBP on the week.

Outfielder Dylan Beavers had another strong week, batting .471 to boost his yearly average to .303 with an .818 OPS. On the mound, 24 year old right handed pitching prospect Cameron Weston had 14 strikeouts over 10.2 innings with a 2.53 ERA over the two starts. In AA, catching prospect Creed Willems continued to lead the Baysox offense with two homers and four RBI. Willems raised his season long OPS to .883.

Question of the Week --

Why should we keep watching this team for the rest of the season?

This week’s topic may be more of a personal quest to convince myself the money I spent on the season-long MLB TV pass isn’t completely wasted for the rest of the summer. So, if you likewise shelled out for MLB TV or the newer MASN streaming pass, I’ll present five reasons to keep watching the Orioles in this lost season.

Jackson Holliday

With a .275 average and a .787 OPS, Holliday has improved in every category at the plate since last season, along with playing solid defense at second base. At just 21 years old, he now has an OPS+ of 118, or 18% better than average.

Holliday now looks well on his way to fulfilling his enormous promise. While it may not matter this season, a blooming Holliday could pair with Gunnar Henderson to form one of the best up the middle duos in the league for years to come.

Let the kids play

Now that the Orioles have nothing to play for the rest of the season, the focus for everything will need to shift to turning things around next year. This provides an opportunity for the Orioles to get an extended look at some of their top prospects in a lower pressure environment.

Once the playoffs are completely out of sight there isn’t much sense to keep running out short term solutions like Ramon Laureano or Gary Sanchez.

Players like Coby Mayo, who has proven himself beyond a doubt at AAA, but struggled in sporadic Major League at-bats, should get every chance to learn on the job the rest of the season. Along with Mayo, pitchers Cade Povich, Chayce McDermott and Brandon Young should get ample chance to adapt to big league hitters.

They should take all the innings that were previously reserved for Charlie Morton and Kyle Gibson.

There should even be opportunities to bring up the next few prospects for some experience at the top level to evaluate who might be able to contribute to a rebound next season.

Samuel Basallo is very young and green, but if the front office hopes he can help next year, it might make sense to get him acclimated down the stretch this year. Dylan Beavers has been hitting well at AAA and will be an option in the outfield next year. He could get some useful experience in this lost year, especially given the uncertain futures of Cedric Mullins and Tyler O’Neill.

Trade or Re-Sign?

Speaking of Cedric Mullins. He is one of the few Orioles doing their job this season. Unfortunately, he is not signed beyond 2025 and probably represents the most difficult decision the team will need to make this offseason.

Mullins is an Oriole through and through, coming up in the dark days and remaining a productive part of the recent success. There was a time last year where it seemed Mullins’ departure was inevitable, but the center fielder has turned it around and has arguably the team’s best player this season.

Mike Elias will need to determine if Mullins is more valuable to the team as a trade asset at the deadline this year or if the team can find the right price to sign Mullins to an extension. There is no ready made replacement for Mullins in center field.

Colton Cowser has done a decent job when forced into the role, but he profiles more as a good corner outfielder. The club drafted Enrique Bradfield Jr. in the first round a couple years ago, but injuries have limited him to a small number of AA at-bats thus far, so he is not very near being ready to take over the big league job.

.

Zach Eflin and Tomoyuki Sugano represent similar decisions for the front office, though they come with less sentimental baggage. Given the team’s recent history, both of them will most likely leave as free agents in the offseason if they aren’t traded before then.

This season’s trade deadline could go a long way to determining if Elias gets to keep his job and try to reset the team for another successful run after this complete failure of a season.

Manager (and GM?) Evaluation

In that same vein, we will also get to see how the team performs under a new manager, with Brandon Hyde relieved of his duties this week. It seems unlikely that Tony Mansolino will be the long term solution unless he sparks a miraculous turnaround.

Nevertheless, the manager change gives a chance to parse out if any of the underperformance was due to coaching/managing or if the status quo continues. At a minimum, Mansolino will have some freedom to try some different approaches and see if anything works well enough to carry over to next year.

Kyle Bradish

The 2023 ace starting pitcher probably didn’t envision the season would be over by the time he returned in the second half. The good news is with no playoffs in sight, the Orioles will have no reason to rush Kyle Bradish.

They can allow him to ease his way back to the mound and hopefully find the rhythm he had in that magical year so that he can return at the top of his game in 2026.

Sunday May 18, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3919

well, that didn't help

The post-Brandon Hyde era started on Saturday the way it ended on Friday. With an Orioles loss.

This wasn't "just a loss", it was a thorough drubbing at the hands of the Nationals, who blew out of the gates with six runs in the first inning and eventually extended that lead to 10-2 before the O's saved themselves a smidgen of embarrassment with a four-run uprising in the bottom of the 9th in a 10-6 loss at Camden Yards.

But, as they say, a loss is a loss is a loss. They all count the same, whether it's 2-1 or 10-6.

The Orioles finally caved in to the inevitable on Saturday and fired Brandon Hyde.

Whether it was Mike Elias who wrote out the pink slip or David Rubenstein who wrote it but asked Elias to deliver it is really neither here nor there. A lot of folks on the internet think it's a big deal who ultimately made the call, but it doesn't matter one iota.

A substantial portion of what's gone wrong with this Orioles team has nothing at all to do with Hyde, in the same way that a substantial portion of what went right in '23 and '24 had very little to do with him.

But...

The sad reality is he had to go.

Holding professional athletes accountable is a very difficult thing to do because in almost every circumstance, they make more money than the people who hired them.

There was a time when you could hold college athletes accountable but that ship, too, has now sailed as well.

But making a professional athlete take responsibility for his (her) own performance is almost impossible in 2025. Firing the manager is the beginning of that process.

The players in Baltimore, by all accounts, were very fond of Brandon Hyde. Whether they secretly wanted him gone is a story for another day, but if they think firing the manager was going to ease them out of the pressure cooker, they're sadly mistaken.

Firing Hyde becomes a quick-fix "excuse" for the team's horrendous start to the '25 campaign.

"The manager couldn't get the players to play better, so we have to fire him," is what Elias essentially said on Saturday.

Tony Mansolino is the team's new manager, which means he now bears the responsibility of squeezing something positive out of this uninspired group of professionals. (Should we put "professionals" in quotes like that? I mean, you are 15-29).

The players might think it's a relief to have Hyde take the axe and Mansolino step into the role.

"Whew, they thought it was Hyde, not us..."

But we all know who it is.

It's the players.

Now, the guy who brought those players to town is certainly not exempt from criticism. And he's next on the chopping block if this thing completely spirals out of control.

Mike Elias is now in the crosshairs, for sure.

He's the one who thought Gary Sanchez would be a better fit for the club than James McCann.

He's the one who thought Tyler O'Neill would be a better fit than Anthony Santander.

We'll give him a pass on losing Corbin Burnes. Burnes spent 6 months in Baltimore and borrowed a line from Roberto Duran: "No mas."

But we can't give him a pass for bringing in Charlie Morton. That move flopped worse than the Beatles' release of the "Revolver", "Abbey Road", "Yellow Submarine" album.

You didn't have to give Corbin Burnes $300 million of silly-money to get him to stay. He was never going to stay.

But Morton was the wrong choice. There were a handful of veteran pitchers available who have gone to have reputable seasons (thus far) who would have been much better than Morton. Alas, Morton was cheap, which is always a favorite theme of the O's no matter who runs the team or owns the team.

All of that stuff -- Sanchez, O'Neill, Morton -- falls under the watchful eye of Elias. He picked those guys. None of them have been any good.

So, he's next.

But, in the meantime, it's the players who fall under daily scrutiny now. Brandon Hyde is no longer around to get beat up and blamed.

Now, we turn to the players to see if they're professional enough to get this ship righted before the All-Star break.

Scottie Scheffler scorched Quail Hollow over the final 75 minutes yesterday and owns a 3-shot lead going into today's concluding round of the PGA Championship.

Is it over?

Not hardly.

I mean, I obviously picked Scheffler to win so conventional wisdom says I think he'll hold on to win, but it's far from a done deal is what I'm trying to convey.

Weird things happen at the PGA and the guys lurking on the leaderboard are very typical names for a tournament that features a surprise winner every few years.

I think Scheffler will hold on to win. He's the best player in the world, obviously, and the way he scorched those final five holes on Saturday (eagle, birdie, par, birdie, birdie) was why no one on this planet is better at golf than Scottie Scheffler.

Editor's note: I sometimes take a second and reflect on that idea for just a second. Imagine what it's like when you're the best player at your club. That's a great feeling, indeed. There might be 20 or 30 highly competent golfers at your club and you're the best of them. Imagine what it might be like to be ranked #1 in your entire state. The feeling of "in the entire state, I'm the best golfer." Then imagine what it's like to be the best golfer in your country or native land. Scottie Scheffler is the best golfer in the world."

But the names behind him are ripe to become the next Shaun Micheel, Rich Beem or Y.E. Yang. Those are three non-descript former champions of the PGA Championship. And so, too, would Alex Noren be "non-descript". J.T. Poston, Davis Riley, Jhonattan Vegas. Those three would fit the "non-descript" moniker as well.

All four of those guys are excellent players, as evidenced by the fact they're on the PGA Tour and have a shot at winning the PGA Championship today. They're not there by accident. But none of them can hold a candle to what Scheffler has done over the last 3-plus seasons on the TOUR.

That said, it's 18 holes of golf and Scheffler, despite his current 11-under par score and the emphatic way he finished on Saturday, is prone to an uneven round of 71 or 72 today under tough conditions and someone like Poston or Noren could find the magic and shoot a 66 or 65 to win.

If you want me to chip away at the semantics, I'll say I'd be "surprised" if Scheffler didn't finish this off and win today, but I wouldn't be "shocked" if someone caught him on the final day.

It's golf. Weird things happen.

Like yesterday, for example. I happened to catch a glimpse of a TV in the Caves Valley locker room around 5:15 pm and saw that Bryson DeChambeau was at 8-under par and tied for the lead with Scheffler.

"If they're in the final group tomorrow," I said to someone who was standing there with me, "the enthusiasm level from the fans will blow the doors off of that golf course."

I left the locker room to attend to some things and came back probably 30 minutes later.

Scheffler was at 10 under and DeChambeau was at 5-under.

Just like "that" (snap of a finger), DeChambeau tumbled down the leaderboard and, most likely, out of the tournament.

Scheffler's human. He could do something similar today.

And if he does, one of those behind him will snag their piece of golf history.

It's going to be fun to watch, that's for certain.

I'll be hosting fairways and greens (4 to 6 pm) today on 105.7 and we will, of course, be following the final round of the PGA Championship throughout the show. We have a lot more golfing fun in store for you during the show. Please tune in.

Saturday May 17, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3917

surprise! there's a horse race today

It's Preakness Saturday in The Land of Pleasant Living.

Yes, I'm serious. They're running the Preakness today at Pimlico.

I know, I know. You're checking the calendar to see if I'm right. I am right. It's today.

There was a time when the Preakness was a huge deal in these parts. I'm not sure exactly when the race faded from the public spotlight, but it's been a while now since the second leg of the Triple Crown captivated us here in the Free State.

I mean, sure, 80,000 or so folks might show up there today, but only about 12% of them really care about horse racing and/or the event itself. The majority of those in attendance are there because someone else urged them to go.

They're apparently going to start repairing and refurbishing Pimlico after this race. Next year, the Preakness moves to Laurel. It might be in Laurel again in 2027 depending on how things go with the work at Pimlico.

But someday down the road, a brand new, state-of-the-art race track will sit there on Northern Parkway and, who knows, the race might even be important to all of us once again.

Baltimore needs the Preakness. Whether it stays situated on the 3rd weekend of May or shifts to the first full weekend in June like the racing underground says it might, Baltimore needs the Preakness to be a big deal again.

There was a time when Preakness "week" was really just that -- a week filled with events, activities, and high profile parties that showcased our great city for what it was.

Then along came The Wire on HBO and everything went to hell in a handbasket in Charm City.

Anyway, they're racing today at Pimlico. Here's who is in the field and our thoughts on how they'll cross the finish line.

#1, Goal Oriented (6-1), Flavien Prat (jockey), Bob Baffert (trainer) -- Has a solid jockey/trainer combo but this race appears to be an ambitious ask for a horse whose claim to fame is winning a claiming race at Churchill Downs on May 3.

#2, Journalism (8-5), Umberto Rispoli (jockey), Michael McCarthy (trainer) -- Finished 2nd in the Derby and will almost undoubtedly be a big favorite in today's race. Rispoli has never won a Triple Crown race. It would be a surprise if this horse doesn't hit the board.

#3, American Promise (15-1), Nik Suarez (jockey), D. Wayne Lukas (trainer) -- Got off to a good start at the Derby two weeks ago but faded badly in the final half mile. Don't expect much from him today.

#4, Heart of Honor (12-1), Saffie Osborne (jockey), Jamie Osborne (trainer) -- A true international competitor, this horse was trained in London, sold in France and did most of his best racing in Dubai. None of that will help him today.

#5, Pay Billy (20-1), Raul Mena (jockey), Michael Gorham (trainer) -- Won the Tesio at Pimlico on April 19 to earn his spot in today's race. That tells you all you need to know about his (minimal) chances today.

#6, River Thames (9-2), Irad Ortiz (jockey), Todd Pletcher (trainer) -- Almost beat Derby winner Sovereignty at the Fountain of Youth stakes. Pletcher's never won the Preakness. That might change today.

#7, Sandman (4-1), John Velazquez (jockey), Mark Casse (trainer) -- Didn't have a great trip at the Derby but now he gets Velazquez in the irons and things might be different today.

#8, Clever Again (5-1), Jose Ortiz (jockey), Steve Asmussen (trainer) -- Has 2 wins and a second in 3 career races but this is a big step up for him today. Getting a lot of push this week with impressive morning workouts.

#9, Gosger (20-1), Luis Saez (jockey), Brendan Walsh (trainer) -- Has only made $292,000 in his career. One win and two seconds are all he's done. Saez is good. The horse, though, doesn't appear to be.

What to expect: The track should be fine despite the crazy storms in Baltimore last night. Expect American Promise to jump out quickly and look the part, wth Heart of Honor and Goal Oriented keeping pace early.

Rispoli will settle Journalism in nicely and Velazquez will do the same with Sandman.

American Promise will stay in front at the quarter-pole, eventually stretching his lead to 3 lengths, with River Thames making a move under Irad Ortiz and Clever Again passing horses as well to cause a stir.

Meanwhile, Journalism and Sandman both start to push along the backstretch and American Promise starts to tire, as Clever Again bolts to the lead and River Thames stays interested.

Journalism and Sandman both make their move and Clever Again is the first one to blink, as he loses the lead and River Thames noses in front as they approach the final quarter-mile of the race. Those three are locked in a ferocious duel as they head for home, with a nose separating the trio and the rest of the field watching in awe.

In the last 100 yards, Velazquez squeezes the most he can out of Sandman, and he nips Journalism by a half-length with River Thames finishing third and Goal Oriented coming in fourth.

1st, Sandman

2nd, Journalism

3rd, River Thames

4th, Goal Oriented

5th, Gosger

6th, Clever Again

7th, American Promise

8th, Heart of Honor

9th, Pay Billy

The leaderboard is still filled with a handful of "who are they?" names, but by the time the dust settles at Quail Hollow GC today, there will likely be an impending Sunday duel for the PGA Championship between Scottie Scheffler (-5) and Bryson DeChambeau (-3).

The two have some work to do in this afternoon's round 3 of the tournament, but everything's setting up for a Sunday showdown between that pair of Americans.

Scheffler has won two Masters, but is still looking for his first major win outside of the state of Georgia. DeChambeau has two U.S. Open titles. A victory by either of them this weekend would get them to the halfway point of the career grand slam.

There are others playing well, though. Jhonattan Vegas was cruising along at 10-under but missed a shortie at his finishing hole to end the day with a sickening double bogey and an 8-under total through 36 holes.

Despite that missed three footer at the 18th hole, Vegas has a two shot lead on Matt Fitzpatrick, Si Woo Kim and Matthieu Pavon of France.

All three of those pursuers have championship pedigrees of some kind. Fitzpatrick won the 2022 U.S. Open at Brookline, Si Woo Kim is a former Players champion and Pavon acquitted himself very well in last June's U.S. Open before eventually losing out to Bryson and Rory at Pinehurst.

But all eyes today will be on Scheffler and Bryson.

They're the two best American players in the game today -- sorry, Xander -- and the golf course is pretty much built for both of them. DeChambeau has the advantage with the driver and Scheffler has the advantage with the irons.

"It's a putter's game", they say in golf, and their work with the flatstick over the final 36 holes will determine where they finish on Sunday.

The guy most people thought would be there, Rory McIlroy, had himself in great position at 1-under par with two holes to play, but he finished bogey-bogey to post a +1 total for 36 holes and make the cut on the number.

McIlroy's week has been uneven both on and off the course. SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio was first to report on Friday that his driver was tested earlier in the week and deemed not fit to play under USGA regulations.

The 2-time PGA Champion had to find a new driver to put in play and, for the second straight day, the recent Masters winner and latest member of the career Grand Slam club declined to speak to the media.

Defending champion Xander Schauffele had to battle with a balky swing and sweat out a few close range putts just to make the cut and extend his streak to 64, the longest on the PGA Tour since Tiger Woods set the record at 142 consecutuve cuts made 20 years ago.

The Orioles left 15 runners on base last night. Fifteen. They had a runner on first with no outs in the 9th inning and couldn't even get him to second base.

Final from Camden Yards: Nationals 4 - Orioles 3.

If you're counting at home, that's four straight losses for 'dem Birds, all four of which have come in Bawlmer In total, the O's have now lost 8 of their last 10 games.

Brandon Hyde's team wasted a decent enough outing by Cade Povich last night. The southpaw went 5.2 innings and allowed just 3 hits and 2 earned runs.

Felix Bautista got the loss, allowing a run in the top of the 9th.

At one point last night, the O's led the game 2-1 and they had 11 hits and the Nationals had just 3.

The Nats won the game with 4 runs on just five hits.

If you wanna just go ahead and say "Orioles gonna Orioles", that's fine at this point.

They lose when they only generate 4 hits and they lose when they generate 14 hits.

Cedric Mullins looked at the strike three of all strike threes in the 9th inning last night and Jackson Holliday was thrown out trying to steal second.

The Birds had a runner on first with no one out and in the blink of an eye, they had no one on and there were 2 outs.

Orioles........gonna Orioles.

I don't think they're going to lose the next two but I'm sticking with my "hot take" from Friday. If the O's get swept by D.C., they're going to part company with Brandon Hyde on Sunday or Monday.

I noticed some blathering in the Comments section about some on-stage pontificating from Bruce Springsteen while he's playing his music in England.

I saw the President reacting to something Springsteen said on social media yesterday. I don't follow it enough on a day-to-day basis to know who started the fight between them or what the history is between them.

I thought (I could be wrong here) that President Trump previously used some Springsteen music during his campaign run back in 2016, but there's also a fairly good chance that the President didn't have permission to use the music or legal rights to it.

Anyway, here's the answer some of you were looking for, I guess.

I couldn't care less what musicians say about politicians and vice versa. What President Trump thinks about Bruce Springsteen, Taylor Swift or anyone else he's criticized doesn't matter to me at all.

If Bruce wants to waste 5 minutes of his time talking to people in England who couldn't care less about the good and bad of our country, so be it.

And if the President wants to waste 5 minutes of his time posting drivel on the internet with spelling and grammar mistakes that would make a 7th grader laugh, so be it.

It's a free country. Or, at least, it was once upon a time before everyone started getting all jittery about it.

I turn to Springsteen for music. I don't need to hear him bellyache on stage about the President the same way I don't need to hear Eddie Vedder stand up there and whine about the government.

And I don't need to hear the President crying because some musician or celebrity roasted him.

You're the President of the United States. You're the #1 public figure in the country, perhaps even in the world. You're going to get hammered in the media and on the internet. Get over it.

So, Springsteen and the President can carry on with their feud. I couldn't care less, personally.

Just play "Thunder Road" for me.

And get the price of eggs down for me.

That's what the two of you are supposed to do.

Friday May 16, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3916

relatively painless

Well, since I'm a silver-lining kind of guy, I'll paint a rosy picture of last night's 3-1 Caps loss to Carolina that ended their Eastern Conference semifinal series.

At least it didn't go to overtime.

Or, even worse, double overtime.

If you're gonna lose, just get it over with in regulation, do the handshake, and move on.

In the end, Game 5 was relatively painless.

The Caps did what they almost always do in the post-season. They figured out a way to lose.

It wasn't like they were thoroughly embarrassed by the Hurricanes in the 5-game drubbing. But they were thoroughly outplayed.

Even last night's Game 5, probably Washington's most "complete" game of the series, still provided the 'Canes with a split-decision victory, to use a boxing analogy.

The Caps fell victim to the same general "theme" they always seem to encounter in the post-season. They needed a hero or two in the Carolina series and it didn't happen.

Ovechkin looked 49 instead of 39. I think he might have scored a goal in the series somewhere along the way, but he looked like a car being driven with the low tire pressure light on. He was in a hurry to go nowhere.

John Carlson's tires weren't low. They were flat. He did bounce back with a reputable effort last night, but a hero he was not in the other four games.

Tom Wilson had an empty net goal in Game 2, which I guess is memorable for him. But unlike the Canadiens, the Hurricanes didn't fall for his goon tactics in the series. The Caps needed him to be Wilson the goal-scorer and he couldn't deliver.

The entire Caps offense was, well, lousy. They scored a grand total of six "real" goals in five games. They didn't score more than two "real" goals in any one game. You're not winning like that.

And despite at times playing outstanding in goal, Logan Thompson wasn't up to the task of carrying the Caps on his shoulders the way Braden Holtby did once upon a time back in 2018. Last night's game featured some sensational Thompson play but, sadly, the two goals he allowed were both super-soft.

The Caps needed a hero or two in the series and, just like (almost) always, no one in red, white and blue stepped up.

Some people bristle at the notion of "Caps gonna Caps", but unless you're living in some sort of weird fantasy land where you opt to ignore facts, the Capitals always figure out a way to help usher themselves out of the playoffs. This year, they couldn't score a goal.

Last year, they gave up 15 goals in 4 games against the Rangers.

It's always something.

Oh, sure, Carolina's good. There's no denying that. They have a pedigree of sorts that connects well with post-season hockey. They're tough, opportunistic and, if you give them an inch, they'll take a yard. And then they'll beat you.

But the Caps are nothing if not the same old, same old, year after year after year.

I wouldn't call it "heartless". That term would be far too harsh. But they certainly didn't have the look of a team that was willing to do anything and everything to dispose of the Hurricanes and move on to their conference final.

Playoff futility is in the Capitals' DNA. It just is.

Yes, they somehow finagled their way to the 2017-2018 Stanley Cup title, which proves, more than anything, that God is, indeed, great. There can't be any other explanation for that outlier of a championship win seven years ago, right?

Other than 2018, "playoff futility" and "Capitals" go together like Lenny and Squiqqy. In other words, you almost never see them apart from one another.

Because it's the normal thing to do, every Caps playoff series is met with the same sort of promise: "Maybe this will be the year (again) when we put it all together."

Alas, you think that and you say that and you write that, but you know, in your heart, it's almost inevitably not going to come true. The Caps are always going to lose.

If you go see Kansas at the state fair, they're always going to play "Carry On My Wayward Son". I mean, that's the only Kansas song 75% of the people at the fair even know.

And if you're a fan of the Capitals, you know they're always going to lose in the post-season. Heck, even if you're not a fan of the Capitals, you're know they're going to lose in the playoffs.

It is......what it is.

You knew it was coming.

And it was mostly pain-free.

Out with a whimper. Like (almost) always.

Because we don't want to be accused of ignoring the Orioles, we'll dedicate a minute of your life to yesterday's 4-0 loss to the Twins that finished off a 3-game sweep for the visitors.

Even Sugano starting for the Birds wasn't enough to turn the tide.

I don't think the Orioles are going to lose 3 straight to the Nationals this weekend, but here's a hotter-than-hot-take: If the O's get swept this weekend, Brandon Hyde gets fired on Sunday night.

Or Monday morning.

But that's the result you'd see from a 3-game sweep in Baltimore this weekend. Hyde would be gone.

There's no other possible solution for Mike Elias at that point. They'd be 15-30 if they lose all three. You can't just let the season blow along with the breeze, not as two-time playoff participants and a roster loaded with young talent.

Alas, I don't see them going 0-for-3 this weekend vs. Washington. They'll win a game or two and we'll still be treading water out in Milwaukee on Monday.

Oh, and don't look now, but one of Elias's prized off-season pick-ups, Tyler O'Neill, is hitting a robust .188 thus far in 2025.

The PGA Championship leaderboard looks just like you figured it would, with no one you expected to be there making up most of the Top 15 after round one.

I mean, the guy leading the event at 7-under doesn't even know how to spell "Jonathan" the right way. That's how weird day one was on Thursday.

PGA Tour veteran Jhonattan Vegas rattled off three late birdies to post an opening round 64 and lead the year's second major by two shots over Cam Davis and Ryan Gerard.

I know what you're thinking.

"Who?"

As I wrote here during my daily previews leading up to the PGA, it's a tournament that has long been filled with surprising and, ultimately, forgettable champions. I don't see Vegas holding on and winning this event, but if he somehow did, it would be as shocking as any of the other stories authored by guys like Beem, Micheel and Yang, just to name three.

Vegas has never finished in the top 20 in a major and hadn't qualified for this one in three years. If patriotism tugs at your heart, he is the first player representing Venezuela to hold a lead or co-lead after any round at a major. Like, ever.

Some of the expected contenders were decent. Some were just OK. And others were lousy.

Scottie Scheffler made an eagle, a double bogey and then waxed poetically about "mud balls" in his post-golf press conference on Thursday. His 2-under round of 69 puts him in a nice spot heading into day two.

Collin Morikawa and Ludvig Aberg both shot 1-under 70 on Thursday. Morikawa is looking to get back in the winner's circle for the first time in what feels like forever and Aberg is trying to become what everyone assumes he's going to be multiple-times-over in his career; a major champion. This could be his week at Quail Hollow.

Bryson DeChambeau bogeyed his final hole to come in at even par 70.

Defending champion Xander Schauffele posted +1 and Justin Thomas, who won the PGA the last time it was held at Quail Hollow, came in at +73.

You're still waiting for Rory's name to be mentioned?

Rory McIlroy, +3, 74.

There you go.

The "king of Quail", with four wins under his belt at the Charlotte, NC course didn't have his best stuff on Thursday. He'll likely need something in the 60's to make the cut today.

There's tons of golf left and you just know some of the sport's big names will surface on the leaderboard by the time Saturday afteroon rolls around.

But it's a tournament where a Vegas or Stephen Jaeger or Cam Davis always seems to lurk, looking for their shot at once-in-a-career glory.

faith in sports

This video, today, is one I always recommend to high school athletes that I'm around within FCA circles at Calvert Hall.

It's an amazing 3 minutes and 40 seconds with former NFL quarterback Sam Bradford.

If you're an athlete or the parent of an athlete, this is great and meaningful testimony from Bradford. It's "must watch" stuff.

Thanks, as always, to our friends at Freestate Electrical for their continued support of #DMD and for their weekly support of "Faith in Sports" here every Friday.

Thursday May 15, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3915

thursday stuff

There's something about getting swept at home in a doubleheader that's way more aggravating than simply losing on Tuesday night and Wednesday night.

At least that's the way I've always felt.

I'm sure this data can be found on the internet somewhere, but I'd love to know what the all-time doubleheader record is in Major League Baseball. It feels like there are far more splits than sweeps.

And, for sure, there are far fewer road sweeps than home sweeps in doubleheaders.

Right?

Losing two on the same day is bad enough. But to lose both of them on the same day at home? Almost unthinkable.

Now at 15-26 after yesterday's fiasco, the O's are clinching closer to that mythical barrier I referenced here 10 days ago or so; namely, not reaching 20 wins before they reach 30 losses.

They have to go 5-3 to avoid that distinction. I'm just spitballing here, but this O's team doesn't look like they can reel off 5 wins in 8 games. Not now, anyway.

The good news is they do get Sugano and Eflin pitching for them before the weekend's up, so that "feels" like the O's might snag 2 of those 5 wins.

I know Mike Elias went on the radio a week or so ago and offered unwavering support for Brandon Hyde, but if this doesn't get any better soon, Elias is going to have to go back on his word.

I mean, if the O's are 18-32 at the 50-game mark, what message does it send the team if you keep him around?

We'll repeat this again so it's clear: The team's current mark of 15-26 and, if it were to happen, a record of 18-32 is not necessarily the fault of the manager. He's playing the cards he was dealt by Elias and the injury bug. But if you don't fire him, it basically tells the team you're not willing to take a chance on rebooting the season.

Maybe Elias shouldn't have gone on the radio and pledged job security for the manager.

That said, had he not done that, the next day's headlines would have read: "Elias refuses to offer full support to Hyde"

So, either way, Elias is in trouble.

There's also that deadline deal with the Marlins last summer that has been as successful as someone trying to sell a lawn seat to see the Beatles at Merriweather Post Pavilion. It would be one thing if Trevor Rogers was at least pitching for the Orioles. But when he hasn't done jack-squat and Norby and Stowers are regulars and handling their business well in Miami...well...it ain't a good look for the GM.

Deadline deals aren't the barometer by which a GM gets entirely judged, of course, but that one was a whopper of a swing and miss. It's not that the two kids in Miami are playing well -- there wasn't all that much room for them in Baltimore at the point of the trade -- it's that the O's gave away two decent prospects and got wash cloths and laundry detergent in return.

So, while Hyde is the one getting roasted around town and on the web, it's worth pointing out that the GM, while having done an awesome job in the initial rebuild of the entire baseball ops department, has made a bunch of bogeys over the last 12 months and is now in danger of not making the cut.

Elias got a lot of the credit when the team went from moribund to respectable and, thus, needs to get some of the heat during this downturn that actually commenced after last season's All-Star break.

It's only fair.

The only way out of this jam is for the team to suddenly start playing solid baseball. A nice 7-3 or 14-6 run over the next 10 and 20 game stretch would go a long way in silencing the howling wolves.

But failing that, Elias is going to either have to make a managerial move or essentially admit this season is a wash.

The Ravens schedule was released on Wednesday and there are some interesting nuances to it.

John Harbaugh's team gets a nice break by going to Buffalo in September instead of, say, November or December. If you're going to play the Bills up there, make the trip north when you can still wear short sleeves. That was a schedule gift from the gods.

Seven of the team's nine home games are at 1 pm. That, I'm sure, pleased the head coach, who has disdain for any game that doesn't kick off at 1 pm.

The Ravens will play at home on Thanksgiving night and also avoided a 3rd straight Christmas Day game. Thank you, again, scheduling gods.

The only small concern? The season ends with road games at Green Bay and at Pittsburgh. I can't imagine the Steelers are going to be any good, so perhaps that one isn't a big deal. But the trip to Lambeau Field in late December? Yikes.

A quick glance at the schedule and the rotation of games tells me the Ravens are headed to another 12-5 (worst) or 13-4 (best) campaign.

They'll lose at least one of the two at Buffalo or K.C.

They'll lose one or two in the division.

And someone else will beat them along the way. One of the NFC Central teams, probably.

Barring something crazy happening, though, the Ravens are winning the division again.

So, now, yes, the Caps are in a "must-win" position tonight when they host Carolina in Game 5 at home. A Washington loss and it's off to the golf course. A win and the teams head back to Raleigh for Game 6 on Saturday night.

Much has been made in parts around town -- both here and elsewhere -- about the Capitals and the seemingly annual post-season dump they always seem to take at the worst time.

I tend to look at each season differently.

Last year, they were fortunate just to make the post-season. The 4-game sweep at the hands of the Rangers wasn't a surprise in the least.

This year, after a terrific regular season, I expected more than one-and-done.

The Caps, of course, are prone to this sort of thing. Just because they have a great regular season and finish with the most points in the entire conference doesn't necessarily mean they're going to do great stuff in the playoffs.

I like the "general" make-up of Washington's roster, but I've never been overly comfortable with their two goaltenders, both of whom are essentially 2 handicap type performers. In other words, they're each very good based mainly on the fact they're one of 60-some NHL goalies, but no one is confusing Thompson or Lindgren with Ken Dryden, that's for sure.

Defensively, the Caps are decent.

They're also able to hold their own offensively as well.

But neither of those units are "best in class", either.

In this series against Carolina, it's been more about the lack of offense than anything else. They've played 4 games thus far and the most goals D.C. has in 60 minutes is three. And one of those three was an empty-net tally.

The tongue-in-cheek thing to say around here is "Caps gonna Caps". Well, if the shoe fits and all...

Unless something dramatic happens, the Capitals are once again going to fall woefully short in their quest for a second Stanley Cup title.

Look at the bright side, though. The hockey fans in Philly haven't seen the Stanley Cup get lifted since 1975. Flyers gonna Flyers, right?

	"Jack Herb's Hot Corner" #DMD's weekly look at Major League Baseball
Jack Herb chimes in weekly here at #DMD with his insight on what's going on in baseball outside of Baltimore, with predictions, analysis and "Game of the Week" previews.

Another great week of baseball is now behind us, and there’s an interesting story developing with the Boston Red Sox and DH Rafael Devers.

During the off-season, the Red Sox acquired gold glove 3rd baseman, Alex Bregman, who has played 3rd base for the Red Sox all season. Devers, who played 3rd base for the Red Sox in recent years, struggled with the idea of not playing in the field every day and was eventually told by the club in Spring Training this year to “put his glove away”, according to Devers.

Red Sox 1st baseman, Triston Casas, suffered a season ending injury and the Red Sox are now asking Devers to play 1st base to fill in for Casas. This is where Devers becomes a little sour about all of this.

Usually, you would expect a player to say in this situation, “I’ll play anywhere I’m needed coach”, but Devers is refusing to play 1st base. He told reporters that he doesn’t feel that it’s appropriate for management to ask him to play another position after telling him to put his glove away back in the Spring.

He also pointed out that the Red Sox GM is a former player and should know that changing positions is not easy. Last weekend, the Red Sox owner and GM flew to Kansas City to visit Devers and speak with him in person, and it appears conversations are still ongoing about the issue of him playing 1st base.

I can see both sides of this situation, but it seems like Devers getting moved from 3rd to DH in the Spring is the underlying issue and he hasn’t gotten over it. He’s right about learning a new position and the challenges that come with it. To be clear, he “practiced” DH in the Spring. He didn’t learn how to play 2nd base or shortstop and is now being told to play 1st. That’s a completely different scenario.

We’ve seen players move from 3rd base to 1st base (like Vladimir Guerrero Jr.) and vice versa in baseball and there’s absolutely a learning curve to become comfortable at each position, but players switch to opposite corners of the infield somewhat often as we’ve seen before.

It’s easy to see why Devers is upset with all this. He lost the 3rd base job to a new player on the team who is a much better defender than Devers and who was brought to Boston with the sole purpose of playing 3rd base.

Devers is acting a little selfish about all of this in my opinion and probably just wants to play 3rd base again. I don’t see Devers coming around on this idea.

To me, when you act like this, you’re telling the club that you care more about the name on the back of the jersey than the name on the front. You don’t win championships with that mentality.

As of now, the Red Sox are using a platoon approach to cover 1st base. Maybe Devers will prove me wrong and come around to play 1st, but at some point he needs to do what’s best for the team.

The Rockies made big news last weekend when they fired manager Bud Black after a rare 9-3 win against the Padres on Sunday.

I’m not sure what Bud Black could have done with his roster to make it better, but the manager is not the main issue for the Rockies. I was glad to see the players stick up for him when asked about it and most of the players told reporters that it wasn’t his fault, and that they haven’t played to their full capabilities this year.

Even the GM of the Rockies supported Black and said that the blame is not all on him. The Rockies owner, Dick Monfort, said that their play this season has been unacceptable and not fair to fans. He did point out that everyone shares responsibility and said that these changes are necessary.

I just don’t get what the club expected from the team this season. The Rockies were not expected to compete this year, and they have more than lived up to that expectation. I’m not sure what you do to rebuild, especially with the new draft rules implemented a few seasons ago.

They also don’t have many attractive trade pieces to give away for prospects at the trade deadline. I was curious about the Rockies payroll is compared to other teams. They have the 24th lowest payroll.

Teams like the Nationals, Guardians, Athletics, and Rays are behind Colorado in terms of salaries but have much stronger clubs than the Rockies. They also have the 18th ranked farm system in baseball according to mlb.com.

So, with that information, perhaps this is a general manager issue for the Rockies, who haven’t drafted well or acquired free agents to produce for the club. I do feel bad for Bud Black, but maybe there’s a sigh of relief from him in a way that he doesn’t have to watch this team lose almost every night.

In other news around the league, the Minnesota Twins are red hot right now and have a nice 10 game win streak after yesterday’s double header sweep of the Orioles.

Their starting pitching has been excellent during this win streak and their bats are beginning to wake up, with Byron Buxton and Harrison Bader leading the charge. Just like that, the Twins are back in the AL Central conversation, which is going to be one of the toughest divisions to win in baseball.

The Toronto Blue Jays had a nice weekend where they traveled to the Pacific Northwest and swept the Seattle Mariners, who had won 9 straight series dating back to April 7th. This was a huge series for the Blue Jays, who have been playing .500 ball so far this season.

Expectations are high in Toronto, especially given they have the 4th highest payroll in the MLB. This feels like a playoff or bust type of season for the Jays. Earning a playoff spot will be challenging, with how the Yankees and Red Sox have looked, as well as how many solid teams are in the AL Central that will be in contention for wildcard spots.

Kyle Schwarber of the Philadelphia Phillies had a 47 game on base streak snapped on Wednesday afternoon. This was fun to watch this season, and Schwarber appears to be entering his prime at 32 years old. He’s not only reaching base safely consistently but also hitting with power as he is tied with Aaron Judge for most home runs in baseball.

The Phillies franchise record is 54 consecutive games reaching base safely held by Mike Schmidt, who achieved this from August 8th, 1981, to May 8th,1982. For those curious, the MLB record for consecutive games of reaching base safely is held by the great Ted Williams at 84, which he achieved in 1949.

Players of the Week --

Pitcher: This was a hard choice to make given that so many starting pitchers had great outings this past week. It seemed like everyone was throwing 7 scoreless innings with 8+ strikeouts over the weekend.

So, to decide who to pick as the Hot Corner’s pitcher of the week, I thought I’d go with which guy I would want on my team if I had the choice.

I’ll go with the reigning AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal, who has continued to be one of the game’s best pitchers. He pitched last Friday against the Rangers and went 7 innings giving up 1 run and punched out 12 batters while recording the win as the Tigers defeated Texas 2-1.

That lowers his ERA to 2.08 for the season with 60 strikeouts in 47.2 innings pitched. That’s impressive stuff from the reigning AL Cy Young winner, who could very well win the award again in 2025.

Field Player: Freddie Freeman had a very nice week at the plate and has been one of the most consistent players in baseball. This past week, he batted .455 with 1 homer and 8 RBI while also scoring 5 times. At age 35, he’s off to his best start through 30 games in his career.

So far this year, Freeman is batting .376 compared to his previous 30 game high of .336 back in 2017. The Dodgers rely a lot on Freddie Freeman, not only for his play, but for his leadership in the clubhouse.

Freddie has always played the game the right way. It never seems like he takes himself too seriously, and you can tell by watching him that he truly enjoys being out there each night.

Rookie: Jasson Dominguez, AKA “The Martian”, had his best week so far in his early Yankees career.

Highlighted by his 3 homer, 7 RBI day against the Athletics, he batted .389 this past week while also scoring 8 times. The Yankees have been hit with the injury bug this season but are still playing exceptionally well. They’re going to need Dominguez to continue producing the way he has while they wait for reinforcements, Judge can’t do it by himself.

Games of the Week --

We’re going to see a lot of great matchups this weekend highlighted by the MLB rolling out it’s first ever “Rivalry Weekend”, which will have 11 interleague series and 4 non-interleague series. There’s going to be some great games to watch over the weekend. Let’s dive into some of the key matchups for the weekend slate.

Friday, May 16th - New York Mets vs New York Yankees (Tylor Megill vs Carlos Rodon)

Juan Soto will be making his long-awaited return to the Bronx and will surely be greeted with a heavy dose of boos from Yankee fans as they share what they think about Soto signing with their crosstown rival this winter.

On top of that, these are two of the best teams in baseball. I’m excited to see Soto’s first at bat and hear the crowd erupt and hopefully be silenced when Soto puts one into the Yankee Stadium bleachers.

Saturday, May 17th - LA Angels vs LA Dodgers (Tyler Anderson vs Clayton Kershaw)

Another rivalry series where Shohei Ohtani will get to face the Angels for the 2nd time since signing with the Dodgers. But, honestly, I don’t think there’s much animosity from Angels fans towards Ohtani.

In my opinion, it’s similar to how Orioles fans feel towards Manny Machado, who is always welcomed with cheers from the fans when he comes to Baltimore.

The main story for this game is Clayton Kershaw making his season debut after landing on the injured list to start the season. Kershaw has struggled to stay healthy in recent years, but he is a first ballot Hall of Fame selection. It will be great to see him back on the bump for the Dodgers and seeing that signature leg kick which has crossed up batters for over a decade.

Sunday, May 18th - Houston Astros vs Texas Rangers (Ryan Gusto vs Jack Leiter)

Known as “The Silver Boot Series”, these division rivals will head into Sunday in a likely rubber match hoping to inch closer to the Mariners who lead the AL West. The Astros and Rangers are both playing .500 ball this season, as the Rangers have struggled on offense while the Astros have been hot and cold this season and lack consistency.

Wednesday May 14, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3914

"they just can't go in the hall of fame"

Major League Baseball made an important, but not surprising, decision on Tuesday when they removed Pete Rose and "Shoeless" Joe Jackson from the permanently ineligible list.

It turns out "permanently" ineligible doesn't actually mean "permanent" after all.

The decision, rendered by commissioner Rob Manfred, makes Rose and Jackson now eligible for posthumous selection and induction into the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

"Obviously, a person no longer with us cannot represent a threat to the integrity of the game," Manfred wrote in a letter to an attorney representing the estate of Pete Rose. "Moreover, it is hard to conceive of a penalty that has more deterrent effect than one that lasts a lifetime with no reprieve."

""Therefore," Manfred continued, "I have concluded that permanent ineligibility ends upon the passing of the disciplined individual, and Mr. Rose will be removed from the permanently ineligible list."

In the early 2000s, then-commissioner Bud Selig offered Rose a reinstatement opportunity, but with conditions, including an admission that he bet on baseball and a requirement that he stop gambling and making casino appearances.

Rose declined.

But in January 2004, Rose admitted in his book "My Prison Without Bars" that he had gambled on baseball as the Reds manager. But he insisted he bet only on his team to win. In 2015, ESPN reported that a notebook seized from a Rose associate showed Rose had also wagered on baseball while still a player, something he would not acknowledge.

Along with Rose, "Shoeless" Joe Jackson also saw his permanent ban from baseball activities lifted yesterday. Jackson was a key figure in the 1919 fix of the World Series and was permanently banned by Major League Baseball in 1921.

Jackson had a career batting average of .356, the fourth highest in MLB history.

After his death, Jackson's fans, including state legislators in South Carolina, launched several petition-writing campaigns arguing that Jackson deserved a plaque in baseball's Hall of Fame. Despite admitting to accepting $5,000 in cash to help throw the 1919 World Series, Jackson batted .375, didn't make an error and hit the series' only home run.

Here's the reality with regard to Tuesday's news.

As long as both Rose and Jackson remain out of the Hall of Fame, there's no damage done, really.

But if, somehow, one or both of them someday get voted into Cooperstown, then you should just go ahead and close the doors of the place.

Pete Rose bet on baseball games in which he was a participant.

Joe Jackson agreed to accept money in exchange for helping to alter the outcome of World Series games in which he participated.

There is nothing in sports worse than discovering that the game isn't on the up-and-up.

It's everyone's greatest disappointment when they find out that Hulk Hogan knew before the match he wasn't beating Bob Backlund that night.

And it's everyone's greatest disappointment when you find out the manager of your favorite team has wagered on the outcome of the game or the player on your favorite team has accepted an offer to not give his very best in the game in exchange for helping your favorite team lose said game.

Nothing is worse.

Rose and Shoeless Joe turned baseball into a professional wrestling match.

In other words, it wasn't on the up and up.

Reinstating them is nothing more than a kind move to give families some closure and allow the sport of baseball to move on from an awful set of stories.

Rose was a great player. So was "Shoeless" Joe.

We can forgive them for their mistakes.

They just can't go in the Hall of Fame.

#dmd q & a

D.R. asks -- "Three quick questions for you to answer, please. 1) How many more years will Ovechkin play now that he has the record? 2) What's your guess on how many majors Rory wins before his career concludes? 3) Will any Oriole hit 30 home runs this season?"

DF says -- "I think Ovi will come back and play next season. That will be it, though. I can't see him not having a one-year "retirement tour". At this point it doesn't really matter how many goals he scores, but I'm sure he'd like to get his final total somewhere in the 925 range.

Rory will win 8, at least. I think that's a very good number for him. It would give him two more than Faldo and three more than Seve. It would also give him one more than Arnold Palmer and Sam Snead. He has 5 now. Chipping away and getting 3 more in the next 10 years isn't all that difficult to fathom. He's 35. Rory still has 10 great years in front of him, at a minimum.

I don't know, 30 seems pretty ambitious at this point. We're a quarter into the season and no one on the team has 8. Mullins and O'Hearn both have 7. I don't see either of them getting to 30.

Henderson has 5. He's the one guy I could see sniffing 30 if he doesn't get hurt and plays the whole season.

If you pressed me for an answer I'd be willing to wager on, I'll say Henderson winds up leading the team in homers with......29."

Reece asks -- "I'm a beginning golfer who currently shoots around 120 when I play. Someone I played with at Greystone said I would get 20 yards more on my tee shot by changing to a Titelist golf ball. Before I make the splurge I wanted to ask you if that's true or not?"

DF says -- "Does your friend work for Titleist? That's the only reason he/she would tell you that. There's no golf ball on the market that will give any player 20 more yards off the tee, let alone a 30-36 handicap player.

Are there golf balls that give you an extra 5 yards or thereabouts? Yes, perhaps. But even those golf balls require someone with swing speeds of 110 mph or more in order to take advantage of the construction properties that make the ball go farther.

At this stage of your golf development, stick with the Pinnacle, Top Flite or Maxfli ball and spend the money you save on lessons with your PGA professional. You'll get 20 more yards with two or three lessons."

Glen asks -- "The Ravens have everyone but Tucker back, DHop at wide receiver, Starks the #1 pick at safety. How can they possibly not go to the Super Bowl this coming season? I they're an easy bet to win the AFC don't you?"

DF says -- "It does seem like everything is set up in their favor in 2025. I almost forgot they signed Hopkins! There's obviously an easy way they wind up not winning the AFC title. I don't even want to say it. So I won't. But it involves a certain player on the team getting hurt.

On the surface, though, -- if their key guys stay healthy -- it sure does seem like they should win the AFC this year. I agree with that."

	NOTES & COMMENT George McDowell
George McDowell is #DMD's foreign correspondent. His international reports are filed from a hardened outpost just across the U.S. / North Carolina border. He writes on sports topics that interest him that he feels might also interest some segment of the wildly esoteric #DMD readership. George has been a big fan of DF and his various enterprises since the last century, and for several seasons appeared as a weekly guest on his Monday evening radio show, Maryland Golf Live, delivering commentary as The Eccentric Starter. George also donates his time and talents to the less fortunate, and currently volunteers as secretary of the Rickie Fowler Fan Club.

meritocracy or oligarchy ?

We define our terms:

Meritocracy \ n \ : a system, organization, or society in which people are chosen and moved into positions of success, power, and influence on the basis of their demonstrated abilities and merit

Oligarchy \ n \ 1 : government by the few 2 : a government in which a small group exercises control esp. for corrupt and selfish purposes 3 : an organization under oligarchic control

The PGA Tour presents eight Signature Events in the 2025 season. These events offer of purses of $20 million (up from the regular event purse of about $9 million) and significantly more FedEx Cup points than regular events, including 700 to the winner (up from 500 in regular events).

These events are elite events, designed to reward the Tour players who have been playing better than their peers. The events are limited to 72 players. In five of the eight events there is no cut. All players get paid well, and all earn FedEx Cup points.

There is a caveat to the proviso that the events are for golfers playing better than their peers. Sponsors of the events are authorized to award four exemptions in each event to players of their choice – the only restriction being that the exempted players must be PGA Tour members.

The PGA Tour Policy Board constitutes a Players Advisory Council, composed of PGA Tour members. The PAC advises and consults with the PGA TOUR Policy Board (Board of Directors) and Commissioner Jay Monahan on issues affecting the TOUR.

To advance directly to the point, these three golfers are members of the 2025 advisory council: Gary Woodland, Rickie Fowler, and Keith Mitchell. In 2024, Jordan Spieth was the chairperson of the Players Advisory Council, and was also chairperson in 2019 for a three-year term ending in 2022.

In 2025 to May 12th, there have been six Signature Events. The first, the Sentry in Hawaii in January, awarded no sponsors exemptions. The committee that awarded exemptions to the Arnold Palmer Invitational declined to award sponsors exemptions to the usual suspects, and instead gave exemptions to Justin Rose, Mckenzie Hughes, Rafael Campos, and Min Woo Lee.

In response to this "snub," and after a T69 at Pebble Beach and missing the cut at the Genesis this year, Jordan Spieth said, "I needed to play better injured golf last year, I guess."

If the comment sounds like Spieth feels entitled to an exemption whenever he wants one, let's see what the reality is. Of the other four completed 2025 Signature Events, there have been 16 sponsors exemptions awarded. Fourteen exemptions have gone to current and former Advisory Board members Spieth (4), Fowler (4), Woodland (4), and Mitchell (2). The remaining two exemptions went to Justin Rose and McKenzie Hughes.

As my dad used to say, "That's not a pattern, that's a conspiracy."

I haven't calculated the amount of free money these four Advisory Board members have been given but did compile a chart showing the much more valuable thing they have been gifted: FedEx Cup points. These points determine entry into the season-ending playoff events and ultimately the Tour Championship. They also determine full Tour membership for the next year. And, as apparently no one in power has yet figured out a way to get around the numbers and award exemptions into the playoffs and next year's Tour membership, that makes the points all the more valuable.

Here's a chart showing the free FedEx Cup points these players have been given so far this year. Note that the right column shows where each player would be ranked in the FedEx Cup both with and without the free points. (Click or tap the chart to expand it.)

Prior to the Truist, these four players had the opportunity to qualify for it with their clubs in the previous week's CJ Cup Byron Nelson. Only Jordan Spieth availed himself of the opportunity. (He didn't qualify, and then accepted the Truist exemption.) Mitchell entered the CJ Cup but then withdrew when notified he had gotten the exemption. Fowler and Woodland, presumably informed that they would be given Truist exemptions, didn't bother to enter the CJ Cup.

It's interesting to watch the PGA Tour's nurturing of Rickie Fowler. He burst onto the Tour scene with great fanfare in 2010. He had a stellar amateur career, stylish long hair and flashy wardrobe, a winning smile, and an uncanny ability to work sponsors and their clients.

Even without a Tour victory, he was picked for the 2010 Ryder Cup team by captain Corey Pavin, who went down the qualification list and bypassed Tour winners Anthony Kim, (2009 U. S. Open champion) Lucas Glover, Bo van Pelt, Ben Crane, Ricky Barnes, Nick Watney, Sean O'Hair, and J. B. Holmes. Rickie didn't win any Ryder Cup matches. He lost two and halved one, as the U. S. team went down to defeat.

Rickie outright qualified for the Ryder Cup team twice, in 2014 and in 2018. The U. S. team lost both years, and also lost two out of the three years that Rickie was a captain's pick. Some – this writer included – believe that the United States team's terrible record over the last years is partially the result of captains jumping over players who have gone through the two-year qualifying process and selecting players who have superior institutional connections and greater fan appeal. There is a stultifying lack of clarity in the PGA of America leadership as to what the Ryder Cup actually is. Is it a competition, or is it an exhibition? If it is indeed a competition, why continue to select Fowler, who has one of the worst Ryder Cup records of all time?

The same fog seems to exist on the PGA Tour itself. Rickie is given sponsors exemptions into Signature Events as if he had the absolute right of first refusal. When he failed to meet any of the qualification criteria for the 2021 PGA Championship, the PGA of America came up with some lame excuse to include him in the field, and tried to deflect criticism by also selecting another player to juice in whose name you won't remember and will have to look up.

Rickie finished tied with eight other players for 8th place in the 2021 PGA Championship. That performance was one of the pieces of evidence cited by Ryder Cup captain Zach Johnson for jumping over Cameron Young and Keegan Bradley to select Fowler as a captain's pick for the 2023 Ryder Cup team. Fowler didn't win any matches in the competition, and lost two. The U. S. team was buried yet again, 16½ to 11½.

One of the qualification criteria for the 2025 PGA Championship (and the only one for which Rickie Fowler had a chance) was as a member of the 2023 Ryder Cup teams. The requirement for this qualification was that the team member had to be in the top 100 of the Official World Golf Ranking two weeks before the PGA Championship. The other 23 members of the Ryder Cup teams all met this criteria, but Rickie was ranked #125 by the OWGR.

Nevertheless, the PGA of America extended Fowler a special invitation to compete in the championship.

All we can say in this situatuon is, "Bubba Booey."

We have a suggestion that should appeal to the fans who love to see Rickie, regardless of his position on the scoreboard. It may also serve to partially rectify a glaring inequity that affects the PGA Tour members whose positions in the FedEx Cup rankings fall as favored players with exemptions rack up points and push them lower in the standings. That suggestion is, don't award FedEx Cup points to those who haven't qualified for Signature Events and major championships. Let the chosen few who use their positions to rack up points their fellow members are denied the chance to earn keep the millions in prize money, just don't give 'em the points.

Note 1: In 2026, only the top 100 finishers in the FedEx Cup points standings will have full status for the year. Thus it is possible, even probable, that the points Rickie Fowler gets from his sponsors exemptions and invitations will cost a PGA Tour member who wasn't so institutionally blessed his tour card.

Note 2: The last two Signature Events of 2025 are the Memorial and the Travelers. We look forward with great interest to see who gets the sponsors exemptions for these events.

pga championship preview

This year's edition of the PGA Championship seems like such a no-brainer that it will probably be the year that someone like Alex Noren or Taylor Moore wins out of nowhere.

The second major of the golf calendar moves to Charlotte, North Carolina (May 15-18) at Quail Hollow, where there is a regular TOUR stop (except for this year) every May. It's also the course where Justin Thomas won his first major (PGA) in 2017.

There was a time -- a long while back -- where the PGA Championship was sorta-kinda known for producing "odd" winners. Sure, it provided household name champions like Paul Azinger ('93), Nick Price ('94) and Davis Love III ('97) but it also threw in the occasional "who's that?" champion like Jeff Sluman, Shaun Micheel, David Toms, Rich Beem and Y.E. Yang.

Of late, it's morphed more into a household name event based mainly on the PGA of America deciding they want their championship course to play at some ridiculous number like 7,700 yards. The only "odd" winner of the last decade or so is probably Jimmy Walker back in 2014. Since then, it's been guys like Justin Thomas, Brooks Koepka, Collin Morikawa and last year's winner, Xander Schauffele.

As you'll read later on, we're of the mindset that the winner is going to be "a name". That said, we've done something different this time around. We're going to give you our top 12, but in groups of four.

The first group will be "Outsiders with a chance".

The second group will be "Major-less no more?", which will focus on four top players who have never won a major that might be good fits for Quail Hollow and this year's PGA.

And the last four will be our "go-to-four", the final four players we feel have the best chance of winning this year.

Kurt Kitayama came in at #12 for us. #11 was Akshay Bhatia. Erik van Rooyen is at #10. #9 is Keith Mitchell. #8 is Daniel Berger. #7 is Sepp Straka. Patrick Cantlay was #6. #5 was Sam Burns.

And so, now, we are down to our final four. Our "go-to-four" as we call them.

These four are all "chalk", so to speak.

The golf course and the tournament itself are set up for them.

Scottie Scheffler is the top ranked player in the world and he's coming off of a very impressive win two weeks ago.

Everything about his golf game fits Quail Hollow. With all of the chirping about Xander's excellent summer of 2024 and Rory's big win at Augusta last month, Scheffler has somehow fallen off the radar screen a bit.

If you forced us to pick one outright winner, it's him. We love Daniel Berger's chances as well, plus the other three you see below, but this just feels like an event Scheffler figures out a way to win.

Rory McIlroy has won 4 times at Quail Hollow and is most certainly capable of winning again this week. His game is in great shape, he has the weight of the world off of his shoulders after the Masters win, and he can make enough birdies to win a 3rd PGA title.

Bryson DeChambeau can overwhelm any golf course, but when you're playing a 7,600 yarder, being able to hit drives in excess of 330 yards on the regular seems like a major asset to have at your disposal. DeChambeau is a constant favorite any time driving distance and wedge play are critical components. He should be there on Sunday, right in the hunt.

Ludvig Aberg is the "model" for a PGA champion if ever there was one. He does everything well. All he needs is a week where he doesn't make any major mistakes and he will be in the hunt. We expect him to be fighting for the title on Sunday.

So...there you have our #DMD Top 12.

Nearly all of them are statistical no-brainers except for perhaps Sam Burns and Kurt Kitayama, both of whom would need to have HUGE weeks with their iron play in order to play well and finish within the top 20.

We would have been SUPER high on Sepp Straka this week had he not won last week in Philadelphia. That said, it's not impossible that he could go back-to-back.

When the dust settles on Sunday, we think Scheffler will be holding the trophy.

Tuesday May 13, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3913

caps on the verge of...caps'ing?

You can't be surprised by any of this.

If you're even a casual fan of the Washington Capitals, their 3-1 series deficit at the hands of the Carolina Hurricanes is NOT a shock.

Right?

I've been following this team since its inception. My father and I had season tickets at the old Capital Centre in years two and three of the team's existence.

Ron Low, Bernie Wolfe, Dennis Maruk, Bob Sirois, Hartland Monahan -- I could go on and on.

I've been a fan of the Caps forever.

Other than that glorious 2018 Stanley Cup run, all they've ever really experienced in the playoffs is futility.

So this 3-1 deficit that was created in part due to last night's listless 5-2 loss is certainly not an eye opener for me. Sure, I "thought" they would win the series, but I'm most certainly not surprised at all that they're down 3-1 and on the verge of losing this post-season round to the 'Canes.

They're the Capitals.

They specialize in Caps'ing, if you will.

In this current series with Carolina, D.C. looks old. And slow. And not nearly combative enough to keep up with the Hurricanes, who resemble a team on one of those familiar spring missions where everything falls correctly into place for them at just the right time.

Carolina, in fairness, looks a bit like the Caps did in 2018. They've found their groove and their way at just the right time.

Now, this series is not yet over. It would be very Caps-like for D.C. to win Game 5 on Thursday and then roll on with a shocking Game 6 win in Carolina on Saturday.

Editor's note: If that were to happen -- Caps force a 7th and decisive game -- we all know they'd lose Game 7 at home 3-2 in OT on some kind of weird, fluke goal that bounces off of John Carlson's helmet or something and trickles into the net.

Do I think that's going to happen? I do not. Not based on what I've seen from the Caps in four games thus far. They look out of gas.

But because nothing the Caps do ever really surprises me, I'm not ready to nail their coffin shut just yet.

It sure doesn't look promising, though.

The Caps...are on the verge of...Caps'ing. Again.

A conspiracy theory guy I'm not, but it's pretty hard to believe there wasn't some funny business going on last night when the NBA's first draft pick went to Dallas, who had but a 1.8% chance of winning the lottery and the right to pick #1 later this summer.

The internet lit up shortly after Dallas "won" the lottery with people who surmised the trade deadline deal that sent Luka Doncic to the Lakers from the Mavericks was somehow part of a grand-master-plan to let Donic get out of town and make way for Duke's Cooper Flagg, whom everyone assumes will be the first pick in the 2025 NBA draft.

Utah (17-65), Washington (18-64), and Charlotte (19-63) entered the lottery event with the best odds of winning the right to pick first with a 14% shot, followed by New Orleans (21-61) at 12.5%. Utah (fifth) and Washington (sixth) fell outside the top four despite having the two worst records in the NBA last year.

Under the new system implemented in 2019 -- which flattens the lottery odds in an attempt to discourage tanking -- the team with the worst record has yet to win the draft lottery.

That in and of itself seems weird. You're telling me that in six years, the team with the BEST odds for winning the lottery hasn't won? Hmmmmm, that's fishy.

So, I can't really say that I disagree with those who claimed "fixed!" last night when Dallas won the lottery.

I don't follow the NBA nearly enough to know the ins-and-outs of the league and the draft and stuff like that, but someone with a 1.8% chance winning ANY kind of lottery seems kind of hard to believe.

Meanwhile, the Wizards get to pick 6th in the first round.

I'm sure the guy they eventually select with that pick will be absolutely thrilled.

OK, probably not.

Mitch asks -- "Given what we've seen thus from the "Big 3" on the Orioles (Adley, Gunnar and Westburg) how much would you push to sign them to huge extensions in the off season in order to avoid having them become free agents?"

DF says -- "That's the $64,000 question, isn't it? Or, at least in Henderson's case, it might be the $400 million question.

I haven't lost any faith in Henderson, although it's obviously right there in front of us to see. He's very talented and an excellent player, but he DOES have blemishes and warts in his game. Aaron Judge he is not.

Would I still try to sign Henderson to some sort of extension? Sure. Is he going to be eager to do that? I doubt it. That said, as his performance evens out and those blemishes still stick out, he might be more amenable to signing early. That's all part of the game.

I'm still a Westburg fan, too, but it's certainly concerning that he can't stay healthy. I realize a guy getting hit on the hand and missing 8 weeks or so isn't necessarily his fault. I do get that. But do you know why they call a guy "injury prone"? Because he's always getting injured.

Would I try to extend Westburg early? Sure. But I don't think I'd be backing up two Brinks trucks for him.

Adley? At this point, I'd pass. It is still early in his career and all. That's fair to point out. But you really need to see some giddy-up in his game very soon or signing him to an extension of any kind is probably a no-go."

Elliott asks -- "I might have missed it but did DMD ever publish an official stance on the transgender policy signed by Donald Trump?"

DF says -- "This isn't really a topic I want to address but the contributor has e-mailed me numerous times in the last three weeks and accused me of dogding him, which isn't the case at all. It's just not a story I'm interested in covering given the political ramifications associated with it.

Anyway, my stance is the same one I've had for years. It has nothing at all to do with President Trump's February policy. This was "my" policy long before February.

I don't believe a male (assigned at birth) should compete against women (assigned at birth) and vice versa. I don't feel the need to go into "why" and I don't really have the desire to openly go back and forth with people about this because I'm not changing my views on it.

And this has nothing at all to do with my view on human sexuality, transitioning from one gender to the other, and so on. This is merely a "sports" opinion.

God created you a male and a male you shall be. And God created you a female and a female you shall be.

You can alter your body if you so choose, but that doesn't change what God made you.

And, thus, I don't think a male -- at birth -- should compete against a female -- at birth. That's my opinion."

pga championship preview

This year's edition of the PGA Championship seems like such a no-brainer that it will probably be the year that someone like Alex Noren or Taylor Moore wins out of nowhere.

The second major of the golf calendar moves to Charlotte, North Carolina (May 15-18) at Quail Hollow, where there is a regular TOUR stop (except for this year) every May. It's also the course where Justin Thomas won his first major (PGA) in 2017.

There was a time -- a long while back -- where the PGA Championship was sorta-kinda known for producing "odd" winners. Sure, it provided household name champions like Paul Azinger ('93), Nick Price ('94) and Davis Love III ('97) but it also threw in the occasional "who's that?" champion like Jeff Sluman, Shaun Micheel, David Toms, Rich Beem and Y.E. Yang.

Of late, it's morphed more into a household name event based mainly on the PGA of America deciding they want their championship course to play at some ridiculous number like 7,700 yards. The only "odd" winner of the last decade or so is probably Jimmy Walker back in 2014. Since then, it's been guys like Justin Thomas, Brooks Koepka, Collin Morikawa and last year's winner, Xander Schauffele.

As you'll later on, we're of the mindset that the winner is going to be "a name". That said, we've done something different this time around. We're going to give you our top 12, but in groups of four.

The first group will be "Outsiders with a chance".

The second group will be "Major-less no more?", which will focus on four top players who have never won a major that might be good fits for Quail Hollow and this year's PGA.

And the last four will be our "go-to-four", the final four players we feel have the best chance of winning this year.

Kurt Kitayama came in at #12 for us. #11 was Akshay Bhatia. Erik van Rooyen is at #10. #9 is Keith Mitchell. #8 is Daniel Berger. #7 is Sepp Straka. Patrick Cantlay was #6.

Now we get to the "Major-less no more?" category. This is the one where we strongly consider four players who haven't yet won a major title but might very well finally do so next week in Charlotte.

#5 Sam Burns -- Of all the players I'm taking a flyer on this week at Quail Hollow, Burns is the biggest of them all.

He's an incredibly talented player, but his track record in major championships is nothing to write home about.

Burns did make the cut at the Masters back in April but finished an uninspiring T46.

He's never really played all that well at the PGA, either.

So why am I picking him?

Because of guys like Jeff Sluman, Rich Beem and Shaun Micheel. They were guys without great track records who won the PGA Championship. Burns is just hot-and-cold enough to come through with a win out of nowhere this week.

He drives it far enough.

He drives it straight enough.

He hits enough greens in regulation.

And he's currently ranked 1st on the PGA Tour in putting.

His blemish? He's not a finisher. Some might even say, "he's not a winner".

But he does have 5 wins on TOUR, remember.

And when he has a big week with the irons, his putting usually gets him into contention.

He's 90-1 this week, which is a pretty large number for the guy who putts better than anyone on the entire PGA Tour.

Monday May 12, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3912

must gotta win time

Anyone who knows me or has been around #DMD for the last decade knows how I take umbrage with the oft-used term of "must win game" in the world of sports.

It's only "must" win if you lose and don't play any more games thereafter.

You either win or you go home. Now that, right there, is a "must" win game.

The Capitals face a dicey situation tonight in Raleigh. They're down 2-1 to the Carolina Hurricanes and need to come out on top this evening or they'll be facing elimination back in D.C. for Game 5.

No one wants to be in one of those "elimination games" simply because you leave yourself open to too many possibilities in that one.

Your best player could get hurt in the 3rd minute of the game.

The other team's goaltender might stand on his head for 60 minutes and completely shut you down.

You could draw some kind of rare 5 minute penalty and the other team could score two or three power play goals in that 5 minute span.

Weird things can happen, no matter if it's Game 1 or Game 5, but you can recover from weird things happening in Game 1. If you trail 3-games-to-1, you might not be able to recover from those weird things happening.

That's why tonight's game in Raleigh is huge for the Caps.

A win tonight and it's obstensibly a 3-game series with Alex Ovechkin and Company owning 2 of those 3 at home, if necessary. But a loss tonight and the Caps are in deep doo-doo.

A 3-1 series deficit wouldn't be the end of the world, but it would certainly force the Capitals into having to play perfect hockey for the last three games of the series.

And, as we know, it's hard to be perfect. Especially in the playoffs.

If the Orioles are going to "get well in a hurry", this week is going to be a great time for it. They host Minnesota for three games and then the Nationals come to town for three.

I won't say something dumb like "they should win all six" because the Orioles haven't won two in a row in what seems like forever, plus the Twins just went 3-for-3 against the Birds last week in Minneapolis, but 4-2 is an absolute minimum and 5-1 is much needed.

The climb back to respectability begins tomorrow night at home vs. the Twins.

With Zach Eflin back in the rotation, the O's now have at least two competent pitchers starting every five days. And don't look now, but Dean Kremer has been actually been decent this month. More than decent, really.

I know enough about Kremer to know his last couple of starts could be a fluke. He's just as likely to give up 5 earned runs in 4 innings in his next start than he is to go 7 innings and allow 2 runs, but if he could continue throwing the way he's thrown recently, that's three potential "solid starts" in these next six games.

Yes, I'm the eternal optimist. I'll own that.

It's simply too early in the season to panic, in my opinion.

I realize the 7 runs yesterday were mostly a by-product of an embarrassing day in the field and on the basepaths by the Angels. But at some point, the O's are going to hit and they're going to score runs like they did on Sunday.

Their offense will come around.

It's the pitching they need to improve upon and most of that improvement has to come from the starters.

After the homestand it's off to Milwaukee and Boston. So this week is huge for Brandon Hyde's team.

I saw some back and forth from #DMD regulars about PGA Tour player Denny McCarthy and his inability to win thus far in his very successful PGA Tour career.

If facts matter, McCarthy has won as a professional. He captured the Korn Ferry Tour Championship in 2018, which turned out to be the biggest moment of his career up to this point. He has kept his TOUR card for the last 7 years.

Now, it's accurate to point out that he's yet to win on the PGA Tour, twice losing in a playoff and having several other close brushes with the victory circle, including the 2022 U.S. Open at Brookline.

So why hasn't he won?

Because it's hard to win, for starters.

Collin Morikawa is one of the best players in the world and the owner of 2 major championship titles. He hasn't won a TOUR event since 2023 (Zozo) and hasn't won a full field PGA Tour title since capturing the British Open in 2021.

Jordan Spieth has 13 career titles on TOUR but hasn't won since April of 2022 at the RBC Heritage.

Morikawa and Spieth are world class players and they're both in the midst of puzzling losing streaks.

Cameron Young is a supremely talented player on TOUR with sublime ball striking skills and he, like McCarthy, has never won on the PGA Tour.

But why, specifically, has McCarthy not won?

Someone pointed out his lack of driving distance as potentially one factor.

Eh, not really.

Denny drives it just as far as guys like Si Woo Kim, Sepp Straka, Shane Lowry, Corey Conners, Sungjae Im and the guy who beat him in a playoff last year, Akshay Bhatia.

This year, in particular, McCarthy is missing more fairways than in the past, which is definitely impacting his ability to make more birdies.

His accuracy-off-the-tee numbers aren't terrible. He's 67th on TOUR in driving accuracy (fairways off the tee), which shows him hitting roughly 61% of the fairways off the tee.

Most TOUR players would love to be in the 65% range for fairways hit off the tee. So 61% isn't that far off. Maybe one more fairway per-round, tops?

But while he's decent at getting it in the fairway, he's 116th in a critical stat calculated as "scrambling from the rough", which basically shows how often a player makes par or better when either his tee shot or second shot (or both) is played out of the rough.

This stat, remember, also involves putting. So you're really factoring in two things. Your ability to recover from a ball hit in the rough and your ability to make the corresponding putt on the hole.

Now, is it possible that this week's PGA Championship set-up is "too long" for him? Sure, it could be. But it would also be "too long" for someone like Collin Morikawa, Sepp Straka or Shane Lowry in that case and I happen to think any of those three guys could be right there on Sunday afternoon with a chance to win.

In general, I don't subscribe much to the "doesn't hit it far enough" angle. Those guys are just too good in the rest of their games to have driving distance eliminate them as a possible winner.

Now...let's look at other factors with Denny.

Once known as the TOUR's "best putter", McCarthy is still great on the greens, but his putting numbers have slipped a smidgen over the last two years. Ironically, his driving distance numbers have improved by almost ten yards over the last three years.

Someone in the Comments section hinted at a "mental block" as a reason why McCarthy can't put together four great rounds and win.

Well, in two tournaments over the last three years, he's gone 72 holes and no player outright beat him over four days. He'd go on to lose two playoffs, but it's worth noting that he has played 72 great holes in past tournaments.

I don't think there's a single, isolated reason why McCarthy hasn't yet won, but I do know he will win on the PGA Tour and, I'd bet, once he wins once, he'll win again and then again after that. I don't see him as a one-time or even two-time PGA Tour winner. I see him as a guy who can win several times out there.

He's won at every level of golf in which he's competed.

He won everything that could be won in high school at Georgetown Prep.

He won the Maryland Open three times as a junior.

He was an All-American at the University of Virginia, made the semi-finals of the U.S. Amateur while at Virginia, and was eventually picked for the U.S. Walker Cup team.

He won on the Korn Ferry Tour and has made almost $20 million in his career.

In 201 career TOUR events, he's made the cut in 143 of them. This season, he's 12-for-12 in events/cuts made.

What McCarthy really needs is the obvious: He needs to have an event where everything falls into place for him and, in the same week, there's no one else in the field who is better than him for those 4 days.

It will happen.

You don't have to be perfect to win on the PGA Tour. And as Sepp Straka, Collin Morikawa and Akshay Bhatia have displayed, you don't have to be "overly long", either.

The longest hitter in golf right now (Aldrich Potgieter) hasn't won on the PGA Tour. I think he will, mind you. Potgieter is a strong up and comer from South Africa. But length off the tee is but one part of the game.

Don't get me wrong, if you hit it 290 off the tee relatively straight, you have a huge advantage over me and my 260 yard powder-puff I'm hitting into the fairway most days now. Distance matters. But there's more to golf than that.

As for McCarthy, specifically, he just needs to break through with a win. It doesn't matter how, where or when. He needs a win and the flood gates will open for him.

What does he mainly need to make that happen? Some luck and a hot putter, pretty much.

If Denny gets those two things in the same week, his winless streak will come to an end.

pga championship preview

This year's edition of the PGA Championship seems like such a no-brainer that it will probably be the year that someone like Alex Noren or Taylor Moore wins out of nowhere.

The second major of the golf calendar moves to Charlotte, North Carolina (May 15-18) at Quail Hollow, where there is a regular TOUR stop (except for this year) every May. It's also the course where Justin Thomas won his first major (PGA) in 2017.

There was a time -- a long while back -- where the PGA Championship was sorta-kinda known for producing "odd" winners. Sure, it provided household name champions like Paul Azinger ('93), Nick Price ('94) and Davis Love III ('97) but it also threw in the occasional "who's that?" champion like Jeff Sluman, Shaun Micheel, David Toms, Rich Beem and Y.E. Yang.

Of late, it's morphed more into a household name event based mainly on the PGA of America deciding they want their championship course to play at some ridiculous number like 7,700 yards. The only "odd" winner of the last decade or so is probably Jimmy Walker back in 2014. Since then, it's been guys like Justin Thomas, Brooks Koepka, Collin Morikawa and last year's winner, Xander Schauffele.

As you'll later on, we're of the mindset that the winner is going to be "a name". That said, we've done something different this time around. We're going to give you our top 12, but in groups of four.

The first group will be "Outsiders with a chance".

The second group will be "Major-less no more?", which will focus on four top players who have never won a major that might be good fits for Quail Hollow and this year's PGA.

And the last four will be our "go-to-four", the final four players we feel have the best chance of winning this year.

Kurt Kitayama came in at #12 for us. #11 was Akshay Bhatia. Erik van Rooyen is at #10. #9 is Keith Mitchell. #8 is Daniel Berger. #7 is Sepp Straka. Patrick Cantlay was #6.

Now we get to the "Major-less no more?" category. This is the one where we strongly consider four players who haven't yet won a major title but might very well finally do so next week in Charlotte.

#5 Sam Burns -- Of all the players I'm taking a flyer on this week at Quail Hollow, Burns is the biggest of them all.

He's an incredibly talented player, but his track record in major championships is nothing to write home about.

Burns did make the cut at the Masters back in April but finished an uninspiring T46.

He's never really played all that well at the PGA, either.

So why am I picking him?

Because of guys like Jeff Sluman, Rich Beem and Shaun Micheel. They were guys without great track records who won the PGA Championship. Burns is just hot-and-cold enough to come through with a win out of nowhere this week.

He drives it far enough.

He drives it straight enough.

He hits enough greens in regulation.

And he's currently ranked 1st on the PGA Tour in putting.

His blemish? He's not a finisher. Some might even say, "he's not a winner".

But he does have 5 wins on TOUR, remember.

And when he has a big week with the irons, his putting usually gets him into contention.

He's 90-1 this week, which is a pretty large number for the guy who putts better than anyone on the entire PGA Tour.

Sunday May 11, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3911

"the toughest job in the world"

Happy Mother's Day to all of the great moms out there in our #DMD world!

If you're reading this and you, in fact, are a mother yourself, congratulations on handling the "toughest job in the world".

My son loves to ask me questions about sports history these days.

"Dad, was Tiger the G.O.A.T.?"

"Dad, was Barry Bonds the G.O.A.T.?"

"Dad, was Wayne Gretzky the G.O.A.T."

"Dad, was Michael Jordan the G.O.A.T."

We've had each of those conversations at some point over the last year, while it was during a long car ride, over a round of golf, or watching "The Last Dance" on ESPN or Tiger highlights on YouTube.

Mothers are the "Greatest Of All Time" in my opinion. You want to know who the G.O.A.T. is? It's your mother, it's her mother and it's the mother of your children.

Dads are usually the ones you hear it from first in youth sports after you've had a tough day on the field, court, course or rink.

"You didn't play well today. What's wrong with you? You need to practice more and get better."

Moms are usually the ones who quickly follow that up with, "Don't let it bother you, sweetie. You did your best. I'm sure you're going to play better next time. Either way, I love you."

Both presentations have their place in sports. But hearing that feedback from your mother? Well, that was priceless.

My mom passed away when I was 24 but I got a lifetime of joy out of both competing for her and watching her embrace sports. She loved watching me play whatever it was in that particular season, and she also enthusiastically supported both the Colts and Orioles with equal degrees of fandom.

I'm sure glad Brooks Robinson didn't propose to my mom when we -- along with a thousand other folks in Glen Burnie -- met him at Two Guys in the mid 1970's or I might have become Drew Forrester-Robinson. My mother loved her some Brooks Robinson.

She was also a huge Johnny Unitas fan.

The world stopped in my house on Sundays when the Colts played. My mom knew every player, every number and so on. My love for sports was given to me by both of my parents. But my love for statistics and numbers and talking about sports? That definitely came from my mom.

The mother of my two awesome kids is also a G.O.A.T. She's the car pool coordinator, the schedule overseer and the non-judgemental parent who just wants to see everyone have fun.

At a swim meet last summer, Eagle's Nest beat an opponent they hadn't defeated in more than a decade. It was a joyous occasion for our kids even though most of them -- or nearly all of them -- hadn't been part of that 10-year-plus losing streak.

We got in the car to head home and it was my wife who broke the silence by saying, "I feel bad for (the other team)."

That's a mom for you.

And that's why they're all G.O.A.T.'s.

Dads are busy coaching and, sometimes, celebrating and gloating.

Moms are busy supporting and, almost always, showing empathy and humility.

God certainly knew what he was doing when he created women.

"I need someone on earth to be kind and beautiful and caring...I'll make a woman and she will do those things."

God bless all the moms out there today.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Well, that Orioles win "streak" didn't even become a streak, as they followed up Friday night's rare win in L.A. with a 5-2 loss to the Angels last night.

That's 14-24 now for the O's.

Silver lining stuff from last night's loss?

The bullpen was excellent. Selby, Perez and -- get this -- Morton didn't allow a run in 4 innings of work.

I know what you're thinking.

"Do the Orioles have two guys on the team with the last name of Morton?"

No, smart guy, they don't. It was Charlie Morton who shut down the Angels in the 7th and 8th innings last night.

More good stuff from a night where there wasn't much good stuff?

Ryan Mountcastle had two hits. He's now hitting .218 on the year. They're probably going to do a 30-for-30 on ESPN someday and try to figure out what happened to his home run power, but last night, at least, he looked competent at the plate for once.

That's really about it, from the "good stuff" department.

You need some balance with your O's news?

OK, well, here's some balance.

Adley Rutschman went 0-for-4 and is now hitting .195 at the quarter-pole (essentially) of the season. Remember when he hit beat the Blue Jays by himself in Toronto on opening day? Those were good times, indeed.

Cedric Mullins is mired in an awful slump. It feels like he hasn't had a hit since Rory won the Masters.

Jorge Mateo hasn't had a hit since Biden was President, it seems.

The good news last night? The O's "only" went 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position.

The bad news? They only had three runners in scoring position all night.

There's no truth to the rumor that the O's are trying to coax Tomoyuki Sugano into pitching every other day. On paper, that sounds good though, doesn't it?

But there is good news from the pitching department. Zach Eflin gets the start today for the Birds. If he can return to his pre-injury form, the O's will certainly benefit at a time when they greatly need "benefit" of any kind.

The Capitals are looking a bit like a team that is starting to feel the weight of a playoff draw gone wrong. Last night's 4-0 loss in Carolina puts the Hurricanes up 2-1 in the series.

Washington has now scored a grand total of 3 "real" goals in the three-games to date. One of the goals in the 3-1 win in Game 2 came via an empty net tally from Tom Wilson, remember.

Three goals in 180 minutes of hockey is lousy. And that's how you get beat in the post-season, no matter who you draw as your opponent.

But of all the teams that Caps could have faced in this post-season, the Hurricanes were probably the one they wanted to avoid the most.

That's why you can't possibly go down 3-1 on Monday night in Raleigh.

Game 4 is must-win supremely critical for the Caps. They have to get back on track.

They were excellent in the first period last night. But when they couldn't score, all the air left their balloon. And the second and third periods were about as lifeless as side 2 of Abbey Road as Shedeur Sanders' round one draft party.

You're not beating anyone when you score zero goals. As I wrote before the series, that was my fear with the Caps. Their offense would somehow dissolve and they wouldn't be able to score 3 or 4 goals per-game to offset the offensive prowess of the 'Canes.

The good news? Carolina has only scored 7 goals in the 3 games.

The bad news? The Caps have scored a total of 4 goals.

We're not yet to the point where "Caps gonna Caps", but those of us who have been longtime followers of the franchise can feel something in the air.

pga championship preview

This year's edition of the PGA Championship seems like such a no-brainer that it will probably be the year that someone like Alex Noren or Taylor Moore wins out of nowhere.

The second major of the golf calendar moves to Charlotte, North Carolina (May 15-18) at Quail Hollow, where there is a regular TOUR stop (except for this year) every May. It's also the course where Justin Thomas won his first major (PGA) in 2017.

There was a time -- a long while back -- where the PGA Championship was sorta-kinda known for producing "odd" winners. Sure, it provided household name champions like Paul Azinger ('93), Nick Price ('94) and Davis Love III ('97) but it also threw in the occasional "who's that?" champion like Jeff Sluman, Shaun Micheel, David Toms, Rich Beem and Y.E. Yang.

Of late, it's morphed more into a household name event based mainly on the PGA of America deciding they want their championship course to play at some ridiculous number like 7,700 yards. The only "odd" winner of the last decade or so is probably Jimmy Walker back in 2014. Since then, it's been guys like Justin Thomas, Brooks Koepka, Collin Morikawa and last year's winner, Xander Schauffele.

As you'll later on, we're of the mindset that the winner is going to be "a name". That said, we've done something different this time around. We're going to give you our top 12, but in groups of four.

The first group will be "Outsiders with a chance".

The second group will be "Major-less no more?", which will focus on four top players who have never won a major that might be good fits for Quail Hollow and this year's PGA.

And the last four will be our "go-to-four", the final four players we feel have the best chance of winning this year.

Kurt Kitayama came in at #12 for us. #11 was Akshay Bhatia. Erik van Rooyen is at #10. #9 is Keith Mitchell. #8 is Daniel Berger.

Now we get to the "Major-less no more?" category. This is the one where we strongly consider four players who haven't yet won a major title but might very well finally do so next week in Charlotte.

#7 Sepp Straka -- Much like I mentioned a couple of days ago when I listed Keith Mitchell, I love Straka's chances next week at the PGA but those chances would be reduced if he winds up winning today's Truist Championship in Philadelphia. It's just too hard to win back-to-back weeks. (Straka is currently tied for the lead with Shane Lowry).

But either way, really, I love, love, love Straka at Quail Hollow next week. He's having the best year of his career and, statistically at least, he's having one of the 5 best seasons of any player on the PGA Tour in 2025.

His only small flaw for next week is his driving distance (295 yard per), which is bottom 10% on the TOUR as a whole.

But he makes up for that in every other category.

He's 13th in accuracy off the tee.

He's 2nd in greens in regulation.

He's 5th in proximity to the hole.

He's 30th in approach shots 200 or more yards to the hole.

He's 63rd in shots gained: putting.

Straka's only real blemish is his driving distance.

As long as Quail Hollow doesn't get a bunch of rain during the tournament, the course should play firm and fast, which will greatly help him. They are calling for wet weather down there Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, but I can't imagine that will create a sloppy track for them over the weekend.

The Austrian is, right now, one of the top 5 players in golf without a major championship. That might very well change next week at the PGA, where he is currently listed at 90-1.

Saturday May 10, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3910

"it's just like talk radio"

We'll get to some interesting reader questions in a few seconds but let's celebrate an awesome Orioles win, shall we?

As I put this edition of #DMD together at 10:52 pm on Friday night, the O's are coasting in Anaheim, 3-0, and look like a cinch to finally win a baseball game this week.

Tomoyuki Sugano was superb again last night, which must warm the heart of Mike Elias. At least one of his acquisitions over the last 12 months has proved to be a good decision.

At any rate, the O's are back in the win column. For one Friday night, at least, the beer was cold.

Editor's note: I was right. The O's did win. The final was 4-1. Happy days are here again.

On we go...

#DMD reader Bill submitted a thoughtful question in the Comments section yesterday.

He wondered if website traffic here is "down" when either the Orioles or Ravens are posting a losing record.

Well, first of all, the Ravens haven't been "bad" in forever, pretty much, so they're not even a factor in that question. Plus, they're the Ravens. They're always interesting, good record or bad record.

As for the Orioles, it's fair to point out they also haven't been "bad" in a few years, their sluggish start to the '25 campaign notwithstanding.

But the answer to Bill's question is a resounding "no!".

In fact, website traffic actually goes "up" following a Ravens loss or Orioles tailspin.

Our highest day of #DMD traffic ever was the Monday following the Ravens loss to the Chiefs in the 2024 AFC Championship Game in Baltimore.

Our second highest day of traffic ever? The day after the playoff loss to the Bills this past January.

This website is just like talk radio.

Controversy, drama and bad news actually helps business. It certainly doesn't hurt it.

In the old days on the radio, on the morning following a Ravens loss, the phone lines would actually be blinking at 6:07 am when I prepared to open the show with the morning ritual of "Raised on the Radio" by the Ravyns followed by the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance.

I didn't have to open the microphone and say, "OK, Ravens lose 23-20 in Pittsburgh, the phone lines are open..."

When I got into the studio, all four lines were blinking. And they stayed blinking for most, if not all, of the four hour show.

If the Ravens would have won that game, 27-10, I would have been begging for phone calls all morning.

It's human nature. Nothing more, nothing less.

People like to complain.

It's not "Baltimore" or "Maryland". It's not even "sports fans".

It's just "people". I'm not nearly smart enough to know what it is about our DNA that makes us want to complain far more often than offer praise, but it's the way we're wired.

And, so, talk radio -- whether it's sports or political in nature -- lends itself to negativity and doom and gloom.

Political radio is probably the easiest format in the world.

You pick a side to lean on.

You then spend a year or two beating up the other side and boast how great the candidates are on your side.

If your side wins the election, you spend the next couple of years pointing out how great things are now that your candidate is in office.

If your side loses the election, you spend the next couple of years pointing out how terrible things are because your candidate didn't get into office.

Easy money called and said, "I'm jealous of how easy it is to generate revenue in political radio."

Sports talk isn't quite as easy from a financial standpoint because the internet has really carved into that format, but from the standpoint of generating interest and feedback from listeners, all you need to do is either report on controversy or make some up on your own and you're golden.

So, Bill, website traffic here is actually boosted when the Orioles stink.

I'm not sure they'll ever actually win 4 games in a row this year, but if they do, day 5 of that streak will almost assuredly feature less traffic than if the O's would have lost 4 straight games.

It is what it is.

Human nature.

John L. asks -- "I'm going in for knee replacement on June 3rd and plan to spend some of my down time diving into on-line golf theories and instructors. Who is the best on-line teacher in your opinion? I know there are hundreds out there on digital platforms. If you were out of commission for 6 weeks and wanted to go down the golf teaching rabbit hole who would you watch? Thanks Drew!"

DF says -- "Six weeks? You need more than one! Here are three guys to watch. Just go to YouTube and put their name in the search bar and you'll get so much video content you might want to get your other knee replaced.

Pete Cowen is probably one of the five best golf teachers in the world, in my opinion. He's a huge believer in the right arm and right hand doing most of the crucial work in delivering the club to the ball, which I also happen to think is a critical component of the swing.

Mike Malaska is an awesome teacher out of Arizona who has hundreds of hours of instructional videos available free of charge. He's simple and uncomplicated.

And I am a huge fan of Padraig Harrington's teaching content on YouTube. Harrington, of course, is still playing for a living, but he's also taken up teaching the golf swing as well and a lot of what he's touting these days is very easy to understand and put into action.

Any of those three would be great to follow during your recovery. But, I'm telling you, once you get started with one of them, you'll want to move on to the next one and the next one after that.

Best wishes for a successful surgery and recovery, John."

Mark asks -- "Do you think Justin Tucker signs somewhere for the 2025 season or is his career in the NFL over?"

DF says -- "Presupposing he's not suspended by the league, I'd be shocked if Tucker isn't kicking in 2025.

Maybe he doesn't join a team until late September when someone's kicker starts off the season 3-for-7 and misses a 40-yarder at the buzzer to cost his team a game, but Tucker will kick for a team at some point in 2025.

I mean, if Deshaun Watson could sign somewhere else after what happened to him in Houston, Justin Tucker can most certainly land a job in his post-Baltimore days.

I think we all know there's probably a 50% chance (or better) that the #1 kicker in Pittsburgh, Cleveland or Cincinnati gets hurt and Tucker winds up with one of those three and has to kick against the Ravens once, if not twice. You just know the football gods have that trick up their sleeves."

Rick P. asks -- "What do you think about Charlie Woods, Tiger's son, not making the U.S. Open again this year?"

DF says -- "What do I think? He's 16 years old. He's an exceptionally talented player, but he's only 16. Have 16 year olds made it through the first stage of U.S. Open qualifying? For sure. But that's no easy feat.

Charlie shot 75 this week to miss the first stage of qualifying by 7 shots. Even had he made it through the first round, there's almost no way he would have successfully navigated his way through the 36-hole "final qualifying" stage for the U.S. Open.

But make no mistake about it, a 16 year old shooting 3-over par 75 in a "real" golf tournament is really solid golf.

And here's my prediction: At some point in his life, Charlie Woods will qualify for and play in a U.S. Open. I don't know if that happens in four years or ten years, but I'd wager Charlie will play in at least one U.S. Open, if not more than one."

Joe Kesering asks -- "Of all the trades and signings made by Mike Elias, what's the worst one of them all in your opinion?

DF says -- "There's no doubt at all about this, it's the deal for Trevor Rogers last July at the trade deadline. And, no, not necessarily because Stowers and Norby have done fairly well in Miami, but more because Rogers has been an absolute NON-FACTOR in Baltimore.

If you're going to trade away two reasonably decent prospects, you have to get some real value in return. As it stands now, the O's gave away Norby and Stowers and got nothing in return. Nothing. At all.

I'm sure Elias would love to have that one back."

Elliott asks -- "Hey Drew, for your Question/Answer segment, I'm asking you to change any three rules in the world of sports in any league. They can even all be from the same league if you want. What would they be? Thank you. Love the Morning Dish."

DF says -- "Well thank you, Elliott, we love you too. Any three rules? I know two right away. Have to think of the third.

"First, the out-of-bounds rule in golf is really dumb. I can stand on the tee and make almost perfect contact with the ball, send it 250 yards away, it hits a sprinkler head on the left side of the fairway, bounces wildly off a cart path from there and settles out of bounds and I have to take a 2-stroke penalty and hit again from the tee box. You laugh at me and then you swing and miss at the ball on the tee and you suffer NO penalty at all and simply swing again hitting your second shot.

That's just dumb.

The OB rule in golf should be this. You can either go back to where you hit your ball from and add ONE penalty shot or you can take relief from where your ball entered the OB and add TWO shots, just like if you hit it into a penalty area (we used to call those "hazards"). Making me go back to where I hit from and adding TWO shots (current rule) is incredibly stupid and time consuming.

The next rule would be any field goal in the NFL over 55 yards is worth 4 points, not three. In addition, once per-game, a team can attempt an extra point from 50 yards away or more and that kick is worth 3 points, not 1. That would make any game where a team trails by 17 points still "alive", since they could still score a TD/extra point (traditional) and a TD/extra point from 50 (3 points). So, yeah, I sorta-kinda did TWO new rules there, I know, but they both fall under kicking so I'll count them as one rule.

Last one...let me think about that. I want to come up with something off the radar screen.

(15 minutes later).

I got it.

I love this one.

In any game where a baseball umpire throws someone out for arguing with them, the umpire also gets ejected if, later in the game, any call he/she is involved in gets overturned by video replay. Maybe that will stop them from having rabbit ears.

Or, at the very least, they can keep their rabbit ears but they have to be a little more tolerant."

pga championship preview

This year's edition of the PGA Championship seems like such a no-brainer that it will probably be the year that someone like Alex Noren or Taylor Moore wins out of nowhere.

The second major of the golf calendar moves to Charlotte, North Carolina (May 15-18) at Quail Hollow, where there is a regular TOUR stop (except for this year) every May. It's also the course where Justin Thomas won his first major (PGA) in 2017.

There was a time -- a long while back -- where the PGA Championship was sorta-kinda known for producing "odd" winners. Sure, it provided household name champions like Paul Azinger ('93), Nick Price ('94) and Davis Love III ('97) but it also threw in the occasional "who's that?" champion like Jeff Sluman, Shaun Micheel, David Toms, Rich Beem and Y.E. Yang.

Of late, it's morphed more into a household name event based mainly on the PGA of America deciding they want their championship course to play at some ridiculous number like 7,700 yards. The only "odd" winner of the last decade or so is probably Jimmy Walker back in 2014. Since then, it's been guys like Justin Thomas, Brooks Koepka, Collin Morikawa and last year's winner, Xander Schauffele.

As you'll later on, we're of the mindset that the winner is going to be "a name". That said, we've done something different this time around. We're going to give you our top 12, but in groups of four.

The first group will be "Outsiders with a chance".

The second group will be "Major-less no more?", which will focus on four top players who have never won a major that might be good fits for Quail Hollow and this year's PGA.

And the last four will be our "go-to-four", the final four players we feel have the best chance of winning this year.

Kurt Kitayama came in at #12 for us. #11 was Akshay Bhatia. Erik van Rooyen is at #10. #9 is Keith Mitchell.

Now we get to the "Major-less no more?" category. This is the one where we strongly consider four players who haven't yet won a major title but might very well finally do so next week in Charlotte.

#8 Daniel Berger -- OK, we'll let the cat out of the bag here. Daniel Berger is our absolute darkhorse to win next week. He has quietly put together a monster statistical year and is so far under the radar screen it's crazy.

Shots gained off the tee: 30th on TOUR.

Total driving (accuracy and length combined): 12th

Driving accuracy (percentage of tee shots in the fairway): 8th

Approach to green: 38th

Proximity to the hole: 23rd

There's more, and it's all good. Even his putting numbers are fine. He's 50th on TOUR in shots gained: putting.

It's so strange to find someone as "locked in" statistically as Berger is without the fanfare or "push" from the experts.

Shhhhhhh.....don't tell a soul.

Daniel Berger is currently at 100-1 to win the PGA Championship. I don't get it. He should be more like 40-1. But I'm not complaining.

Friday May 9, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3909

back on track

You see that headline and you wonder if I'm taking a dig at the Orioles.

No, of course not.

The Minnesota Twins might be back on track, thanks to the Orioles, but our beloved orange-and-black birds are most certainly not back on track after getting run out of the gym three straight times in Minneapolis.

The Capitals? Ah, yes. They're back on track after last night's 3-1 win over Carolina that evened their Eastern Conference semifinal series at 1-1.

Last night certainly wasn't a "must win" situation, but it was pretty close given that Games 3 and 4 shift to Raleigh. Going down 2-0 to a really good team would be tough to rebound from for sure.

Alas, that worry no longer exists. The Caps played much better in Game 2 than they did in Game 1 and got the justifiable result they deserved as a reward.

The story of the series for D.C. so far is precisely what you want the story to be if you intend on winning four playoff series' and earning the Stanley Cup. Logan Thompson, the D.C. goaltender, has been magnificent in both games, allowing just two goals (one of which was a fluky shot in OT) in Game 1 and one goal last night.

You need your goaltender to stand on his head in April, May and June if you're going to win 16 games along the way. Thompson, thus far, is doing just that.

Back on track.

Now...the Orioles? Yeah, not back on track.

They actually had one in the jaws yesterday and then crumbled in the 8th inning, allowing the Twins to score three times and win the get-away game, 5-2.

Who was in the crosshairs after the game?

You know who...

The manager, of course.

Dean Kremer was buzzing through the Minnesota lineup like Bob Gibson in 1968, allowing just 3 hits and 2 earned runs in 7 innings of work. He had thrown a whopping total of 86 pitches before Brandon Hyde "went with his gut" and inserted Yennier Cano into the game and sent Kremer to the showers.

86 pitches.

Can you imagine going out to get Nolan Ryan or Roger Clemens after 86 pitches in a tie game in the 8th inning when they were mowing down the other team like Cy Young?

Now, in complete fairness to Hyde, it appeared after the game that Kremer might have begged out of the 8th inning due to "stiffness" in his leg after being hit with a line drive earlier in the game.

"I could tell he (Kremer) had left it all out there in the 7th inning, so he was coming out regardless of what we did in the top of the 8th," said Hyde afterwards.

But local baseball followers promptly roasted Hyde for the decision and, because it was always either going to work out brilliantly or completely blow up in his face, Cano walked two hitters and then Gregory Soto came in, got a strike out, and all heck broke loose thereafter, as Minnesota produced two big hits to put the game away.

There was a glimmer of hope for the O's in the 9th inning because they had their big three coming up: Rutschman, Henderson and Holliday.

I assume you know how that went: Ground out, ground out, strike out.

Ballgame. The Twins win. Theeeeeeeee Twwwwiiiiinnnnnns wiiiiinnnnnn!

Oops, wrong team.

Anyway, Hyde got raked over the coals after the game for his Kremer decision, which certainly did seem puzzling at the time, but perhaps more understandable if it was Kremer himself who told the skipper he'd had enough fun for one day.

Hyde chiding aside, you know who really deserves to be raked over the coals?

Anyone who swings a bat on the Orioles roster not named Ryan O'Hearn, basically. Even Cedric Mullins (.237 average) has tailed off over the last couple of weeks. I assume he was tired of carrying the team offensively.

Through 36 games, the Orioles offense makes the Beatles Bad News Bears look competent.

Prior to yesterday's debacle, the Orioles were putrid with runners in scoring position. So far in '25, they're hitting .192/.268/305/.574 with RISP. All four of those numbers are 30th and last in all of MLB.

So, yes, the manager does some weird stuff. That said, he's cooking the food with the ingredients the restaurant GM put in his freezer.

The Orioles offense is lousy. Period. In their last 16 games -- hang on, this is a staggering statistic -- the Orioles have scored over 4 runs TWICE. And one of those occasions was the loss to the Royals when K.C. hit 23 home runs in that Sunday afternoon loss in Baltimore.

And, so, here they now are at 13-23, a full 10 games under .500.

Mike Elias appeared on a local radio show a few days ago and deflected any talk of firing the manager, saying, point blank, "There's really no fault of the manager, here. This is on our players to do better."

I find that sort of review refreshing in a lot of ways, since most higher-ups in sports are petrified of ever actually making the players take responsibility for their poor performance.

But if this downward spiral continues for the O's and they're at 18-32 at the 50-game mark, let's say, how on earth do you keep the manager around?

The good news? Kremer had his second straight excellent start yesterday. Zach Eflin's returning this weekend. Charlie Morton will be moved to the bullpen. Those three things alone give O's fans a smidgen of hope.

But this is and has been far more about the team's offense than anything else.

You just can't keep scoring 2.9 runs per-game and expect to beat anyone.

There have been bubbling stories around town about the young make-up of the O's roster perhaps lending itself to an environment that, let's say, is a little more playful than it should be given the team's second half play in '24, their playoff disaster vs. K.C., and the woeful start to the '25 campaign.

If there's any substance to those stories, someone has to fix it. Who will that be? Brandon Hyde? A new manager? Ryan O'Hearn? The general manager himself?

One thing for sure: With each passing series where the Birds look listless and out of it, the heat gets turned up on everyone involved.

#DMD reader and regular contributor "Tom J" posted something interesting here yesterday that got me to thinking throughout Thursday afternoon.

Yesterday here at #DMD, I wrote this about Justin Tucker's potential inclusion into the Ravens Ring of Honor someday:

It is, after all, called the Ring of "Honor", not the Ring of Great Football Players.

There has to be a little bit of integrity attached to the honor, I think.

Tom posted an interesting rebuttal to that yesterday, saying this:

Drew, the Ring of Honor has nothing to do with integrity. It has to do with "Honoring" those players and contributors for what they did for the organization on the field. If integrity was criteria to get in, then Ray Lewis, Jamal Lewis and certainly Terrell Suggs would not have been inducted given their transgressions with the law. Now while I believe Tucker was involved with this behavior, he's the only one that was accused yet never found guilty of what they were accused of so far...

That commentary is true. All of it.

Here, though, is where I personally see Tucker's situation as being different enough that the Ring of Honor might not be for him.

His "crimes" (loose word there) were here, in Baltimore, and reportedly took place "against" Baltimore women.

I'm not trying to gloss over what Ray Lewis did in Atlanta or Jamal Lewis did in Tennessee or what Terrell Suggs did in Arizona or Maryland.

But to me, Tucker's situation is much different because it's actually a LOCAL story that impacted our community.

I could be the only one that sees it that way and, if so, I get it. I might be the lone wolf here.

If these allegations took place in Delray Beach, Florida over a decade of summers where Tucker (theoretically) resides in the off-season, I think we look at them totally different than we do when they occur here, in Baltimore, within our own streets and towns.

That's just me.

But Tom J might be right. If it's "only" about kicking a football, Tucker is a Ring of Honor guy and that's that.

pga championship preview

This year's edition of the PGA Championship seems like such a no-brainer that it will probably be the year that someone like Alex Noren or Taylor Moore wins out of nowhere.

The second major of the golf calendar moves to Charlotte, North Carolina (May 15-18) at Quail Hollow, where there is a regular TOUR stop (except for this year) every May. It's also the course where Justin Thomas won his first major (PGA) in 2017.

There was a time -- a long while back -- where the PGA Championship was sorta-kinda known for producing "odd" winners. Sure, it provided household name champions like Paul Azinger ('93), Nick Price ('94) and Davis Love III ('97) but it also threw in the occasional "who's that?" champion like Jeff Sluman, Shaun Micheel, David Toms, Rich Beem and Y.E. Yang.

Of late, it's morphed more into a household name event based mainly on the PGA of America deciding they want their championship course to play at some ridiculous number like 7,700 yards. The only "odd" winner of the last decade or so is probably Jimmy Walker back in 2014. Since then, it's been guys like Justin Thomas, Brooks Koepka, Collin Morikawa and last year's winner, Xander Schauffele.

As you'll later on, we're of the mindset that the winner is going to be "a name". That said, we've done something different this time around. We're going to give you our top 12, but in groups of four.

The first group will be "Outsiders with a chance".

The second group will be "Major-less no more?", which will focus on four top players who have never won a major that might be good fits for Quail Hollow and this year's PGA.

And the last four will be our "go-to-four", the final four players we feel have the best chance of winning this year.

Kurt Kitayama came in at #12 for us. #11 was Akshay Bhatia. Erik van Rooyen is at #10.

#9 Keith Mitchell -- OK, so, one thing for sure. If Keith Mitchell (who shot -9 yesterday at Philly Cricket Club) wins the Truist this weekend, he's NOT winning the PGA Championship next weekend.

But when I put my Top 12 together and had Mitchell at #9, I didn't know he'd shoot 61 on day one of the Truist.

By the way, if there was ever a golf course in this area that I've played where I can't believe guys are shooting 61-62-63 with ease, it's Philly Cricket. For most humans, that place is hard. Like, really hard.

Alas, it wasn't hard for those guys yesterday. But anyway...

Keith Mitchell is the perfect conclusion to our "Outsiders with a chance" group that make up our 12 through 9 players we like for next week's PGA.

You're going to hear (read) a familiar theme with Mitchell.

His driving stats are top of the order on the PGA Tour. He drives it straight. He drives it long. He can give himself reasonable eagle chances on almost every par 5 because of his length off the tee.

His iron play is outstanding. Again, he's among the best on TOUR in several shots gained categories when it comes to approaching the green.

His putting...is not very good.

And that's why Keith Mitchell has one career win instead of 6 or 7 at least.

But if you're looking for a Rich Beem or Shaun Micheel winner next week, this could be the guy. If he gets any kind of solid week from his putter, Mitchell could be a major champion next Sunday night.

Best of all? He's currently at 275-1 to win. The people who set PGA Tour odds must not actually "watch" golf and follow the TOUR.

275-1 for one of the best tee-to-green players in golf is incredibly attractive.

faith in sports

I have to admit, I missed this one six or so weeks ago when it first came out on CBN Sports.

But I'm glad I found it now.

I hope you'll give a little over 4 minutes of your time today to watch the video below that details how Auburn's basketball team came together in '24-25 thanks, in part, to a team Bible study that got started this past season.

I say this all the time. Nothing in sports is better than when an athlete has a chance to talk about himself/herself and they instead talk about God.

We've conditioned our athletes to brag about themselves. They have a big game and we immediately stick a microphone in front of their face and say, "Tell me about YOU."

What's best is when a player says, "No, I'd rather tell you about God."

That's when you know a player really "gets it".

Thanks, as always, to our friends at Freestate Electrical for their continued support of #DMD and our Friday "Faith in Sports" segment here.

Thursday May 8, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3908

is it officially a "freefall"?

I stole the headline from my crazy friend, Chris, who interrupted my evening of watching awesome Mike Malaska golf lessons on YouTube last night with this text at 10:11 pm.

"Well, is this officially a freefall now, Drewski?"

I guess that's a good word for where the Orioles are at this point.

Last night's 5-2 loss in Minnesota drops the Birds to 13-22. That's also four straight losses, but we're not counting, right?

In a cruel twist of fate, Charlie Morton fell to 0-7 on the year but almost produced an acceptable outing last night, going 4 innings and "only" allowing 3 earned runs, which all came off the swing of one bat in the 3rd inning.

Former Oriole Danny Coulombe was the winning pitcher, speaking of cruel twists of fate.

At 13-22, this is now starting to merge from "got to get it going soon" to "if we don't fix this soon we're in big trouble".

There's also the ongoing "Hyde watch".

I know Mike Elias said all the right things about the Orioles manager last week, but at some point, if this turns into an embarrassing collapse in May and the O's are something like 16-34 after 50 games, you'd have to move him on, right?

If Elias sticks with him, what message does that send?

Anyway...

Let's do some quick math.

It's likely going to take 88 wins to make the playoffs in the American League.

The O's would need to go 75-52 over their final 127 games to make the post-season.

Impossible? Of course not.

But you'd be asking a team who has 22 losses in roughly six weeks to "only" lose 10 games a month, basically, between now and the end of September.

Impossible? No. Ambitious? Very.

I'll repeat what I've been saying for a while now about the O's and their pitching and hitting woes.

I've seen a lot of teams start the season hitting, as a team, to a "4" on a 1-to-10 scale, but they wind up getting their act together in the summer and finish the year hitting a "7" on that scale by season's end.

In other words, I've seen plenty of teams start off slow on the offensive end but get it going as the season goes on.

You almost never see that with pitching.

It's actually the opposite.

I've seen lots of teams start out the year pitching, as a team, to a "7" or "8" on that 1-to-10 scale. But as the innings pile up and the games come fast and furious, that "7" becomes a "5" and later, in September, everyone's throwing on fumes and the season ends with the team's pitching staff at about a "4".

You almost never, ever see a team start out the season pitching terribly and somehow turning it around over the last 3-4 months of the season.

Hate to be a Debbie Downer.

But I don't know if it's going to get much better.

Sure, Zach Eflin's return will help.

But there's only one of him, not four of him.

And he also can't start and pitch in relief, either.

Is it officially a "downfall"? Yeah, I'd say so.

I'd say they're getting a break by going out to Los Angeles to take on the Angels over the weekend, but they're 13-22. At this point, the Angels are probably foaming at the mouth at the thought of hosting the Orioles for three games.

Glenn Clark and I got into a spirited discussion during my weekly appearance on his show yesterday, and it predictably centered on Justin Tucker, his release, and, of course, the prospects of the kicker someday being added to the Ravens Ring of Honor.

Tucker, Clark says, is facing a serious dilemma. In order for Tucker to even have a shot at the Ring of Honor, Glenn says he'll have to admit to his inappropriate behavior and "repair" the damage done along the way.

Clark says it will take at least 10 years for the fan base to "forgive and forget", but he's adamant that the only way Tucker ever reaches the "in consideration" stage is by admitting to his wrongdoings.

I don't know that I disagree with that.

But doing that would be a terrible look for Tucker, who adamantly denied the allegations the same day they were published by the Baltimore Banner back on January 30.

It would be one thing if Tucker never made a public comment and then, someday down the road, came out and admitted to everything.

But by saying "all of that stuff is made up, it never happened", Tucker has put himself in the awkward position of almost never being able to change his tune at all.

It's similar, I told Clark yesterday, to what happened with Pete Rose once upon a time.

Everyone in the baseball world knew Pete Rose gambled on baseball. It was actually more of a slam dunk than Bonds, McGwire and Sosa and the steroids speculation.

Rose gambled on baseball. Period. Everyone knew it.

And had Rose just 'fessed up from jump street, things might have turned out much differently for him.

Alas, he stuck to his guns and that became his undoing.

When he finally did admit to it, it was too late. The damage had been done.

Everyone was done with Pete Rose by the time he finally got smart and said, "Yeah, OK, you got me."

Do I think Justin Tucker belongs in the Ravens Ring of Honor? Well, frankly, I'd almost say "yes, if he never admits to the bad behavior" and "no, if admits to it".

Seems weird, right?

Tucker coming clean might be good for his soul and all, but I don't know that it would or should help his chances of getting in the Ring of Honor.

I mean, if he did it, you can't put him in, right? At least by contending he didn't do it and leaving a sliver of doubt, there's potentially a way to include him in the Ring of Honor down the road.

But I'm splitting hairs with that one.

It is, after all, called the Ring of "Honor", not the Ring of Great Football Players.

There has to be a little bit of integrity attached to the honor, I think.

In the end, it's so confusing and so double-sided that I'd almost just say to Tucker, "I'm sorry, but we're not going to be able to put you in. Like, ever. It's part of the collateral damage of the whole story. We love ya. But we can't do it."

	"Jack Herb's Hot Corner" #DMD's weekly look at Major League Baseball
Jack Herb chimes in weekly here at #DMD with his insight on what's going on in baseball outside of Baltimore, with predictions, analysis and "Game of the Week" previews.

With the first month of the 2025 regular season behind us, we had our 1st MVP poll of the 2025 season.

There are 46 experts who casted their votes for their MVP thus far in each league. The American League unanimous winner was Aaron Judge, who received all 46 votes for 1st place. Judge has seemed to reach a new level this season. Not only is he still hitting for power like we’ve seen from him in the past, but he is spraying the ball across the field. Judge is batting a ridiculous .412 and leading MLB in almost every stat.

He has 56 hits, 34 RBI, and 12 home runs with a 1.275 OPS. Judge is due for some sort of regression, but a .350 average 50 home run season is very much in play for him. The only player to ever do that was Mickey Mantle in 1956, where he hit .353 with 52 home runs.

To round out the remaining top 5 AL players in the poll, they were Bobby Witt Jr. (Royals), Alex Bregman (Red Sox), Cal Raleigh (Mariners), and Jose Ramirez (Guardians). These are all superstar players, but none of them received a 1st place vote. So far, it’s all Aaron Judge.

In the National League, the MVP race is much closer. As of now, it seems to be a race between Fernando Tatis Jr. from the Padres, Pete Alonso from the Mets, and Shohei Ohtani from the Dodgers.

Tatis Jr. & Ohtani are both on track to have 40-40 seasons (40 home runs and 40 stolen bases). Tatis Jr came close to having a 30-30 season back in 2023, where he had 25 homers and 29 stolen bases.

Ohtani is very capable of having a 40-40 season. Last year, he had a 50-50 season, which was the first time a player has ever done that.

Alonso is off to his best start yet in his career. He leads the National League in batting average at .341 and has a 1.123 OPS. Alonso received the most 1st place votes in the national league with 17.

With all this in mind, my money is on the 3-time MVP winner Ohtani to take home the hardware. Ohtani is a unicorn in the sport and is one of the game’s greatest hitters. Ohtani has started throwing bullpens as he recovers from Tommy John surgery and is expected to pitch at some point this season, which will greatly improve his chances of winning the MVP.

He is the current betting favorite to win the NL MVP at +220 odds which in my opinion, is great value. Going into the season I predicted Corbin Carroll to win the NL MVP, and he still has a chance to do so. It’s hard to pass on those odds right now for Ohtani.

We had another baseball oddity last Friday night in the Angels/Tigers game in Anaheim. The game was tied 1-1 going into the top of the 9th.

That’s where Riley Greene homered twice in the same inning and became the first player ever in MLB history to hit 2 home runs in the 9th inning.

I did some digging on this and a player hitting 2 home runs in the same inning is much more rare than you might think. Greene is the 62nd player in history to have 2 homers in 1 inning and, as mentioned, the 1st to do it in the 9th inning.

For there to even be a chance, a team needs to bat around the order which, from my memory this Orioles season, I only recall the Reds doing when they played in Baltimore on Easter.

Then, of course, a player hitting a home run in his first at bat of the inning, followed by a 2nd at bat where he most likely is facing a new pitcher and homering again. A lot of things have to go right for this to happen, especially in the 9th inning where the home team sometimes doesn’t even hit.

This is the 2nd time a player has homered in the same inning this season. Oddly enough, the other player that did this was Jo Adell of the LA Angels who the Tigers faced last Friday.

It’s strange that this has already happened twice this season, especially this early, when last year it only happened once. To highlight how rare of an occurrence this is, in Orioles history there has only been one player to homer twice in 1 inning.

Does anyone have a guess?

The answer is…… Mark Trumbo who did it on April 15th, 2016.

One month into the season, what has surprised everyone the most so far?

For me, I’ll start with my favorite team, the Baltimore Orioles. I wasn’t expecting this disappointing of a start from them. Going into the season, the O's had an over/under 87.5 win total. Their current over/under win total is 76.5.

I also wasn’t expecting the Detroit Tigers to be leading the American League after 1 month. I think most people expected the Tigers to be good and compete for their division with the Royals and Guardians, but not leading the entire league.

But the biggest surprise to me is what the Athletics have done so far this year. They’re 2 games back in the AL West with a respectable 20-17 record. This is a team that won just 69 games last season and were the 5th worst team in baseball.

With such a young team, it’s hard to tell if they will be able to keep this pace going all season. Needless to say, the future is looking very promising for the A's.

Players of the Week

Position Player: Marlins fans must be excited from what they have seen so far from former Oriole Kyle Stowers. This past week, Stowers batted .381 with 4 homers and 10 RBI.

Last Saturday, Stowers put the team on his back against the Athletics with 2 homers and 6 RBI, and his 2nd home run of the game was a walk off grand slam from a 102 MPH fastball thrown by the A's flame throwing closer, Mason Miller. I do wish we still had Stowers on the Orioles, but I’m happy for him that he has an opportunity to play every day and is proving he belongs in the bigs.

Pitcher: Jake deGrom is looking like the guy we saw in 2018 & 2019 where he won back to back Cy Young awards. deGrom recorded 2 wins for the Rangers last week and through 11 innings, had 10 strikeouts, 2 walks, and allowed just 1 earned run.

This past Sunday, DeGrom became the 1st MLB pitcher to reach 1,700 career strikeouts in 225 games or less. deGrom has 2 years left on his contract with the Rangers and a club option in the 3rd year.

Now at 36, it’s hard to say if he will play after his contract is up. Regardless, he is a first ballot hall of famer in my opinion.

Rookie: It’s not every week that a player on the White Sox will be highlighted in the players of the week section. Shane Smith was selected by the White Sox from the rule 5 draft this past winter from the Brewers.

In 10 innings of work this past week, he allowed 3 earned runs and had 9 strikeouts. The walks are high for Smith as he had 6 over his last 2 starts, but he manages to keep runners stranded on base. Smith hasn’t allowed more than 3 runs in all 7 of his starts this season and as you would expect from the White Sox, he doesn’t get much run support which speaks to his 1-2 record.

Smith is one of the bright spots for the White Sox this season, with a 2.41 ERA and 1.15 WHIP. I would expect him to get better as the season continues.

Games of the Week

Friday, May 9th: LA Dodgers vs Arizona Dbacks (Roki Sasaki vs Eduardo Rodriguez)

This marks the first matchup of the year between these division rivals. Roki Sasaki was one of the biggest names in baseball this past winter as an international prospect and a betting favorite to win NL rookie of the year. He’s off to a good start with a 3.86 ERA through 30.1 innings.

Can Eduardo Rodriguez get back on track for the Diamondbacks and shutdown the star-studded Dodgers? Rodriguez has not lived up to expectations since he was signed 2 years ago, let’s see if he can turn it around.

Saturday, May 10th: Texas Rangers vs Detroit Tigers (Jake deGrom vs Jack Flaherty)

This should be a great pitching matchup, and we will see The Hot Corner’s pitcher of the week in deGrom. What also makes this game interesting is watching what the Rangers do on offense as they just fired their hitting coach earlier this week.

Sunday, May 11th: Chicago Cubs vs New York Mets (Matthew Boyd vs Griffin Canning)

This series will be very fun to watch all weekend as 2 of the top 3 teams in the National League face off against one another. Another great pitching matchup also as both starting pitchers have sub 3 ERAs. I can see this game being the rubber match for the series. Keep in mind though, the Mets splits show they are much better at home this year with a 13-3 record, and they will be home in this series.

pga championship preview

This year's edition of the PGA Championship seems like such a no-brainer that it will probably be the year that someone like Alex Noren or Taylor Moore wins out of nowhere.

The second major of the golf calendar moves to Charlotte, North Carolina (May 15-18) at Quail Hollow, where there is a regular TOUR stop (except for this year) every May. It's also the course where Justin Thomas won his first major (PGA) in 2017.

There was a time -- a long while back -- where the PGA Championship was sorta-kinda known for producing "odd" winners. Sure, it provided household name champions like Paul Azinger ('93), Nick Price ('94) and Davis Love III ('97) but it also threw in the occasional "who's that?" champion like Jeff Sluman, Shaun Micheel, David Toms, Rich Beem and Y.E. Yang.

Of late, it's morphed more into a household name event based mainly on the PGA of America deciding they want their championship course to play at some ridiculous number like 7,700 yards. The only "odd" winner of the last decade or so is probably Jimmy Walker back in 2014. Since then, it's been guys like Justin Thomas, Brooks Koepka, Collin Morikawa and last year's winner, Xander Schauffele.

As you'll later on, we're of the mindset that the winner is going to be "a name". That said, we've done something different this time around. We're going to give you our top 12, but in groups of four.

The first group will be "Outsiders with a chance".

The second group will be "Major-less no more?", which will focus on four top players who have never won a major that might be good fits for Quail Hollow and this year's PGA.

And the last four will be our "go-to-four", the final four players we feel have the best chance of winning this year.

Kurt Kitayama came in at #12 for us. #11 was Akshay Bhatia.

#10 Erik van Rooyen -- OK, so, like anyone at 150-1 for next week's PGA Championship, van Rooyen has a significant flaw in his game. He's not a great putter. But he sure was a great putter last week at TPC Craig Ranch when he finished second to Scottie Scheffler.

Off the tee, he's a dynamo. He's in the top half of the TOUR in almost every driving stat, including distance, accuracy and shots gained.

And if that data isn't convincing, this stuff below all bodes well for him next week at Quail Hollow.

He's 38th in greens hit in regulation.

He's 35th in proximity to the hole.

And he's 3rd on the TOUR in approach shots from 200 yards or more at 44 feet.

He's just not a great putter. But he has weeks where he putts great, which is all he needs next week, just like he had last week in Dallas.

van Rooyen is an exceptionally underrated player. If he putted like Scottie Scheffler, he'd win 3 or 4 times a year.

The golf course won't intimidate him next week. He hits it plenty far enough to compete. Can he get the ball in the hole quickly enough? That's the question.

I do know this. He's a great investment at 150-1, that's for sure.

Wednesday May 7, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3907

wednesday quick hits

There's so much to unpack from a day of Tuesday news, I don't know where to start.

The Orioles had a Beatles Stray Cats in their 9-1 loss to Minnesota last night. That is, 3 hits. In total. Mountcastle, Holliday and Kjerstad were the only O's with hits in the shellacking.

Cade Povich was good for 2 innings. Coby Mayo didn't help in the field, with two errors at third base.

That's pretty much the game review. Minnesota scored 5 times in the second inning and the game was basically over at that point.

It's not time to panic just yet, but you can definitely make sure the batteries are charged in the panic button so it lights up and makes a loud noise when you press it.

The Birds are now 13-21. They've played 34 games. In order to be .500 through 50 games, they need to go 12-4 in their next 16. I don't see that happening at this point.

Flyers fans, go ahead and rush for your calculators to check my math if you want, but I'm telling you, 13 plus 21 equals 34.

There was some internet aggravation on Tuesday that fueled the masses in advance of the O's getting drubbed, 9-1, by the Twins.

The Birds unveiled several of their planned stadium improvements that are in the development stage thanks to the free $600 million they arm-twisted out of the state of Maryland.

A new sound system and right field scoreboard are among the (needed) improvements.

People were apoplectic about the O's distributing that information on Tuesday. I don't know why, though.

The team was given $600 million from the state to improve/upgrade the ballpark. That's what the money is to be used for.

Fans were yelling at the team to "extend your players" or "sign some real free agents" but that's not the by-product of the $600 million.

The Orioles are going to have to spend their own $600 million on players. And that, of course, is a sticky point. The most they would spend on a free MLB pitcher this past off-season was $15 million. They're not giving a pitcher $250 million. Or, at least, to date they haven't showed us they're willing to do that. Maybe they will in the future. So far, though, they haven't.

I have no problem holding the organization's feet to the fire with regard to spending money on baseball players, but the free money handed to them by the state has nothing to do with player payroll. I'm sure they'd like to figure out a way to somehow sneak that $600 million into their payroll department and let the scoreboard and sound system rust, but it doesn't work like that.

The Kentucky Derby winning horse, Sovereignty, will not be racing in next weekend's Preakness, it was announced yesterday.

So, there goes that race.

The money in horse racing has gotten so big that not even the prospect of winning the Triple Crown can motivate owners and trainers to run their horse through the grind of Derby-Preakness-Belmont within a six-week window.

If your horse wins the Derby, you're set for life with stud fees and such.

Why bother bringing him to Pimlico and potentially wrecking him (or her, perhaps) for more money (or not) when you've already made enough money on the horse?

It's a bummer, for sure.

From a horse racing perspective, the only thing that makes the Preakness interesting is having the Derby winner on hand to attempt to win the second leg of the Triple Crown.

The event itself will go on, of course. 90% of the people there next Saturday don't care at all about the racing.

But from the racing perspective, the race is pretty much ruined by not having the Derby winner on hand.

Maybe the people at Pimlico don't care. Maybe "horse racing" in general doesn't care. But they might both be wise to at least consider moving the Preakness back another two weeks to see if that doesn't eliminate the concerns of the owners and trainers.

Just a thought...

You can file last night's loss under 'Caps gonna Caps' if you want, because that's sorta-kinda precisely how you expected them to lose.

One goal in 60 minutes, great goaltending to keep them in it, and then nothing of substance in overtime, where it was the visiting Hurricanes who eventually snagged the game-winning tally on a fluky shot from the point that went through four players before slipping under Logan Thompson's pads and into the net.

There's a long way to go. Caps diehards will, of course, remember going down 2-0 to Columbus in the 2018 playoffs, losing both of those games at home in overtime before rallying to win four straight.

But that Columbus team wasn't all that good.

This Carolina team is solid and seasoned. Game 2 on Thursday night isn't "must win" by any means, but if the Caps do manage to lose Game 2 at home, their backs will really be against the wall heading back to Raleigh for Games 3 and 4.

Any Caps fan worth his/her salt is already prepared for the 4-game Hurricanes sweep. Or the Game 7 double OT loss at home when Ovechkin and Wilson both hit the post in the first overtime and then Seth Jarvis snaps a shot past Logan Thompson on an underserved power play to end the series.

As a Caps fan, you go into every series thinking the best, hoping for a win, but always being prepared for disappointment.

The Ravens are still getting raked over the coals both locally and, now, nationally, for the way they handled the news of Justin Tucker's release on Monday.

A couple of national pundits crushed Eric DeCosta yesterday for his "lack of awareness" in not addressing the allegations in the team's press release.

I'm still trying to understand what good it does the Ravens to mention or highlight the story about Tucker's issues with the massage therapist story in town.

They've addressed all of it recently, essentially saying, "The league is investigating it and we'll wait to hear from them and we'll go from there." I'm not sure what else they're supposed to say in the meantime.

You're certainly not going to release Tucker and punch him in the face on the way out. All you really need to say is what the Ravens said on Monday: "We drafted a new kicker. He's going to kick for us. We have to release our veteran kicker to make room for the new kicker."

That's all that needs to be said. That might be the truth. Or perhaps the Ravens heard from the NFL and their findings weren't good and maybe the Ravens assume or have been told Tucker's going to be suspended for some of the 2025 season. Again, there's no value at all in spilling those beans once you've decided to release the guy.

The new, hot topic in town is the white elephant in the corner of the room: Should Tucker someday be in the team's Ring of Honor? That one is going to be met with a lot of discussion and controversy for sure.

The PGA Tour is in Philadelphia this weekend for the Truist Championship, which is essentially the old Wells Fargo at a different venue since Quail Hollow is the site of next week's PGA Championship.

The Philadelphia Cricket Club is an old-school Tillinghast design with all the tricks and gimmicks of a "Tilly" course. The greens have several "tricky" pin placement options, the course will play firm and fast, and the rough and bunkers are particularly penal for players who can't keep their ball in the short grass.

The top players on TOUR are in the event because it's a money-grab "Signature" tournament and it will, in part, prepare players for what they'll face next week in Charlotte at the PGA.

You can go ahead and throw your money down on Rory and Scottie if you want. We're not judging you. But the thought here is neither of them probably "wants" to win this week knowing how hard it is to win in successive weeks on TOUR. They'd much rather finish T7 this week and win next week's PGA.

We're giving you four names to strngly consider this week plus a few more who could be in the hunt on Sunday.

Ludvig Aberg comes in at +1800 and seems like a very logical candidate to win if Rory or Scottie don't. Everything Aberg does well (which, actually, IS "everything") bodes well for a completely 72 hole event at Philly Cricket. It's a new course for everyone, so it's not like others have an advantage in that department. It seems like a long, tough, course is perfect for him.

Collin Morikawa isn't "desperate" for a win, but he's getting close. He has a new caddie on the bag, which must mean he's starting to panic a little bit, but Philly Cricket is a ball striker's course and few guys on TOUR strike it as well as Morikawa. His putting is always a concern, but the layout this week will resemble a major championship in some ways and Morikawa is always up for the challenge of a major. The folks in Vegas like him. He's +1400.

Xander Schauffele is a little bit like Morikawa in that he's not "desperate" for a win, but he doesn't have one yet this year and we're in early May. This seems like the kind of tournament he wins. A "mini-major", if you will, where ball striking and thinking your way around the track is what gets the job done. He's at +1600, which is pretty inviting number for a 2-time major champion in the last 12 months.

Corey Conners is a little bit off the radar screen and his odds (+3300) are generous for sure, but if you're at a golf course where ball striking is a premium need, Conners has to be on your short list. He's still looking for that "big win" on TOUR, but he's been in the hunt enough now to put it all together this week and win. As always, it's all about putting with Conners. He could have, should have, would have won this year's Masters if he would have putted well. Maybe this is the week it comes together.

Other "shots gained" leaders who should factor in this week include Sepp Straka, Daniel Berger and Keegan Bradley. All three of them are Philly Cricket fits for sure.

pga championship preview

This year's edition of the PGA Championship seems like such a no-brainer that it will probably be the year that someone like Alex Noren or Taylor Moore wins out of nowhere.

The second major of the golf calendar moves to Charlotte, North Carolina (May 15-18) at Quail Hollow, where there is a regular TOUR stop (except for this year) every May. It's also the course where Justin Thomas won his first major (PGA) in 2017.

There was a time -- a long while back -- where the PGA Championship was sorta-kinda known for producing "odd" winners. Sure, it provided household name champions like Paul Azinger ('93), Nick Price ('94) and Davis Love III ('97) but it also threw in the occasional "who's that?" champion like Jeff Sluman, Shaun Micheel, David Toms, Rich Beem and Y.E. Yang.

Of late, it's morphed more into a household name event based mainly on the PGA of America deciding they want their championship course to play at some ridiculous number like 7,700 yards. The only "odd" winner of the last decade or so is probably Jimmy Walker back in 2014. Since then, it's been guys like Justin Thomas, Brooks Koepka, Collin Morikawa and last year's winner, Xander Schauffele.

As you'll later on, we're of the mindset that the winner is going to be "a name". That said, we've done something different this time around. We're going to give you our top 12, but in groups of four.

The first group will be "Outsiders with a chance".

The second group will be "Major-less no more?", which will focus on four top players who have never won a major that might be good fits for Quail Hollow and this year's PGA.

And the last four will be our "go-to-four", the final four players we feel have the best chance of winning this year.

Kurt Kitayama came in at #12 for us.

#11, Akshay Bhatia -- The only concern with Bhatia are his driving stats. He definitely doesn't hit it far enough off the tee (292 yards) to be considered a favorite in next week's event. That's the problem.

The solution? He is a great ball striker who generally gets his ball on the green in regulation and he's having the best putting season of his career. He's in the top 30 in the shots gained: approach category and he's top 35 in proximity to the hole as well.

It's definitely a big boy golf course and it stands to reason that all things being equal, Bhatia might not have the required distance off the tee to win next week. But...

If the weather in Charlotte stays hot and humid and the course dries out and affords the shorter hitters 10 or 15 more yards off the tee, that could come in huge for someone like Bhatia. Sure, DeChambeau or Rory or Scottie will also get that additional 10 or 15 more yards, but they don't need more length. Bhatia does.

If the course somehow gets wet and plays longer, he's in big trouble.

But his golf game is ripe for a big win and he's a great investment at 150-1.

Keep your eye on the weather and the extended forecast for Quail Hollow. If the course plays dry, firm and fast, Bhatia could definitely sneak in there and be a contender on Sunday at the PGA.

Tuesday May 6, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3906

the hay...is in the barn

And, so, Justin Tucker is now a former Baltimore Ravens kicker.

Just like that yesterday, with the distribution of one carefully-worded press release, the Ravens parted company with their embattled kicker.

Tucker is now free to sign anywhere of his choosing, although there's still the potential for some kind of league mandated punishment stemming from the allegations against him in Baltimore.

The Ravens will (apparently) now turn their kicking job over to Tyler Loop, who was drafted in the 6th round in the recent NFL Draft.

In the aftermath of Monday's announcement that Tucker was being released, the internet was on fire with people chiding the Ravens for their statement and the way they soft-peddled their way around the idea that Tucker was being released more because of the allegations than for "footbal reasons".

I usually try my very best to see both sides of a story or a debate, even if I have an opinion already in place.

In this case, I just don't see why people are hot and bothered about what the Ravens said.

"Sometimes football decisions are incredibly difficult, and this is one of those instances," Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta said in the statement. "Considering our current roster, we have made the tough decision to release Justin Tucker."

DeCosta continued: "Justin created many significant and unforgettable moments in Ravens history. His reliability, focus, drive, resilience and extraordinary talent made him one of the league's best kickers for over a decade. We are grateful for Justin's many contributions while playing for the Ravens. We sincerely wish him and his family the very best in this next chapter of their lives."

A large number of people chastised DeCosta and the team for calling the decision to cut Tucker "incredibly difficult".

Of course it was difficult.

He's your longtime, incumbent, veteran kicker, he's been under the public-eye-microscope for four months now, the details of the allegations are still largely uncomfirmed by any kind of law enforcement agency and, don't forget, there are financial ramifications that come into play by cutting Tucker on May 5.

I'm certainly not saying Tucker shouldn't have been cut. I said from day one late last January I didn't see any way the Ravens could keep him around.

That said, I also agree it must have been "incredibly difficult" to call Tucker and deliver the news.

Some folks were upset that the Ravens didn't offer a more direct statement about Tucker's role in the alleged "massage therapist stories", but, again, I'm not sure what you want them to say.

Nothing at all has been finalized with regard to the story. There are no police reports. There aren't any looming (that we know of) police investigations into any of the alleged allegations. There's a newspaper account of what happened and it certainly seems well sourced, but that's all there is at this point.

So the Ravens had no reason at all yesterday to address anything relating to the allegations.

The organization's "actions speak louder than words" moment came when they released Tucker. If you wanted them to "do something" about him and the decade-ago allegations, they did. He's no longer employed by the team. What good does it do to carve him up and spit on him while he's cleaning out his locker?

I think the Ravens handled yesterday's press release perfectly. They said what they were allowed to say -- legally -- and also made sure to make it clear that letting Tucker go was for "football reasons", which, remember, is why they're in business in the first place.

If the NFL investigation finds nothing worth punishing Tucker for, the Ravens will have done the right thing by letting him go for "football reasons".

The obvious question that will always linger is, "Would they have drafted Tyler Loop in 2025 and cut Justin Tucker in 2025 had those allegations from a decade ago not surfaced in January?"

I don't know the answer to that.

But I think the answer is "no".

Tucker's release on Monday was probably a year earlier than the team once figured it would be. In the end, it was about football, but it was also about putting out a fire that was going to roar on if someone didn't do something about it.

The Capitals kick-off their Eastern Conference semifinals tonight at home vs. Carolina, with the winner of this series facing the Toronto-Florida winner for the right to play for the Stanley Cup later this month.

Caps fans are worried about this series.

I am not, which certainly seems and feels weird to me since I'm always the guy who figures "Caps gonna Caps".

It might take 6 games, but the Caps are going to prevail.

The Hurricanes are a formidable foe, no two ways about it. Their style has always given Washington problems and they can get goals from a bunch of different players. I will say, unlike most NHL playoff series', where defense is premium, that Washington has to put pucks in the net to win and advance.

I don't see many 2-1 games against Carolina. I think it takes at least 3 goals to win every game if not 4 or more.

I'm going with Washington in 6 and hoping Toronto prevails in the other semifinal series since, we all know, there's just no way the Maple Leafs are going to the Stanley Cup Finals.

pga championship preview

This year's edition of the PGA Championship seems like such a no-brainer that it will probably be the year that someone like Alex Noren or Taylor Moore wins out of nowhere.

The second major of the golf calendar moves to Charlotte, North Carolina (May 15-18) at Quail Hollow, where there is a regular TOUR stop (except for this year) every May. It's also the course where Justin Thomas won his first major (PGA) in 2017.

There was a time -- a long while back -- where the PGA Championship was sorta-kinda known for producing "odd" winners. Sure, it provided household name champions like Paul Azinger ('93), Nick Price ('94) and Davis Love III ('97) but it also threw in the occasional "who's that?" champion like Jeff Sluman, Shaun Micheel, David Toms, Rich Beem and Y.E. Yang.

Of late, it's morphed more into a household name event based mainly on the PGA of America deciding they want their championship course to play at some ridiculous number like 7,700 yards. The only "odd" winner of the last decade or so is probably Jimmy Walker back in 2014. Since then, it's been guys like Justin Thomas, Brooks Koepka, Collin Morikawa and last year's winner, Xander Schauffele.

As you'll later on, we're of the mindset that the winner is going to be "a name". That said, we've done something different this time around. We're going to give you our top 12, but in groups of four.

The first group will be "Outsiders with a chance".

The second group will be "Major-less no more?", which will focus on four top players who have never won a major that might be good fits for Quail Hollow and this year's PGA.

And the last four will be our "go-to-four", the final four players we feel have the best chance of winning this year.

#12, Kurt Kitayama -- Our first player in the "outsiders with a chance" group is someone with one career TOUR win.

Kurt Kitayama does one thing great. He drives the golf ball like a madman. He is NOT great at getting the ball close to the hole from there and is NOT a great putter if you follow along with the TOUR putting stats.

But I always say this and stress this anytime we're talking about a "bad" putter on TOUR.

No one who makes a living playing golf on the PGA Tour is a "bad" putter. There are, however, plenty of great ball strikers and players who don't have the same abilities with their putter as they do, say, with their driver or 7 iron.

Kitayama can handle the distance at Quail Hollow. He's 4th on TOUR in average driving distance at 314.9 yards. He can bomb it. He also hits it fairly straight off the tee, ranking 11th in the "Shots Gained, Off The Tee" category. He can get the ball in play. He's just not great at hitting it close from there.

Again, though, let's be measured in our criticism of him. He's coming off of a really nice CJ Cup, where he finished T5 at 17-under par. And that course played to 7,400 yards, although it was a fairly benign 7,400 yards.

Kitayama is cut from the same cloth as Shaun Micheel and Rich Beem. He's a nice player that very few people would consider to win a major championship in golf. I always look at driving stats first. I like what I see from Kitayama. If he gets any kind of decent week with the putter, he could finish Top 20, Top 10 or be in the hunt on Sunday.

Oh, and he will offer a very nice return on investment next week. He's currently at 280-1.

Monday May 5, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3905

"that one is on hyde, period!"

My maniacal Orioles-loving friend, Chris, wasted no time at all burying Brandon Hyde yesterday after he opted for Charlie Morton in a 2-run game where the Birds were actually, almost mysteriously, enjoying a productive day at the plate.

"Is this guy drunk?" Chris asked via text as Morton took the ball in the top of the 8th with O's trailing, 7-5.

He meant Hyde, not Morton.

The veteran right hander, banished to the bullpen last week after starting the campaign 0-6, promptly retired the first two hitters he faced, then gave up a home run to make it 8-5. He then allowed a single and a run scoring double by Bobby Witt Jr. to turn a 7-5 game into a 9-5 game.

As the O's went out meekly in the bottom of the 9th to lose, 11-6, Chris chimed back in, agitated and ready for action.

"That one is on Hyde, period!" he texted to me. "I know we're not going to lose the division or miss the playoffs by one game, but if we do, this was Hyde's Mona Lisa. Morton is toast. You have a day off tomorrow and you're hitting the cover off the ball today. Why throw in the towel like that?"

A moment later my phone chimed again with more agitation from Chris.

"Why aren't you rushing to defend him? You even know it was a dumb move!"

Morton being on the team, still, isn't Brandon Hyde's fault. He doesn't compile or maintain the playing roster. That job falls to Mike Elias and his staff.

But, sure, Hyde deciding the 8th inning was a suitable time to see if Morton could get three outs, without any damage, definitely fell on the manager.

Smart move?

Well, I don't think I would have brought Morton in. But it's easy for me to say that from the comfort of my kitchen table.

Then again, I probably would have opted for Bryan Baker or Yennier Cano yesterday and both of them got roasted by the light-hitting Royals. The Orioles actually employed six different pitchers on Sunday and five of them gave up at least two runs each.

The only guy with a clean scoresheet was Keegan Akin.

So, in the end, every Baltimore pitcher but Akin was ineffective on Sunday.

I realize Brandon Hyde is low-hanging fruit these days and the insertion of Morton yesterday was definitely odd given the O's aren't playing this evening.

I'm not a subscriber to the concept of "The manager/coach did 'x' so he has to be fired." Nothing I've seen from Hyde in the first two months of the season has changed my opinion one way or the other on him, but I'm not going to allow the Morton decision on Sunday to get me to slap my thigh and say, "That's it! He's done!"

That Charlie Morton is still on the team's roster is the real head scratcher. It's not my $15 million, granted, but I'm sure the O's have seen enough of Morton to know he's baseball's version of Paul McCartney. In other words, he just doesn't have it any longer.

That Mike Elias hasn't cut the cord with Morton is a far bigger story than Hyde trying to coax him into a clean 8th inning on Sunday in Baltimore.

There was a moment in yesterday's final round of the CJ Cup in Dallas where Scottie Scheffler had played 36 holes of front nine golf in the four day tournament and was, on those 36 holes, a whopping 22-under par.

As I mentioned here on Wednesday in the tournament preview, TPC Craig Ranch is a powder-puff golf course as far as TOUR layouts go. It might measure out to 7,400 yards, but it's an easy 7,400 yards. Scheffler finished the tournament at 31 under par to win by eight shots, and that included a bogey at the 71st hole and a par on the 18th hole which was an easy par 5 for Scheffler and the rest of the field.

31 under par in 72 holes of golf.

On a supposed "real" golf course.

Remarkable.

Scheffler earned his first win of the 2025 season and moved to 2nd in the FedEx Cup standings with the victory. It was his 14th career PGA Tour win.

The PGA Championship is two weeks away. Quail Hollow in Charlotte will reward a player who hits it a long way off the tee (Scheffler), can put his irons in the right spot on the greens (Scheffler) and can make enough birdies to offset the two or three bogeys he'll no doubt make each day (Scheffler).

Rory McIlroy is the current betting favorite, which makes sense, given both his play in 2025 thus far and his track record at Quail Hollow.

Bryson DeChambeau won yesterday on the LIV Tour (yes, it's still in business) and should be a definite factor at the PGA Championship.

The layout and the requirements for success are perfect for a guy like Ludvig Aberg as well.

It just seems almost impossible for one of those four, if not two, three or all four of them, to be in contention on Sunday, May 18 at Quail Hollow.

Scottie Scheffler's game is definitely percolating at the right time, as he showed everyone on Sunday in Dallas.

31 under par in 72 holes.

It's hard to believe.

The Ravens are keeping the Justin Tucker story as quiet as they can as April turns into May, but it's fairly evident something is brewing in Owings Mills.

There's the massage therapists angle they have to consider.

There's his spotty kicking record in 2024, too.

And there's the benefit, if you will, of designating him as a post-June-1 cut to save some money on the salary cap.

There are, as Buck Showalter used to say, "lots of moving parts".

Here's what John Harbaugh told the media on Sunday when asked about the team drafting Tyler Loop last weekend.

"Every decision we make has to be based on football. There's a lot of layers to that. You've got a rookie kicker and here you took him in the sixth round, early in the sixth round. He's a talented guy. Just from a football standpoint -- salary cap, all the different things that you just take into consideration -- whatever we decide to do over the next few weeks will be based on football."

"Based on football" could lead people to believe the team isn't all that concerned with the Tucker massage therapist saga that surfaced in January.

Harbaugh did acknowledge the Ravens are still waiting to hear from the NFL about their investigation of the Tucker allegations.

"I would just say from a standpoint of the investigation and all that, I mean we don't know anything," Harbaugh said. "We haven't been given any information, and as it should be. It's all done the way it's done. So, we don't know anything along those lines, so we can't make any decisions based on that."

So the Ravens are going to make a "football call" on Tucker as long as they get information from the NFL sometime this month. Right?

But what if they don't get information from the NFL in May?

Do they roll the dice and keep Tucker around, risking a possible suspension by the league for some portion of the 2025 season?

If they do keep him around, there's a cost associated with that move.

They can decide now that no matter what the league does, Tucker's going to be a post-June-1 cut. That seems like the safest, cleanest way to go about it, particularly in light of drafting Loop.

The way I see it, if the Ravens were definitely going to keep Tucker around, wouldn't they just say that now? I mean, if you announce you're keeping him and then he gets suspended for 4 games, you have an in-house replacement in Loop ready to go in September.

If you are keeping Tucker, just say that now.

Using the month of May to supposedly put the pieces together to make the right decision just seems like an attempt to kill time and deflect the inevitable news that's coming.

All that said, here's my "official" hunch on Tucker. No one in the Ravens organization has told me this, hinted at this or otherwise suggested this to me. This hunch is all mine. It's just the way I've pieced it together.

Deep down, I don't think the Ravens want to get rid of Tucker because of the massage therapists story. I do (mostly) believe Harbaugh when he says it's a football issue. If Tucker is still a better kicker than Loop, he remains the team's #1 kicker.

I'm not saying they think the massage story is a total nothing-burger, but I do think they're of the mindset that it happened a decade ago when he was younger and dumber and holding him accountable now to the point where he loses his job over it is harsh.

That said, they're also leery of the fact that by keeping him around they risk alienating a segment of their fan base who wants their athletes to be held responsible for mistakes/crimes in the same way regular citizens would be. They also know they once pledged "zero tolerance" for issues of (general term here) "abuse" and by keeping Tucker around, it could look like they're ignoring that self-edict.

So, what the Ravens really prefer is that the NFL handles it. It's a little bit like Kendrick in the movie "A Few Good Men" wanting the guys in his platoon to handle the Santiago situation. Kendrick knew he would be in deep doo-doo if the story got to Jessup that Santiago was trying to rat out someone in the platoon in exchange for a transfer. So he issued the code red and said, "You boys take care of the situation."

That's what the Ravens are doing.

They'd prefer the NFL issues the code red on Tucker rather than Bisciotti having to do it himself.

The Ravens can then say all the right things about the NFL and respecting the process and blah, blah, blah.

If the NFL hands this back to the Ravens and says, "We find no fault with this man," then the Ravens are in a pickle. They'll be forced to do "something" themselves.

And I think they'd rather avoid that if at all possible.

But the kicker to the whole thing (no pun intended) is they used a 6th round draft pick on a replacement for Justin Tucker. And that replacement is either going to play in 2025 or 2026. There's almost zero chance the Ravens would keep Loop around for two full years without using him.

If they decide to keep Tucker around, I'm sure Loop will get a late August knee injury or toe injury that will -- *ahem* -- require him to be placed on the injured reserve list for the 2025 season. They didn't draft that kid to not have be their next full-time kicker, that's for sure.

	"Randy On The O's"
Randy Morgan takes #DMD readers through the recent week in Orioles baseball as the Birds try to earn a third straight A.L. playoff appearance.

orioles week in review

Week Record: 3-3

Season Record: 13-20

AL East Standing: 5th (5.5 GB of NYY)

Player of the Week: Ryan O’Hearn - .316 AVG 3 HR 6 RBI

The good news…it was better than last week.

The bad news…the Orioles dropped two of three over the weekend series with Kansas City and remain in the cellar of the AL East after a 3-3 week.

With the chance for a rare winning week on Sunday, the pitching once again doomed the O’s as Kyle Gibson struggled for the second straight outing and the Royals lit up an overtaxed bullpen, ending the week on a down note.

The week opened positively as the Orioles edged out the Yankees 4-3 behind Tomoyuki Sugano’s eight strikeouts over five scoreless innings on Monday. Ryan O’Hearn provided the key offense with a three-run homer in the third inning. Felix Bautista sealed the victory with a perfect final inning, striking out two Yankees for his fourth save.

That was followed by a disaster on Tuesday, as the Yankees hammered the O’s 15-3, highlighted by six home runs, including three consecutive homers to start the game off Kyle Gibson, who struggled in his season debut. Gunnar Henderson hit a solo shot in the seventh, but the game was already out of hand.

The Orioles bounced back to clinch the series against New York on Wednesday, winning 5-4. Ryan Mountcastle snapped an 0-for-18 skid with a two-run homer, Ramón Urías followed with a solo blast, and Adley Rutschman added an RBI single. The bullpen held firm, and The Mountain closed it out again, fanning Trent Grisham to strand Aaron Judge in the on-deck circle.

After a day off, the Birds shut out Kansas City 3-0 on Friday. Dean Kremer delivered his best outing of the season, throwing seven stellar innings, allowing just three hits. Ryan O’Hearn continued his clutch hitting with a decisive two-run homer, and Emmanuel Rivera added insurance with an RBI single. Bautista notched his sixth save, preserving the Orioles' second win streak of the season.

The momentum was halted on Saturday as Kansas City returned the favor, with lefty Kris Bubic once again blanking the Orioles in a 4-0 loss. A strong effort from Sugano (6 IP, 2 ER) wasn't enough as Baltimore managed just six hits, three from Gunnar, but none timely.

The Royals then took the rubber match on Sunday, prevailing 11-6 in a back and forth game. Jackson Holliday crushed two homers and Cedric Mullins and Ryan O’Hearn joined him with solo shots, but it was all for naught. Kyle Gibson surrendered three runs in just four innings and a tired bullpen melted down after the starter turned it over.

Despite the mediocre results there were a handful of standout individual performers this week. Tomoyuki Sugano continues to be one of the bright spots of the season, allowing just two runs in eleven innings while striking out twelve in two starts this week.

Dean Kremer also bounced back to pitch a gem on Friday. Jackson Holliday had a breakout week at the plate, batting .467 on the week with two homers and fellow young star Gunnar Henderson batted over .400 as well.

However, it was Ryan O’Hearn who did the most damage and earned the Player of the Week award. O’Hearn not only belted three homers and drove in six runs, but came up with timely hits throughout the week. Along with Cedric Mullins, O’Hearn has been one of the only consistent hitters throughout the first month of the season.

Down on the Farm –

AAA Norfolk had an up and down week but finished on a positive with a 9-3 win on Sunday. Coby Mayo kept his bat hot earlier in the week, hitting two homers on Wednesday before being called up to the big leagues to replace the injured Ramon Urias.

Outfield prospect Dylan Beavers continued to lead the Tides offense, hitting .417 on the week with two doubles, five RBI and two stolen bases and extending his hitting streak to 13 games on Sunday.

In addition, top prospect Samuel Basallo returned from injury and launched a mammoth homer and pitching prospect Chayce McDermott made his return from injury as well. Brandon Young delivered a solid start after dropping down from the big leagues last week.

At AA Chesapeake, catching prospect Creed Willems continued his strong season, hitting two more homers and driving in four runs. Meanwhile, 24 year old pitching prospect Braxton Bragg was outstanding on the mound, striking out 13 over 9 innings while walking only two and allowing just two runs over two starts. The 2023 8th round pick, lowered his season ERA to 0.61 with 39 Ks over 29.2 innings.

Also of note, Zach Eflin made his first rehab start in High-A on Sunday, throwing four scoreless innings. He can’t return soon enough.

Question of the Week –

Where do the Orioles stand after one month and what are their playoff chances?

A month into the 2025 season, the Orioles are staring at a much different scenario than the club or its fans had envisioned.

With a 13-20 record through approximately the first month of games, Baltimore currently occupies last place in the AL East, trailing the first-place Yankees by 5.5 games and sitting 5 games back from an AL Wild Card spot. Coming off two consecutive postseason berths, the O's now face a significant uphill battle.

Offensive Struggles: Despite potentially turning a corner this week, the offense has notably underperformed. Through early May, the Orioles are slashing just .224/.295/.378, ranking 23rd in MLB with a .673 OPS, a far cry from last year's robust .751 OPS, which ranked fifth overall.

Their OPS+ sits at 97 or 3% below league average and they've scored only 123 runs, placing them in the bottom third of the league in offensive production, compared to 786 runs (4th-best in MLB) in 2024.

As discussed here last week, the underlying numbers are positive for the O's bats and this week seemed to show some light at the end of the tunnel, with Gunnar's hard hit balls starting to find the holes and Jackson Holliday beginning to breakout in his second season. They’ll need to realize that potential if this team is going to get back on track to make any kind of postseason push.

Pitching Woes: If the bats have been shaky, pitching has been downright disastrous. Baltimore’s pitching staff currently sports a troubling 5.24 ERA, ranked 28th in MLB. The starting rotation, in particular, has struggled mightily, posting an alarming ERA of 5.66. The team ERA+ of 71 is a dramatic drop-off from their roughly league average 97 ERA+ in 2024.

The absence of projected top starters Grayson Rodriguez and Zach Eflin has severely limited rotation depth. Veteran Charlie Morton, initially slated as a stabilizing presence, appears to have lost his battle with Father Time and has already been demoted from the rotation. Though he continues to do damage from the bullpen.

On a brighter note, the bullpen has been effective, highlighted by Yennier Cano’s continued reliability and Félix Bautista’s gradual return to form after Tommy John surgery. Though the bullpen ERA of 4.69 ranks just 24th in MLB, that is inflated quite a bit by some of the mop up innings in blowouts.

If the starters can get decent depth in a game, the back end of the O's bullpen should provide confidence they can close out games. However, the bullpen’s heavy workload due to short outings by starters risks burnout as the season progresses.

Playoff Prospects: While the current outlook seems grim, history suggests all is not lost. Teams like last season's Astros, who overcame a 7-18 start to win their division, offer some hope. Though it's unlikely 88 wins will take the AL East. For the Orioles, a turnaround isn't impossible, but it demands immediate improvement.

It would need to start with a relative return to health for the starting rotation. Getting Eflin back at the top of the rotation would be a huge boost, and there have been signs of improvement from Kremer and Povich. Some stabilization could hold the rotation over in the near term before a major trade addition or the return of injured Kyle Bradish provides a second half boost.

The offense seems destined to turn around with Henderson and Holliday coming on strong and returns on the horizon for Westburg and Cowser.

Despite that, it can't be sugar coated. Though there is some precedent for a season turnaround, it's a giant hill to climb.

Currently sitting at 13-20, the O's would need to win around 75 of their remaining 129 games, or a win percentage around .581. That's better than the .562 win percentage they produced last season, though not quite the .623 they produced in the 101 win 2023 season.

In short, while playoff prospects seem remote right now, a resurgence isn't out of the question. The Orioles must quickly regain health, shore up the rotation, and find offensive consistency to have any shot at returning to October baseball.

The next few weeks will be crucial, determining whether Baltimore's early woes are a prelude to a lost season or the start of a remarkable comeback story.

Sunday May 4, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3904

sunday q and a

I saw in the Comments section where George checked in with yet another witch hunt for the golfing-soul of one Rick Yutaka Fowler, or "Rickie" as we've always known him.

George didn't pick on Gary Woodland, Jordan Spieth or Keith Mitchell, the other three PGA Tour players who earned an exemption into next week's Truist Championship up at Philadelphia Cricket Club. His pitchfork for Fowler, though, was as sharp as ever.

Here's the thing, though. Unlike George's antiquated overview of the difficulty of Mount Pleasant, he's dead-red-right about the sponsor exemption protocols on the PGA Tour.

I'm sure you're shocked. "Did Drew just agree with George?"

I did.

Now, I might tweak a couple of things he wrote. I do believe a PGA Tour sponsor should feel free to invite any player of their choosing. That's why they're called "sponsor exemptions". The key word there is "sponsor".

I'm not willing to say, "You can invite Luke List or Scott Stallings (just pulling two names out of the air) but you can't invite Rickie Fowler or Keith Mitchell because we're tired of them getting free rides into tournaments." If you're a sponsor and you want Fowler and/or Mitchell, you can invite them whenever you want.

Almost...

I think the PGA Tour should allow each player (or, any player) a maximum of three sponsor exemptions in any one PGA Tour season. Once you've asked for three and received three, you're done asking until next season.

You can ask for as many as you want. But you can only be awarded three per-season.

That's what I would do if I ran the PGA Tour.

And if you want to argue that three should be two, I'll listen to that. Or if you want to say a player can only receive two exemptions into Signature events and the other one has to be at a "non-Signature" event, I'm good with that.

I understand what sponsors of sports events want, in terms of marquee value of the athletes and how they draw (or don't draw) crowds to the event and eyeballs to the TV sets.

No matter what any of us thinks about Rickie Fowler and how much he "deserves" a sponsor's exemption, it is undeniable that more people in Philadelphia will pile into their vehicles next week to see him play than they would to see Joe Bramlett or Aaron Wise play in the Truist.

And should Fowler somehow play his way into one of the three or four final groups on Saturday or Sunday, far more people will be inclined to tune in and watch him over, say, Davis Riley or Ben Kohles.

In the end, I understand why the folks at Truist want Spieth (3-time major champion), Fowler (multiple time Ryder Cup player and longtime TOUR veteran) and Woodland (2019 U.S. Open champ). I'm not sure what their affection is for Mitchell, but he's certainly a very nice, underrated player.

But there has to be a limit to how many times a player can get exempted into an event he otherwise failed to qualify for.

George and I have the same general agreement in principle: Make the players earn their way into (most of) the tournaments they want to play.

Sovereignty got a great ride from Junior Alvarado and outdueled race favorite Journalism in the final 200 yards to capture Saturday's Kentucky Derby on a sloppy, lifeless track at Churchill Downs.

Citizen Bull and Neoequos set the pace, as expected, and Neoequos actually hung around much longer than expected before shutting it down with a quarter-mile left in the race.

Late race entry Baeza made a spirited rally to claim third and Final Gambit also showed some late eagerness that resulted in a surprising 4th place finish.

There weren't any real surprises in the race, other than, perhaps, a sluggish, awkward performance from Publisher, whom some experts thought might sneak in and hit the board. The mud hit his face early in the race and Publisher snarled and said, "Yeah, I'm not up for this today."

One other horse who was heavily pushed at the betting windows on Saturday afternoon, American Promise, wound up not showing any promise at all en-route to a 16th place finish in the 19-horse field. Like Publisher, the muddy track threw him off as the horses battled for position.

Sovereignty trainer Bill Mott said afterwards, "The two best horses in the field dueled it out today. It's what horse racing is all about."

He was exactly right.

There were some horses who didn't belong in the race, which always happens at any Triple Crown race.

There were some good horses who just didn't have enough under the hood to compete at the Derby level.

And there were the two who finished 1-2. They were, without question, the best two participants in the race.

We won't gush and go overboard about the prospects of two more head-on-confrontations between the winner and the second place finisher, but it would be great for racing if both Sovereignty and Journalism make the trip to Old Hilltop in 13 days.

And if Journalism somehow triumphs at the Preakness, that would set up a best-of-3 finale at the Belmont in early June.

Let's hope it happens that way.

Horse racing deserves it.

Brad asks -- "What's your opinion on the team Buzz Williams has assembled so far in College Park?"

DF says -- "I mean, he's getting experienced college basketball players. It's not like he's bringing scrubs in and hoping they come through for him. The guys he's bringing to Maryland certainly have the "look" of Big Ten quality players.

But I have no way of knowing if they're going to be good enough to compete in conference play. And even if they have success in the conference, how do we know they're good enough at the next level?

We all thought Kevin Willard had the right team and right players this past season and they got vanquished by Florida rather easily in the NCAA tournament.

I do think Buzz Williams has said the right things and truly appears to be "all in" at Maryland. That said, Willard gave off the same impression when he took over the program. And three years later, he was breaking up with the Terps the way Tiger breaks up with his girlfriends. Sly and sleazy, in other words. I hope Buzz Williams isn't of that ilk, but only time will tell."

J.C. asks -- "You can pick one of these and bet $1,000 to win $100,000 that it happens in 2025. Which one would you choose? Rory McIlroy wins all 4 major championships in golf. The Dodgers win 100 regular season games AND go undefeated in the playoffs, winning their first series 3-0, the NLCS 4-0 and the World Series 4-0. The Ravens go 17-0 in the regular season."

DF says -- "Well, Rory could definitely win all four in the same calendar year. He has one out of the way already and the PGA Championship is at a venue where he's won multiple times in the last decade. But you're asking him to do something that Tiger and Jack never did. No one in the modern era of golf has ever done it, in fact.

On the subject of the Ravens and if they could go 17-0. Their non-divisional home opponents are New England, New York Jets, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles Rams and Houston. Detroit might be a worthy opponent. LA and Houston are decent, but nothing more than that. New England stinks, the Jets stink and Chicago will probably stink for at least one more season.

On the road, it's a different story. The Ravens non-divisional away games are at Kansas City, Buffalo, Green Bay, Minnesota and Miami. That's pretty close to a murderer's row, Miami notwithstanding.

So, they'd have to sweep the Steelers, Bengals and Browns, which is HIGHLY unlikely just on its own. And they'd also have to win those other six non-divisional home games, which is actually quite possible.

And then they'd have to go 5-0 in those tough away games. 3-2 is possible, I guess. 4-1 would be amazing. But I don't think 5-0 is realistic.

The answer to your question is, of course, "the Dodgers winning 100 regular season games AND posting three straight sweeps in the post-season." Do I think that will happen? I do not. But if you made me bet $1,000 on one of those three set of circumstances actually happening in 2025, it would be the one involving the Dodgers."

Chris P. asks -- "This question has been tossed around recently about O's owner David Rubenstein and I thought I'd pose it to you for your Q and A column. What's your grade for Rubenstein after one full year of ownership of the Orioles?"

DF says -- "Eh, I don't know how to judge him, honestly. I thought the raising of season ticket prices and the reduction of benefits for plan holders was a bogus move last summer (for the 2025 season). That certainly would have left a bad taste in my mouth if I were still a mini-plan holder.

I don't really know any of the inner workings, money wise, that came into play during the off-season as it related to signing free agents.

The O's did spend some money, that much is true. They signed Tyler O'Neill (jury's out), Charlie Morton (jury's verdict is in), Gary Sanchez (verdict in) and Ramon Laureano (jury still out).

But once they lost Burnes, or in preparation for losing Burnes, why wouldn't they have taken that money they were willing to allocate to Burnes and give it to another free agent pitcher? Some folks would say Sugano replaced Burnes, but purely from a money standpoint, that wasn't a replacement at all.

Anyway, spending money for the sake of spending it is obviously not a guarantee for success. I think we all sorta-kinda agree with that.

But not spending money on baseball players is also not a recipe for success. You're not winning that way, as the team's 13-19 early-season record would support.

So, look, I'll give him a "C" so far. It's a little early to be doing any formal kind of grading, I'd say. But if you're pressing me for a grade, it's a "C". He hasn't been terrible. But he certainly hasn't been a revelation, either. Is the organization really any different -- at least publicly -- than it was under the Angelos regime? I'm not sure."

Tom Warnquist asks -- "Help settle a friendly bar bet amongst my golfing friends. We have a 10-handicap player in our group who has shot 79, 77 and 79 his last 3 rounds. We're telling him that's more like a 5 handicap. What do you think the odds are that a 10 handicap golfer can shoot 3 straight rounds in the 70's?"

DF says -- "There's more to the question than meets the eye, but I get it. What course did he shoot those three rounds at? That's the first and most important question. What's the par on the course(s)? That's also important.

But, in general, I'd say it's mathematically "almost impossible" for a 10-handicap player to shoot consecutive rounds of 79, 77 and 79 if those rounds occur on a par 72 course of at least 6,500 yards.

It's not completely impossible. But it's close. Someone shooting 79, 77, 79 on a par 72 course is more like a 5 handicap, maybe a 6 at most. They're certainly not a "10"."

Saturday May 3, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3903

it's derby day!

Before we get to Mike Elias and the soft golf-clap he deserves for standing up and saying "this mess is my fault", let's look at today's Kentucky Derby and figure out who crosses the finish line first.

The weather in Louisville (that's, "Louis-ville" to Scottie Scheffler, remember) has gone from wildly promising to ugly-and-concerning over the last 72 hours.

Earlier in the week, the extended forecast was for blue skies and a fast track later on today.

But storms over the midwest have popped up over the last 24 hours and a more steady rain is expected throughout the morning and afternoon today. Track officials are so concerned about the precipitation they've gone to "sealing" the track with the hope it keeps the running surface from building up too much mud.

Most experts are tweaking their race predictions in anticipation of an "off" track later today.

A total of 19 horses are running in the Derby, with the #4 (Rodriguez) and #10 (Grande) horses being scratched from the race due to injuries earlier this week.

Journalism will likely go off as the race favorite at post time. Trained by Michael McCarthy and ridden by Umberto Rispoli, Journalism gives those two a shot at their first-ever Derby wins respectively. He will be at 5-2 or perhaps even 2-1 when all wagers are placed.

Sovereignty (Bill Mott/Junior Alvarado) finished 2nd in the Florida Derby earlier this year and has the kind of closing speed that racing enthusiasts love from Derby hopefuls. He'll likely be somewhere in the 4-1 range at post time.

Sandman (Mark Casse/Jose Ortiz) won the Arkansas Derby and also has that late closing speed that could come in handy today. His only flaw? In two previous races at Churchill Downs he has run very poorly in each. He should also be in that 4-1 betting range.

Three mid-priced horses could be formidable foes today if they handle the suspected "off track" well.

Publisher (Steve Asmussen/Irad Ortiz Jr.) is highly touted but has yet to win a race of any kind in his career. While Ortiz Jr. is a well respected jockey and Asmussen is a highly regarded trainer, asking a horse to make his first-ever win a Kentucky Derby triumph is probably a tad too ambitious. He might be bet down to the 12-1 or 10-1 range by post-time.

Burnham Square (Ian Wilkes/Brian Hernandez Jr.) has two recent wins on his chart (Holy Bull Stakes and Blue Grass Stakes) and a qualified guy in the irons in Brian Hernandez Jr., but his penchant for coming off the pace might be challenged with the large field bunched up around him as the race goes on. Expect him in the 15-1 range, perhaps a smidgen lower.

Citizen Bull (Bob Baffert/Martin Garcia) is one of the more interesting entries in the race. He loves being the front runner, although it's worth noting he coughed up a late lead at the Santa Anita Derby last month in a race won by today's projected favorite, Journalism. The big question: Can Citizen Bull get out of the gate quickly and jump to the lead from the #1 post position he occupies? Expect him to be in the 8-1 range.

One very interesting "off the radar" opportunity involves the Japanese horse, Luxor Cafe. He got into this race strictly from his performances in stakes races in Japan, so there's not much real intel on him. He's sired by 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharaoh, which makes the horse definitely worth your consideration based on bloodlines alone.

How do we see the race?

We're going to go on the hunch that the track will be "off" by race time. If it's not, oh well. But given that the experts are calling for bad weather up until about 4:30 pm in the Churchill Downs area, we're going to mix in the expected and unexpected with our wagering decisions.

#2 Neoequos (Luis Saez, jockey) hasn't won a graded stakes race, but two of his other victories, albeit at shorter distances than the one he faces today, came on sloppy, rainy days. Saez can get the best out of this horse if the track is off.

#9 Burnham Square will settle in nicely in the early going and make his move at the mid-way point. As long as he doesn't get rattled in traffic, expect Brian Hernandez to have him there at the final turn.

#14 Tiztastic (Joel Rosario, jockey) is another Steve Asmussen entry, and if Asmussen didn't think this horse had a shot at hitting the board, he wouldn't in the race. He's a closer. The off track might be a nuisance for him, but nothing in his past tells us that.

#17, Sandman (Jose Ortiz) is a late closer type who just needs to make sure he doesn't get too far behind while jetting out of that outside post position. If Ortiz gets him settled in nicely at the quarter mark of the race, he should do just fine.

#DMD's projected order of finish:

#17, Sandman

#9, Burnham Square

#14, Tiztastic

#2, Neoequos

Mike Elias met with the media on Friday night before the Orioles 3-0 win over Kansas City and basically said this in a nutshell: "We're not happy with where we are but we're going to be OK."

He basically took the blame for the team's 12-18 (now 13-18) start and noted that he wasn't going to panic or do something goofy like fire the manager six weeks into the season.

The O's then went out and blanked the Royals, 3-0, as we got one of those high quality starts from Dean Kremer that we seem to get about six times per-season.

"It is difficult to contend with [that] level of injuries, but even that aside, they've had a poor start, and that's my responsibility. I'm in charge of baseball operations," Elias told the media. "When we have a bad record to start the year, that's my responsibility."

I hope the folks in town who have been clamoring for Elias to say "this is on me" are happy now.

It's also worth nothing Elias defended Brandon Hyde when asked about his evaluation of the manager in the midst of the team's rocky start.

"When things are going great -- and they have at times here, we've had that -- and then when we're experiencing failure, it's really important in that job, and in my job too, to be consistent with your approach," Elias said. "He's doing that."

OK, so it wasn't a rock-solid, glowing, "hear me loud and clear, the manager's not getting fired" kind of statement. But everything in Elias's voice and body language indicated he was telling the truth when he made that comment about Hyde and then moved on to another subject.

"We are all working very hard, and we have a lot of faith in this very talented group," Elias stated. "Piece by piece, step by step, we're going to get guys healthier; we're going to get guys performing more to their norms. If there's something we can fix with a player, we're working on that."

He sounded a lot like most of the words you've seen written here from time to time over the last 3-4 weeks.

"The Orioles need their injured players to get healthy more than anything else..."

A fully healthy roster might not be good enough for this edition of the O's, but it's going to yield them much better results than 12-18 every thirty games.

Starts like the one they got from Dean Kremer last night also help.

Friday May 2, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3902

the derby is this saturday, yes

There was a time, maybe 20 or 25 years ago, where the Kentucky Derby was a really big deal.

I mean, it was a big deal 50 years ago too. And 40 years ago as well.

At some point in this century, though, the race lost its "global luster", if you will.

There are still lots of people who care about the Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes. Each of those three events will feature large, bulging crowds in the stands and in the infield. When I say "global luster", I'm mainly referring to the casual sports fan, not the horse racing enthusiast.

The race is this Saturday and I'm one of those "casual fans" who loves the Triple Crown series and I have almost no idea of what's going on this Saturday at Churchill Downs.

I know there are 20 horses in the race, which is pretty much eight too many. But there are always horses in the Derby who have no business racing at that level. What it means, a lot of times, is the best horse in the field winds up not winning because some scrub horse gets in his/her way at some point during the trip.

But it's still one of the 10 best days of the annual sporting calendar. The Preakness and Belmont Stakes are junior varsity events in comparison to the Derby.

It's just a shame no one knows the Derby is tomorrow.

We'll have our breakdown here in Saturday's edition of #DMD. By "breakdown", we basically mean we'll draw names out of a hat and throw a few bucks their way.

OK, we're kidding about that. It's a little more sophisticated than names-in-a-hat.

Oh, and there was some silver lining news on Thursday, when it was announced that Rodriguez, one of Bob Baffert's entries, was scrached from the race due to an injury. That means Mike Smith will not have a mount in this Saturday's Derby.

Smith cost me $8,800 (cash) at the 2011 Preakness when he let Animal Kingdom scoot past his horse, Astrology, in the final 300 yards and I've never forgiven him for that lack of quality jockey work.

Enjoy your day off on Saturday, Smitty.

I've enjoyed reading the Comments section over the last couple of days as people go back-and-forth about "leadership" and what not with both the current Orioles and O's teams of yesteryear.

I have no idea who this team's "leader" is. My gut says there probably isn't one, really, unless you put some stock in the recent no-manager-invited meeting supposedly organized by Ryan O'Hearn. That's a "leader" kind of thing to do, particularly if you think the manager might be offended but you couldn't care less either way.

Leaders are important in any organized structure, whether it's an office setting or an athletic team. There are a variety of leadership levels, if you will, and occasionally a leader surfaces organically or he/she is groomed for the position based on tenure within the organization or some other factor that is respected by his/her peers.

I don't see anyone outwardly having leadership qualities with the Orioles, but that doesn't mean they don't have a leader or two in their midst.

For all we know, Cedric Mullins is the absolute team leader of the Orioles and calls the shots within the locker room.

It just doesn't seem like his style, mind you. But sometimes the team leader does it quietly.

Ray Lewis was an obvious and very deserving "leader" of the Ravens throughout his career.

Ray didn't do anything quietly, whether it was crunching running backs or firing up his teammates in the locker room or on the sidelines.

Ed Reed was a great football player. No two ways about it. But Ed Reed wasn't anything close to the same kind of leader as Ray. Reed was far too moody and mercurial to be a complete leader of the team.

Joe Flacco was a leader.

It feels like Marlon Humphrey is a leader.

Most of the time, a team leader also has to be a high quality player. That's the way they gain that first layer of respect from their teammates. It's not mandatory that a team leader be a marquee name, but it's certainly "preferred".

I don't see Gunnar Henderson, Adley Rutschman or Colton Cowser being a leader of the current Orioles team. They're simply too young and haven't earned their stripes, yet.

Strictly from an age and experience perspective, Mullins and O'Hearn would be the obvious choices for the unofficial position of "team leader".

And of all the sports, my hunch is "leadership" within the team itself is the least needed in baseball. What's Cedric Mullins going to do with Adley Rutschman? Scream at him and say, "You better start hitting you creep!!"?

Baseball is such a weird sport. The players look lazy and meandering because the season is six months long and it's built to be that way. You can be hitting .210 for the two months and then go 10-for-20 and now you're suddenly hitting .275 and all is well with the world.

But a leader who yells and screams and tells you to "wake up!" doesn't seem like a natural fit in baseball.

The ultimate leader of the team -- of any team, really -- is the head coach, manager, etc. If Brandon Hyde isn't the best leader on the Orioles, something is definitely "off" within the framework of their team environment.

But aside from the manager or coach, each team does need someone "in the trenches" to serve as a conduit between the players/employees and organizational leadership.

I don't know who that conduit "in the trenches" is with the Orioles. And I'm not sure they'd be any better than 12-18 if they had someone to fulfill those leadership duties.

Let's not get it twisted, though. Leadership is important. The O's need as much of it as they can get.

Along with better pitching and betting hitting.

I don't want to steal Jack Herb's thunder, but his column yesterday about 4-home-run-games got me to thinking about other historical records of importance in baseball.

There have been 23 players in Major League history who have recorded a base hit in 33 or more consecutive games.

How many of those 23 are post-1975?

Don't go hitting the Google search bar.

Think about it. How many?

For the record, I guessed 6.

I knew Rose, Molitor, Rollins, Santiago and Uggla. I figured there was one more I couldn't remember. There were actually two more. I didn't get Chase Utley and Luis Castillo.

The answer, then, is 7.

Since 1975, that's 50 years, only seven players have recorded a hit in 33 or more consecutive games.

33 games takes roughly 5 weeks to complete. Imagine that for a second. You get at least one base hit in every game you play for a period of 5 weeks or so!

And here's the weird thing about hitting and streaks and such. It's not like you only get one chance every game to get a hit. You get, in most games, at least FOUR opportunities! Hitting a baseball thrown at you 90-plus MPH is hard enough. Hitting it into a spot where no one can catch it before you reach first base is twice as hard.

Oh, and the strangest thing of all, I guess, is this: It's getting harder and harder to have hitting streaks, apparently. The last time someone in Major League Baseball had a hit streak of 30 games or more was back in 2018-2019 when Whit Merrifield bridged a 31-game streak over those two seasons.

I don't know why that is, but the longer we go on in baseball, the harder it is to put together a hitting streak of any substance.

Pitching a perfect game is obviously very tough to do. Only 24 pitchers have ever done it.

So, too, is hitting 4 home runs in a game. Only 19 guys have managed to do that.

But 33 games in a row (or more) with a base hit? Well, only 23 guys have done it. Ever. But only 7 have done it over the last 50 years.

I thought you'd like to know.

faith in sports

If you don't know the story of Nick Vujicic, today is a good day for a crash course. There's so much more to him than I'm going to show you in the 9 minute video below.

But this 9 minutes you're hopefully going to watch will show you the ultimate test of faith and why, with God, all things are possible.

Vujicic is an amazing story.

Born with no arms or legs. And yet, he's made an incredible contribution to our world.

Imagine that for a second.

And all because he believes that God has a plan for him.

It's not a sports story, per se. But it's a story I wanted to share with all of you.

No matter what you're going through, God has a plan for you. Believe it.

Thanks to our friends at Freestate Electrical for their continued support of #DMD and our Friday "Faith in Sports" segment.

Thursday May 1, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3901

les capitaux avancent

Nighty-night up there in Montreal.

Thanks for coming.

For the first time since 2018, the Capitals have advanced to the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs after last night's 4-1 win over Montreal gave Washington a 4-1 series win.

It was a little nervy early on, as the Caps needed overtime in Game 1 and an empty net goal in Game 2 to forge ahead in the series, 2-0.

After the Canadiens snuck out a win in Game 3, the Caps rebounded with a nice victory in Game 4 to set up last night's series clincher. In the end, the better team definitely won, although Montreal was most certainly not a series pushover by any means.

The Carolina Hurricanes are next up for the Caps. And they will pose another formidable challenge for Alex Ovechkin and Company.

The return of Logan Thompson in Game 4 (after leaving Game 3 with an injury) was huge for the Capitals. He surrendered just three goals in the next two games and was certainly one of the three stars of the series for D.C., with Alex Ovechkin and Tom Wilson joining him for that honorary status.

Wilson's punishing hit near mid-ice in Game 4 was a series-changer. The Caps scored immediately thereafter and Montreal seemingly never regained their momentum in the series, as Washington piled on from there to win Game 4 and then pretty much cruised to a Game 5 win last night.

There's a lot of hockey left between now and early June, but the Caps got out of that Montreal series unscathed and should be up for the next challenge against Carolina.

The Orioles picked up a nice win last night, turning back the Yankees, 5-4, before 22,381 at Yankee Stadium South.

That victory gets the Birds to 12-18 at the 30-game mark. That's not very good, of course, but two wins in three games with New York is at least a little something to build on.

Kansas City comes to town for a 3-game weekend series that starts this Friday.

Adley Rutschman and Heston Kjerstad had two hits last night and Cade Povich was "decent" on the mound, going 4.2 innings and allowing 3 earned runs.

Six Orioles relievers allowed the Yankees just 4 hits and 1 earned run in the game's final 4.1 innings, with Felix Bautista retiring New York in order in the 9th inning to secure his second save of the series.

After this 3-game series with the Royals, the O's head to Minnesota for three and to Los Angeles for three games with the Angels. They'll then return home for three with the Twins and three with the Nationals.

Would it be too much to ask the O's to go 10-5 in those five series'? 10-5 would be great. 9-6 would be fine. 8-7 would be acceptable, I guess.

If the O's can't play over .500 baseball against these five opponents, they're in more trouble than we already think they are.

The Bill Belichick story is getting more crazy by the day, which is really saying something when you realize how bizarre his life has been for the last 12 months.

He's 73 years old and he has a 24 year old girlfriend. That, in and of itself, is tough enough to wrap your head around.

Belichick is now the head football coach at the University of North Carolina, which seems like perhaps one of the more unnatural moves in the world of sports over the last 25 years. Why on earth would the (arguably) best coach in NFL history want to drop down three notches to coach an ACC football program where 94% of the athletic supporters care only about the men's basketball program in Chapel Hill?

But as if that weren't enough chaos, he recently decided to write a book detailing all of that "winning" he did while he coached at New England.

The only problem? The book is pretty much awful.

There's nothing earth shattering in the book. No revelations about how he and Tom Brady hated one another or how he and Robert Kraft went 6 years straight without sending one another a Christmas card.

The closest we got to learning about their fractured relationship was during a recent CBS interview when Belichick admitted he didn't mention Kraft in the book or list him in the "acknowledgements" section.

That interview with CBS has sparked the latest round of controversy, as his girlfriend, Jordon Hudson, was apparently calling the shots during the interview and interrupting on several occasions to admonish the network and the interview host for asking questions she says were on the "do not ask" list.

Yesterday, Belichick made a statement through the University of North Carolina where he asserts that Ms. Hudson was not "controlling the conversation" during the interview.

"CBS selectively edited clips and stills from just a few minutes of the interview to suggest a false narrative -- that Jordon was attempting to control the conversation -- which is simply not true," Belichick said in the statement.

OK, so here's what's bizarre. To me, at least.

Why on earth would Bill Belichick write a book in the first place?

He needs $2.1 million that badly?

The man made over $70 million coaching and countless millions more endorsing stuff, doing speaking engagements, and so forth.

Why would a guy who adamantly disliked dealing with the media and the public and was as "closed off" as possible about his private life suddenly want to write a book about his life in football?

Sure, he'll make some money off the book. But at what point is that income worth ruining whatever reputation he still has in the sport?

It makes zero sense. And then to cap it off, you have a sorority sister at your side guiding you around the campus like you're there for Grandparent's Day.

The whole thing is really, really weird.

But we love ourselves a good love story in this country, even one that's bizarre like the one involving Belichick and Hudson.

Oh, and let's face it. The whole thing between Belichick and his girlfriend is probably more entertaining than Tar Heels football will be in 2025.

I've enjoyed these back-and-forth discussions about Mount Pleasant over the years with my longtime friend, George. He thinks I'm crazy when I say PGA Tour players would shoot 32-under for four days at "the Mount" and I think he's completely nuts for suggesting that because PGA Tour players in 1957 couldn't blister the course that today's players wouldn't blister the course.

Mount Pleasant is a very good test of golf. That much is true.

But it's a good test of golf for amateur players who are prone to the occasional foul ball off the tee or the three-putt-out-of-nowhere.

It would not be a good test of golf for the best 30 players in the world.

Back in the late 1950's when they held the Eastern Open at the Mount, those guys couldn't hit the first green (a par 5) in two shots on the 535 yard opening hole.

Today, the best players in the world would hit driver, followed by a 6 or 7 iron there and be putting for eagle.

I don't want to go through the place hole-by-hole, because all I would do is "cut and paste" this comment.

"On hole (x), the best players in the world would drive the ball up by the green and have an eagle chip that would likely result in another birdie."

I don't think anyone would go 61-61-61-61 (71 is par at the Mount), but the winner would have at least one round of 61, for sure.

It's important to understand, at least from my perspective, that predicting a winning score of 32 under par at the Mount for four rounds is not a slight at the golf course. I'm not poking fun at Mount Pleasant.

Instead, a score of 32 under par is simply proof-positive of how good guys like Scheffler, DeChambeau, Schauffele and McIlroy are. They can shoot 20 under par on a "tournament prepared" course with PGA Tour length, 2-3 inches of rough and greens that run 12 or 13 on the stimp meter.

That Doug Ford and Arnold Palmer and Art Wall couldn't make 8 birdies in a round 60 years ago has nothing at all to do with what Rory McIlroy would do today.

My guess is this: If you brought the top 30 players in the world to Mount Pleasant and the course was "dressed up" to the max, there would be at least two rounds in the 50's over four days, if not more.

These guys are just too freakin' good.

	"Jack Herb's Hot Corner" #DMD's weekly look at Major League Baseball
Jack Herb chimes in weekly here at #DMD with his insight on what's going on in baseball outside of Baltimore, with predictions, analysis and "Game of the Week" previews.

Another exciting week of baseball is in the books and before we break it down, we must start with what happened in the Diamondbacks game last Saturday.

Arizona’s Eugenio Suarez went 4-4 with 4 homers and became the 19th player in MLB history to have 4 home runs in a single game.

I looked a little more into this and was shocked when I learned that a player hitting 4 homers in a game is rarer than a pitcher throwing a perfect game (24 pitchers in MLB history). What makes this occurrence even more interesting is Suarez also became the 3rd player in baseball history to have 4 home runs in a game that his team lost.

Unfortunately for Suarez, the Dbacks lost 8-7 on Saturday against the Atlanta Braves in extra innings. We highlighted the Braves last week here at The Hot Corner as a team to look out for as the season goes on.

How did they manage to pull that rabbit out of their hat and come away with a win? Kudos to Eugenio Suarez and his performance. On behalf of baseball fans everywhere, we tip our hat to you.

On the other side of baseball history, the Colorado Rockies set a record going 4-24 through their first 28 games, which is the worst start to a season ever.

Orioles fans might remember (or have tried to forget) the 1988 season where we started 0-21.

This Rockies team has dethroned the O’s as well as the 2003 Tigers for worst start to a season.

There isn’t much to be excited about if you’re a Rockies fan. They have the 13th ranked farm system according to Baseball America, a little better than half the league, but you would hope to have the farm higher ranked at this rate.

Colorado is currently on pace for 23 wins over 162 games, which will be worse than the 2024 White Sox who went 41-121. I can’t imagine the Rockies only winning 23 games this year, and I really hope it doesn’t happen.

Any team losing that many games is bad for baseball in general, especially when the sport is trying to grow and reach new fans. Maybe the Rockies will go on a few winning streaks and sort of turn things around. Even the ‘88 Orioles finished the season 54-107, which is still not good but a whole lot better than 23-139.

On a more positive note, how about the Cincinnati Reds, who have looked very good this season?

They did have a 5-game winning streak snapped last night by St. Louis, but they’ve been getting contributions from everyone in their lineup.

Off-season acquisition Gavin Lux has been a key contributor, batting .352 with 14 RBIs and a .911 OPS as well as Jose Trevino, former Yankee, batting .323 with a .889 OPS.

The Reds’ pitching has also been phenomenal so far, led by young ace Hunter Greene, who has a 2.70 ERA and .85 WHIP through 36.2 innings.

A few keys to their success this year can be credited to their offense and how they bat overall as a team. They have the 6th highest batting average and have the 9th most walks. As we saw a few weeks ago against the Orioles, they constantly have traffic on the bases, which is a great formula for producing runs.

On the pitching side, Cincinnati has the 6th best team ERA at 3.37 and gives up the sixth fewest walks in baseball.

Elly De La Cruz is their superstar player at shortstop, but other than that, there aren’t many names that stick out. This Reds team meshes very well together. They’re a gritty team and are equipped to really surprise some people this year in a division, the NL Central, that’s up for grabs, especially now with injuries throughout the division.

There’s a strange thing happening right now with Devin Williams of the New York Yankees, who was once considered one of the game’s best closers. Williams is healthy as far as what we’ve been told. The problem is he has had trouble closing out a game.

Williams used to be untouchable when he played for the Brewers the past few seasons. So far in ‘25, Williams has allowed 14 earned runs through 9.2 innings of work.

To put it in perspective, his career high in earned runs is 15 through 58 innings of work back in 2021. Unless he’s perfect the rest of the way, he’s looking to set a new career high in earned runs.

It’s gotten so bad that the Yankees have moved him out of the closer role to get him lower leverage looks (If you play fantasy baseball, look to add Luke Weaver who is taking over the closer role for the Yanks for the time being). We’ll monitor the situation with Williams as the season continues, but as an Orioles fan, we won’t complain hearing this news.

Players of the Week –

Position Player: We discussed Eugenio Suarez’s historic day earlier, but let’s take a look at another player who had a great week. Andy Pages of the LA Dodgers had himself a monster week, batting .600 with 3 homers, 7 RBIs & 3 stolen bases

Pages has truly cemented himself as the everyday center fielder for the Dodgers. Keep in mind, this is a guy who Dodger fans wanted gone last year because he was struggling at the dish. The 24-year-old outfielder is proving he belongs in a Dodgers lineup that is filled with superstars.

Pages also plays fantastic defense. Just ask Rookie phenom Roki Sasaki, who is an international rookie starting pitcher for the Dodgers. Pages has robbed an opposing hitter of a home run in 3 different Sasaki starts this year.

Pitcher: Andres Munoz is the closer for the Seattle Mariners and during a time where closers across the league are struggling, Munoz is standing out amongst his peers.

With a fastball clocking in around 99 MPH paired with a devastating slider, he is a hitter’s worst nightmare to see in the 9th inning. This past week, he recorded 5 strikeouts and 4 saves through 4 innings of work.

He is currently tied for 1st in saves (11), and has a 0.00 ERA through 15 innings. Will the Mariners finally be able to win that division, where they’ve struggled in the past with the Astros and Rangers? We shall see, but they currently lead the AL West by 1 game.

Honorable Mention: Paul Skenes of the Pittsburgh Pirates blanked the Dodgers last Friday night in front of a sold-out ballpark in LA, where he went 6.1 innings with 9 strikeouts and recorded a win for the Pirates. He also went against NL Cy Young favorite Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and in this instant pitching classic, Skenes won the duel.

Rookie of the Week: Jacob Wilson is off to a great start for the Athletics and, although this past week his stats may have been down (.261 average 1 homer and 4 RBIs), he is emerging as a cornerstone piece for the A’s.

Through 28 games, he is batting .321 with a .792 OPS. He leads the team in batting average, .321, hits with 35, and tied for 3rd on the team with 14 RBI. Wilson has only struck out 6 times in 106 at bats, which is 2nd fewest on the team.

One of the approaches to rebuilding a franchise is to develop position players that play up the middle of the field (Catcher, Middle Infield, Center Field). You can compare that philosophy to the Orioles and who they drafted during the rebuild phase. That’s exactly what the A’s have done with a young catcher in Shea Langeliers and Wilson at short. Center field is still up in the air, but all signs are pointing towards the A’s turning the corner in the next couple of years.

Games of the Week –

Friday, May 2nd, Detroit Tigers vs LA Angels (Tarik Skubal vs Yusi Kikuchi)

The Tigers have proven that their postseason appearance last October was no fluke, and they are here to compete this year. We’ll get to see Tarik Skubal, the reigning AL Cy Young winner, against Yusi Kikuchi, a journeyman who signed a 3-year, $64 million deal last winter with the Angels. Can the Angels get to Skubal and beat the red-hot Tigers? I don’t see it happening.

Saturday, May 3rd, Seattle Mariners vs Texas Rangers (Luis Castillo vs Patrick Corbin)

With how close this division is to start the season; this is a series for both teams that could potentially come back to bite someone at the end of the year. The Astros have not looked like the Astros this year, which means this division is a race between the Mariners and Rangers, in my opinion.

Sunday, May 4th, Arizona Diamondbacks vs Philadelphia Phillies (Eduardo Rodriguez vs Zack Wheeler)

A rematch of the 2023 NLCS, where the Dbacks won in game 7. The Phillies will be putting up one of their best starters in Wheeler, who leads the team and 2nd in baseball in strikeouts, and look to silence the Dbacks offense, which has been red hot of late.

Wednesday April 30, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3900

3,900!

I know what you're thinking.

That headline...

The number of times Bill Belichick has said to himself, "Why am I with this woman?" since the recent CBS interview was aired.

No, no, no. Come on. It's well into the 5,000's by now.

The number of runs the Orioles pitching staff might give up in the 2025 season?

No, no, no. Come on. 1,300 maybe. But not 3,900.

The number of fans the O's will be drawing every night by mid-June if they keep playing the way they have thus far this season?

No chance. They'd draw at least 5,200 per-game.

No, 3,900 is the number of consecutive days we've published Drew's Morning Dish. Every single day since August 25, 2014, in fact.

We weren't going to bring it up at all until the Orioles got shellacked last night, 15-3.

We figured we'd start off with something positive, like publishing 3900 straight days, before we start ripping through another heartless O's performance last night. Get the good stuff out of the way first, we say, and then go for the jugular.

So, there's the good news. 3,900 consecutive days. Thank you to everyone involved for helping us make that happen.

Everyone.

Behind the scenes staffers and web developers. Our long list of marketing partners over the last 10-plus years. Our various writers, past and present. And, of course, all of you have stopped by to read the site and participate in the Comments section.

Let's celebrate Kyle Gibson's return to the majors our feat with a golf clap and an extra cup of morning coffee or juice.

And now...about those Orioles.

OK, we can either jump to conclusions with Kyle Gibson or be patient and give him a few starts to get his "feels" back and see if he can actually make a positive contribution to the O's in 2025.

Which way do you want to go?

I'm normally the patient type.

"It's a marathon, not a sprint," I'll say quite often.

I don't feel very patient this morning.

Nothing about last night was really all that surprising. I mean, sure, I didn't expect the first inning to go quite like that. Three straight homers to lead off the game? I didn't have that one on my FanDuel account, no.

I did have a nice 3-way parlay of Aaron Judge and Gunnar Henderson to homer in Baltimore, along with Shohei Ohtani to homer for the Dodgers, so let's just say I wasn't totally bummed out about that 15-3 loss and the fact that the O's managed just three hits on the night.

But I digress...

I suspected Kyle Gibson wouldn't be sharp, although I didn't think he'd give up 11 hits and 9 earned runs before 8:00 pm.

He did strike out two guys. So there's that, at least.

But last night can't really be blamed on Gibson. He's on the roster and was pressed into duty last night because the O's have nowhere else to turn. They don't have anyone on the farm worth bringing up for a spot-start and there's no one floating around on the waiver wire worth bringing to Baltimore, either.

And while their offense wasn't the reason the O's lost last night, it's more than fair to point out they were no-hit for five innings and managed just three hits in nine innings.

My O's crazy friend Chris texted me in the 5th inning: "Going through the motions. They look like a team that's quit on the manager."

Later, after a Gunnar Henderson fielding error, he added: "Gunnar's a leader? haha"

It's hard to argue with any of that commentary.

Last night, at least, it sure did look like they were going through the motions. Then again, they were losing 5-0 in the first inning and 9-0 in the 4th inning. Who wants to break a sweat when the game's over before the stadium lights come on?

As for "quitting on the manager", I don't know how that works. I don't think Kyle Gibson "quit". I just think he threw too many 91 mile-per-pitches over the heart of the plate in the first four innings.

Gunnar did manage to hit a home run in the 7th inning, but there's no denying his 2025 start is starting to approach the "concerning" level. He's hitting .227 and, even worse, his on-base-percentage is a woeful .269.

Defensively, he has 4 errors in 21 games.

Henderson won't approach 30 errors, I don't think, but he's currently on that pace.

Maybe he isn't a leader. That wouldn't be a total shock. He's 23 years old and in his third full big league season. As they like to say in the big leagues, "he still needs to earn his chops".

That said, a lot is expected of him, especially in the next couple of years when the O's have to start putting a blueprint together for giving him $500 million-plus to sign a new contract in Baltimore.

Other than Cedric Mullins and Ryan O'Hearn, no one's doing anything offensively.

That's one of the big reasons why the O's are 11-18.

Their starting pitching is terrible.

The bullpen might not be "terrible", but it's approaching "lousy".

Even their defense is suspect.

"You are what your record says you are..."

We've heard that one before.

Frankly, I'm not sure how the O's have won 11.

In tonight's series finale, it's Carlos Carrasco vs. Cade Povich.

The good news? Carrasco's washed. If ever the O's were going to get back on track offensively, it's tonight.

The bad news? Povich had a great start in D.C. last Wednesday night. He's due for a stinker this evening.

Take the "over" in this one, whatever it is, and hope for a 9-8 Birds win.

Both the internet and sports radio in town -- and even commenters here, it's worth noting -- are starting to percolate with "time to fire the manager" chatter, which isn't anything new in Charm City. As soon as the football team loses twice in five games people want John Harbaugh jettisoned.

I'm not a "fire the coach" guy. I never have been.

We've covered this edition of the O's quite a bit here and wondered how Brandon Hyde can be held responsible for Corbin Burnes leaving and Charlie Morton showing up. Or Anthony Santander leaving and Tyler O'Neill coming to Baltimore. Or Gary Sanchez coming on board to replace James McCann.

Those things can't be laid at the feet of Brandon Hyde.

That said, it's not the "losing" that generally dooms the coach/manager.

It's the "way" those losses pile up that sends the message to ownership that it's time for a change.

In the last 10 days, the O's have lost 24-2, 7-0 and 15-3.

Sure, losing 24-2 is just like losing 3-2 in the standings.

But it's not the same. The optics of losing 24-2 are far worse than losing 3-2.

Yes, they faced Tarik Skubal in that 7-0 loss. That's true.

At some point soon, though, the excuses and reasons for the losing aren't going to be enough.

I'll continue to say it here.

If the O's reach the 50-game mark and they don't have at least 20 wins, the manager has to go. That is, unless at that point the front office simply agrees that even a managerial change isn't going to save the season.

Lots of people ask me what the O's need.

That answer is very obvious.

"They need a few of their good pitchers to get healthy and return to the lineup."

I'm talking about the likes of Eflin and Grayson and Kyle Bradish, who might be able to pitch again sometime in June. Eflin should return in early May. Rodriguez might not return at all in 2025.

If the Birds get two of those three guys back, they'll help. All three would be huge.

But by the time they get two or three of them back, the season could be lost entirely.

The next 20 games basically decide their season.

If they can squirm their way to something like 22-28 after 50 games, they certainly have a puncher's chance of getting back into the playoff picture.

But if they're 18-32 after 50 games, it's night-night time for the 2025 Orioles.

I just don't see how the manager can be the difference between 22-28 and 18-32. Players play and coaches coach.

If Gunnar starts hitting, they can be 22-28. If Adley starts hitting they can be 22-28. If Holliday starts hitting they can be 22-28.

If those three continue to sputter at the plate, they'll be 18-32. And that happens no matter who manages the team.

But at some point, the guy running the ship has to pay the price for his players stinking it up.

This week's PGA Tour stop is played at perhaps the easiest venue of the entire season, TPC Craig Ranch just outside of Dallas, Texas.

It's going to be a birdie fest. Imagine if the TOUR came to Mount Pleasant for a 4-day tournament. The winner would make 32 birdies/eagles in 4 rounds at a minimum. TPC Craig Ranch won't yield 32 birdies to the winner, but I bet it will yield at least 24 subpar scores to the winning player.

The value of wagering on Scottie Scheffler to win (+280) is minimal. But this certainly feels like the event Scheffler should win to break out of his 2025 winless skid. You won't get much in return, obviously, but a winning ticket is always better than a losing ticket.

Si Woo Kim is a horses-for-courses guy at this venue and he has great value at +3000. He finished T2 in 2023 and 13th in 2023 at TPC Craig Ranch, so the course obviously suits him well. Add to that he's 3rd in the field in strokes gained since February and you have the makings of a winning player this weekend.

I'm not sure how Ben An is at +2500 and Kim (above) is at +3000, but whatever. An is having a very good last 12 months on TOUR despite not winning an event. He slumped a little earlier in the season but has rebounded nicely over the last 8 weeks. He's made 8 of 11 cuts in 2025 and has 4 top 25's to go with it. He might not be the guy to win this week, especially if the winning score will be in the 20-something under par range, but if his putter gets hot, watch out.

Because I feel like making someone a lot of summer spending money, I'm now going to go "way off the beaten bath" and give you three potential longshot winners who can also make you a nice return on Top 20 and Top 10 finishes as well.

These guys are each priced at +6600. All three have been up and down in 2025, but a week at Birdies For Everyone Country Club TPC Craig Ranch could be just what they need. Tom Kim has mysteriously wavered throughout the current season, but all he needs is one weekend with a hot putter.

Austin Eckroat hasn't done much since winning on TOUR last season, but he's a guy that's hard to pass up at that +6600 number. He'll chew up the par 5's at TPC Craig Ranch. What he does elsewhere on the course will be his determining factor.

And if you're looking for someone you've never heard of who could win this weekend, go with Jacob Bridgeman, who has very quietly put together an excellent 2025 season, with 8/12 cuts made and 3 top 10 finishes along the way.

Tuesday April 29, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3899

back....on track?

Well, that Orioles win on Monday night should quiet everyone in town until tonight when they lose 7-3.

Here's the good news: When Tomoyuki Sugano pitches, the O's have a legit chance of winning that game.

The bad news? He can't pitch every day.

Or every other day, for that matter.

So, we know the Birds are winning once every 5 days, at a minimum. So let's start there, I suppose.

Before we move on to other stuff, let's create a smidgen of balance here and give Mike Elias a polite golf clap for digging up and signing Sugano in the off-season.

It hasn't been a great 12 months for Elias.

He traded away two prospects who are prospering in Miami for a pitcher who would give up a hit to your Uncle Ned at the family picnic in August.

He failed to sign a worthy free agent pitcher with MLB experience in the off-season and the one he did manage to bring to town hasn't won a game this season.

He allowed the team's popular and successful back-up catcher to scoot out of town and replaced him with a guy who has fewer hits than Loverboy, who might have had six if you're being overly generous.

Those are just the ones that are top of mind.

If you think Steelers, Ravens, Texans Cleveland Browns wide receiver Diontae Johnson has had a rough last 12 months, his has been a walk in the park compared to what Elias has experienced.

So let's applaud him for the Sugano signing. The early returns are very favorable. He might not be following exactly in the footsteps of our 47th President, but the Japanese hurler is doing his part in helping to Make The Orioles Great Again.

Last night's 4-3 win over the Yankees was huge, particuarly given the injury news that came out late in the afternoon.

Jordan Westburg (hamstring) and Gary Sanchez (wrist) are out for at least 10 days. I know what you're thinking about Sanchez. Just don't say it out loud.

Grayson Rodriguez and Colton Cowser were both transferred to the 60-day injury list, which doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things other than both of those guys will be out at least through the end of May. I think we all suspect we won't see GrayRod pitch again this season, but getting Cowser back sometime in June would be a bonus for sure.

The Westburg departure won't be massive if Ramon Urias continues to hit, but I think we all know Urias is best used as a "semi-regular" player and not someone you have to rely on six days a week. Still, Urias is having a nice start to the 2025 season despite last night's 0-for-4 performance vs. New York.

Adley Rutschman had a base hit last night. That was good to see.

Ramon Laureano had TWO hits actually, which was probably two more than I thought he'd get this week.

And the aforementioned Sugano struck out 8 Yankees in 5 innings of work to improve to 3-1 on the year. He had good stuff on Monday evening in front of 10,000 Yankees fans and 12,775 Orioles fans on a Chamber of Commerce night in The Land of Pleasant Living.

But the big story from Monday night was what happened in the 9th inning.

With the game on the line after Brandon Hyde mysteriously removed Keegan Akin, who retired 4 hitters on 17 pitches, and Cano and Soto promptly gave up 3 runs thereafter, in came Felix Bautista to try to silence the Yankees in their final at-bat.

He got Trent Grisham to pop out, then whiffed Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger to earn the save and give the Birds a much-needed win.

Bautista's save also kept the wolves from Hyde's door for the bizarre decision to remove Akin in the 7th inning while the Birds owned a 4-0 lead and Akin was cruising without incident.

Because they're (now) 11-17, there haven't been many moments so far this season for Bautista to enthusiastically announce "I'm back!", but last night was indeed that opportunity.

It's worth noting that his control has been a bit spotty thus far in '25, but for a guy coming off of Tommy John surgery, the early returns are pleasing.

Last night's 9th inning was very impressive and much-needed. For one night, at least, all was well in Birdland.

Check back with us the next time Sugano pitches for even more delightful news. And maybe even a win for the Orioles.

Hyde also got into some hot internet water on Monday when he offered a weird, perhaps cryptic comment about pitcher Kyle Gibson, who is making the start tonight vs. the Yankees.

In the aftermath of announcing that the 37-year old right hander will start Tuesday's game vs. New York, Hyde said, "I know we’re getting an unbelievable person and a human being and a real leader, and an adult in the room I think, which is great.”

"An adult in the room..."

Hyde, I'm sure, will have to explain that one today at some point when he meets with the media at Camden Yards.

The internet lit up with speculation about that comment. There have been reports and "stories on the street" over the last 12 months that the O's locker room has, at times, been deemed "too playful" after losses. Perhaps that's what Hyde was hinting at with his remark about Gibson on Monday.

Let's hope Hyde gets to talk about 5.2 innings pitched, 5 hits and 2 earned runs allowed and not the "adult in the room" comment tonight.

Greg asks -- "I know you're not one to grade a team's draft, but overall how do you think the Ravens did last weekend?"

DF says -- "Fine. I guess? I mean, Starks looks like he's can't-miss, so that should work out very well for the Ravens. It's truly incredible how one of those kind of players always seems to fall in their lap. They should do a 30-for-30 special on it.

The other guys certainly appear as if they're going to be legit. Everyone raves about Mike Green. As long as the personal stuff is part of his past and not a life pattern, I suspect he'll be an outstanding Raven.

I know most people don't care about a kicker until he misses a 39 yarder at the buzzer to lose a game, but it would appear to me the Ravens are very convinced that Tyler Loop is going to be a bonafide kicker in the NFL. If, let's say, he's the team's "next Justin Tucker", that would mean drafting him was definitely the right move.

I don't follow college football nearly enough to have a "real" opinion on any of those players. I just assume DeCosta and his staff know what they're doing. The performance of the '25 draft class over the next four to five years will tell us if they do."

John L. asks -- "Hey Drew, I'm in one of those major championship contests that I've told you about before where you have to put 3 of your 5 players in three weeks before the tournament starts and then the other two go in on Monday of tournament week. You gave me Rory, Day and Lowry for the Masters and that worked out great! How about 3 for the PGA Championship that I can send in this week? Thanks and Go Hall!"

DF says -- "Well, you have to put Rory in either now or later. I mean, he's won at that golf course four times and he's coming in off the biggest win of his career. He's already won three times in four months. He is the definite favorite at Quail Hollow.

Justin Thomas has also won there before, in the PGA Championship no less. I think winning at Hilton Head was a big deal for him. It might get him back on track for a bigger win in '25. I'd go with him for sure.

I'm going to stick with driving distance as a key stat given how long and difficult the course will play, which means someone like Min Woo Lee makes sense. He's averaging 314 yards per-drive in '25 and it just "feels" like he's on the verge of something big this season. He's my (sorta kinda) off the radar screen guy for the PGA Championship."

Brian Preller asks -- "What was your official "take" on the Shedeur Sanders story in the draft? What happened to him?"

DF says -- "I have no idea, but I'm guessing two things rose to the top. First, without question, was the way he conducted himself at the various meetings he had with NFL teams in the weeks leading up to the draft. There are too many stories out there about his attitude and such. He definitely hurt his chances in that regard.

No matter what college football players think about themselves, people in the NFL don't give a rat's rear end how many bowl games you won or anything like that. They only care about how you project as a NFL player. Sanders walking around like he's already a Pro Bowl QB probably turned off a lot of scouts and coaches.

You can also throw Deion's involvement in there if you want, but if Shedeur was coming into the league with the skills and reputation of C.J. Stroud or some other top notch college QB and the meetings with him were impressive and favorable, NFL teams would take the "Deion baggage", so to speak.

Second, and this was sort of the point I tried to make last Thursday and Friday that no one seemed to understand: No matter what Mel Kiper or any of the other "experts" felt about him on the field, people in the trenches who do professional football for a living just don't think Shedeur is all that good.

No one is willing to turn their football team over to him on day one and say, "Here you go, take us to the promised land."

Maybe he works out as a NFL quarterback. Maybe he doesn't. The jury is very much out on him. The Saints or Raiders or Steelers weren't willing to take him and say, "Here's the keys to our franchise. Drive it around for us for the next 10 years."

Now, in fairness, a lot of teams said the same thing about Lamar Jackson. Heck, the Ravens even said it about Lamar Jackson in some ways. He wouldn't have played at all in that 2018 season if not for Joe getting hurt mid-season.

It all comes down to talent and the perceived "ceiling" you have. I don't think teams see Sanders as a guy who can turn a franchise around. This isn't the CYO or high school football. It's the big leagues."

Monday April 28, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3898

a lost weekend in detroit

No one expected the Orioles to win yesterday in Detroit.

The manager even used a lineup that was 95% guaranteed to fail in the series finale against the Tigers.

It didn't help that the Birds were facing perhaps the best pitcher in all of baseball. Tarik Skubal shut down the visitors, as expected, and the Tigers completed the 3-game sweep with a 7-0 win in the Motor City.

The baseball was so lifeless and the result so highly anticipated that someone in the main bar at Eagle's Nest asked one of the management folks to switch the TV from the O's game to a NBA playoff game. The score at the time was only 2-0.

"They could play until tomorrow against this guy (Skubal) and they wouldn't score a (effing) run," the guy said to me as the TV was switched from baseball to basketball.

Funny enough, no one else at the bar batted an eye when the channel was changed.

The Birds did manage to scrape together five hits on the day, including two from Jorge Mateo, who saw his batting average balloon all the way up to .136 with that performance. Skubal struck out 11 batters in six innings of work and allowed four of those five hits in improving to 3-2 on the year.

Dean Kremer produced what we should now just call "a Kremer". He did work into the 6th inning, which is good, but allowed 5 earned runs and walked more guys (4) than he struck out (3). Kremer's ERA on the year is 7.04. That's, uhhhh, not good.

The Orioles offense continues to be a disaster.

Sure, you're probably not winning many games when the pitchers allow 7 runs. That much is true. But I've never known it possible to win a game by scoring zero runs.

I have no idea what went into compiling Sunday's starting lineup. With their "regular group", the O's would have probably been a 25% favorite to win the game. With the lineup they posted on Sunday, that number dropped to 5%.

Maybe that's what Hyde was figuring all along.

"Why not just give Westburg, Mullins and O'Hearn the day off? Even with them, we're probably losing. Without them, they get a nice day of rest and we still lose."

And lose they did.

The O's struck out more times than a bunch of Beatles fans Flyers fans at an escort convention in Las Vegas. Heston Kjerstad had four at-bats and whiffed on all four occasions. Ramon Laureano, Gary Sanchez and Jackson Holliday each struck out twice. All nine O's batters struck out at least once.

Once again, driving in runners was a problem for the Birds. They went 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position. In the 3-game series in Detroit, they were 2-for-23 in that category.

As the losses continue to pile up, the internet burner on Brandon Hyde continues to increase.

I can't imagine Mike Elias is seriously considering firing the manager of a 10-17 baseball team. They have six home games with the Yankees and Royals coming up this week. If they go 4-2 there, they're at 14-19 and within a quick winning streak of being a .500 team again.

But if something weird happens and the O's drop 5 of 6 to New York and K.C.? That would put the O's at 11-22. Now you're starting to think about doing "something...anything" to get the team back on track.

I'll continue to say this: I'm not sure firing Brandon Hyde is even close to "the answer" for this baseball team. Nearly all of their best players are hitting .220 or lower. No one on the team is driving in runners when they're on second or third base. I don't know how the manager is to blame for that kind of lethargy at the plate.

That said, if the O's are something like 14-26 at the 25% mark (40 games), you'd have to consider making a managerial change just for the sake of doing it.

For sure if they reach the 50-game plateau and they have anything less than 20 wins, a change is in order.

That said, getting better baseball players back in the off-season would have helped.

However, guys like Laureano and Sanchez would be once-a-week throw-ins if the team's real players were hitting and producing.

Their pitching stinks.

Their offense stinks.

Their record, therefore, stinks.

It is still early, as Dean Kremer pointed out after yesterday's 7-0 loss.

The Orioles are like a Beatles album. They're better than you think they are. Mainly because they have to be.

But these next six games against the Yankees and Royals will go a long way in telling us if that's true.

Better than we think?

Or worse than we thought?

We're about to find out more.

It wasn't the prettiest way to win a playoff game, but the Caps got the road win they needed last night in Montreal, 5-2, to go up 3-1 in their Eastern Conference series with the Canadiens.

Washington can put the series away on Wednesday night back in D.C.

Because they're the Capitals, nothing is in concrete just yet. Montreal is certainly playing "up" in the series thus far. They haven't necessarily been the better team, but they also haven't resembled an 8-seed, either. A win for the Habs on Wednesday would shift momentum back in their favor for Game 6 back in Canada.

Last night, though, was about the (unexpected) return of goaltender Logan Thompson, who got the surprising start in goal and was outstanding throughout the sixty minutes. He was the main reason the score was "only" 2-1 in favor of Montreal after two periods.

The Caps got a late third period goal from Andrew Mangiapane to go up 3-2, then tallied a pair of empty net goals to put the game away.

If Thompson stays healthy and continues to play the way he has in the first four games of the series, the Caps have a real puncher's chance of sticking around for a while in these NHL playoffs.

But first they have to dispose of the scrappy Canadiens, who have their own goaltending issues to contend with, as their #1 netminder, Sam Montembeault, missed Sunday's tilt with a groin injury.

If the Caps do get by Montreal, the Carolina-New Jersey winners awaits in the next round, with the Hurricanes currently up 3-1 in that series.

On yesterday's radio show on 105.7, I welcomed Kevin Van Valkenburg of the golf podcasting site, "No Laying Up", for a lengthy interview.

Kevin just worked his 6th Masters, so I thought it was a great time to bring him in and soak him for information and details.

One of the things we discussed was a "Sounds of the Masters" piece that he and a No Laying Up content creator worked on during their weeklong stay at Augusta National.

As you can expect, I consume a lot of golf "content" on the internet. Every day of my life, I'm reading or watching something related to golf.

I can say, without hesitation, "Sounds of the Masters" is one of the best pieces of golf content I've ever seen (in this case...heard).

If you're a golf enthusiast, please give yourself one hour and sit down and take this in. If you've never been to the Masters, this episode of No Laying Up will take you there unlike anything else you could imagine.

To watch "Sounds of the Masters", just click here.

	"Randy On The O's"
Randy Morgan takes #DMD readers through the recent week in Orioles baseball as the Birds try to earn a third straight A.L. playoff appearance.

orioles week in review

Week Record: 1-5

Season Record: 10-17

AL East Standing: 5th (6 GB of NYY)

Player of the Week: Cade Povich - 6.2IP 4H 1BB 5K 1.35 ERA

I’m not going to lie, it’s already getting pretty hard to write these recaps. We’re not even in May and the team is on the verge of a lost season.

At 10-17, currently the only teams in MLB worse than the Orioles are the moribund/tanking White Sox and Rockies.

A combination of poor offseason planning and rotten injury luck have unsurprisingly produced the worst rotation in the majors. With a 71 ERA+ (29% worse than average), the Orioles’ rotation isn’t just at the bottom of the league, but is 15% worse than the 29th ranked Marlins (86 ERA+).

While the rotation has been putrid and owes most of the blame for the terrible start, the bats have underperformed as well, with just about everyone not named Cedric Mullins mired in a spring slump.

While they sit “only” six games behind the first place Yankees, and there are reasons to believe the lineup can rebound, with limited remedies on the mound, the window to alter their trajectory is rapidly narrowing.

It was a horrid week for the Orioles as they continue to struggle on both sides of the plate, managing just a single win.

The O’s started the week off poorly against the Nationals before losing both ends of a doubleheader in Detroit, before getting swept on Sunday, leaving them with plenty of questions to address as April draws to a close.

The week opened on a sour note as the Orioles were dominated by Nationals pitcher Mitchell Parker, who allowed just one hit across eight innings in a 7-0 defeat. Cedric Mullins’ third-inning single was Baltimore's lone bright spot. Starter Dean Kremer continued his tough start to the season, allowing six runs over 5.1 innings, including homers by Nathaniel Lowe and Dylan Crews.

Baltimore battled more closely on Wednesday, falling short in a 4-3 heartbreaker. After surrendering early home runs to James Wood and Josh Bell, Tomoyuki Sugano settled down to complete seven solid innings.

The Orioles clawed back into the game, tying it in the 8th on a Ramón Urías sac fly. But the Nationals took the lead right back with Luis García Jr.’s sac fly in the bottom of the inning and the O’s couldn’t respond again.

Cade Povich finally gave Orioles fans something to cheer about on Thursday, delivering a gem to snap the team's three-game skid. The rookie left-hander carried a shutout into the seventh inning, finishing with 6.2 innings of one-run ball.

Ryan O’Hearn and Cedric Mullins provided key RBI singles in the 5th inning for the 2-1 victory. Félix Bautista secured his third save despite some late drama, marking Baltimore’s first win in 2025 when scoring three or fewer runs.

After a rainout on Friday, the Orioles faced a challenging doubleheader on Saturday in Detroit, ultimately getting swept. Game one saw Baltimore hold a slim 3-2 lead into the seventh inning before the Tigers tied it and won 4-3 with a walk-off single in the 9th.

Rookie Brandon Young had a decent showing (5 IP, 3 ER) but the bullpen faltered late.

In the nightcap, Detroit's Riley Greene delivered the decisive blow with a three-run homer off veteran Charlie Morton, resulting in a 6-2 Tigers victory. Baltimore's offense was limited again, with Gunnar Henderson providing the lone bright spots with two RBI across the doubleheader.

The O’s capped the week off in fitting fashion, getting demolished 7-0 by the Tigers, led by a gem from ace Tarik Skubal. Skubal went six shutout innings, fanning 11 Orioles.

The Birds were missing several banged up players after the Saturday double-header and Dean Kremer did the limited offense no favors, surrendering five runs in five innings to drive his season ERA to 7.04.

In such a dismal week it's hard to find standout performers. Cade Povich provided one of the lone bright spots, going 6.2 innings in his start on Thursday. Povich limited the Nats to one run on four hits and struck out five, leading the O’s to their only win of the week.

Given the current state of the Orioles rotation, a sign of positive momentum for Povich could at least provide hope for one slot in the rotation.

Aside from Povich, Tomoyuki Sugano delivered another solid start, allowing three runs in seven innings. Sugano is currently the O’s only reliable pitcher with Zach Eflin and Grayson Rodriguez out injured.

At the plate there wasn’t much to write home about, but Ryan O’Hearn managed a .333 average on the week, with a homer and two RBI. Ramon Urias also batted over .300 with a homer and two RBI.

Down on the Farm –

The Norfolk Tides had a week to forget, going 1-5 and dropping to 9-17 overall, though they did end the week with a 6-4 win on Sunday. Dylan Beavers and Coby Mayo provided some spark to the offense.

Beavers continued his stellar season with a .480 OBP on the week, including a homer, five RBI, and three stolen bases. Mayo batted .316 on the week with two triples and two RBI, pulling his season average up to .256 with an .861 OPS.

At AA, 25 year old pitching prospect Alex Pham had an outstanding week, striking out 17 batters over 10 innings in two dominant starts. Pham limited Altoona to two earned runs over his 10 innings, lowering his season ERA to 3.42.

Notably, top pitching prospect Chayce McDermott started Sunday’s game for the Baysox, throwing 1.2 innings in his first rehab start from a preseason injury.

Catching prospect Creed Willems led the Baysox at the plate, collecting several crucial hits while reaching base at a .522 clip for the week and smacking a homer and two doubles.

Question of the Week –

What’s going on with the Orioles’ bats?

The starting pitching has rightfully earned most of the scorn during this miserable start to the season, but a surprising lack of pop from a talented young offense has greatly contributed to the funk.

After finishing 2024 with the second-best offense in baseball (118 OPS+), the Orioles entered 2025 with expectations of another explosive year at the plate. Instead, through the first month of the season, the lineup has been frustratingly average, ranking middle-of-the-pack in most offensive categories.

The team’s batting average sits at a paltry .226, with a disappointing .299 OBP and a .388 slugging percentage, good for an OPS+ of 103 (11th in MLB).

What’s behind this drastic shift from elite to mediocre? A closer look at advanced metrics reveals a blend of bad luck and poor situational hitting.

Baltimore’s batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is just .262, significantly lower than the league average generally around .300, indicating that the team is making decent contact but finding fielders' gloves too often.

The Orioles actually lead MLB In Hard-Hit rate, at 35.8%, though counterintuitively they are also last in the league in Line-Drive rate at 16.8%.

They are also sixth in the league in Barrel rate, or the percentage of time hitters are connecting on the sweet spot of the bat. This suggests that the O’s may be hitting a large amount of hard ground balls that are not finding the holes.

Statcast data further supports this point. Orioles hitters like Gunnar Henderson have an elite Hard-Hit rate (97th percentile) and a high average exit velocity (~96 mph, 99th percentile), yet Henderson’s OBP is just .256, with a wOBA (weighted OBP) at .267 compared to an expected wOBA of .287.

This substantial gap between actual and expected results suggests Henderson—and by extension, the Orioles as a team—have been unlucky, with hard-hit balls consistently turning into outs.

Moreover, the team's wRC+ (Fangraphs’ overall offensive metric) is hovering around 102 (13th best), barely above league average and far from last year's potent figure. Similarly, their OPS+ has plummeted from 118 in 2024 to 103 this year, emphasizing a notable regression in overall offensive production.

Plate discipline has also been an issue, with a team strikeout rate around 23% and a walk rate in the bottom third of the league at 8.2%. The team walk-to-strikeout ratio is fifth worst in the league.

These numbers indicate some Orioles hitters are expanding their strike zones and not maximizing their at-bats, leading to wasted scoring opportunities. Situational hitting has compounded the problem as well, too often, runners are left stranded, especially in scoring positions.

Several key young hitters have simultaneously slumped. Adley Rutschman (.209 AVG, .677 OPS, 102 OPS+), Gunnar Henderson (.218 AVG, .641 OPS, 88 OPS+), and Jordan Westburg (.217 AVG, .656 OPS, 93 OPS+) have been cornerstones of the offense, but have yet to find their rhythm.

Rutschman, despite solid plate discipline, is saddled with an extraordinarily low .217 BABIP, suggesting that his average and slugging percentage should rise significantly as his luck evens out.

Looking forward, there’s ample reason for optimism. The advanced metrics point clearly to underperformance due to bad luck rather than a fundamental lack of skill. Expected metrics suggest positive regression is inevitable, particularly for Henderson, whose high barrel rate and exit velocities are elite. Similarly, Rutschman and Westburg's underlying metrics imply they are due to see better results soon.

As warmer weather arrives and these hitters adjust their approach, Baltimore’s offensive output is likely to improve. The talent is still very much present in this lineup, and history suggests that sustained bad luck is unlikely to continue indefinitely.

While the Orioles’ bats have undoubtedly disappointed through April, the underlying data signals that brighter days are ahead.

As long as injuries don’t continue to derail the offense, with Cowser already out for extended time and O’Neill now on the IL, the production at the plate should rebound.

Fans can only hope this turnaround happens quickly and dramatically enough to keep the team afloat until drastic measures are taken to solve the pitching mess.

Sunday April 27, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3897

got a kicker, need two wins

OK, so unless something is really "off" with the news from Saturday that the Ravens drafted a kicker, it would appear the Justin Tucker era is over in Baltimore.

I mean, sure, they could keep both Tucker and the new guy, Tyler Loop, for the 2025 season. If Loop's going to spend a season as a NFL understudy, who better to learn from than one of the greatest kickers in NFL history?

Eric DeCosta said all the right things on Saturday when asked about the team drafting a kicker for the first time in the team's 30 year history.

"I haven't really thought about that at this point. I just thought [Loop] was a really talented player and it made sense for us to do that for a lot of different reasons," DeCosta told the media. "We've told you guys multiple times this spring that we would look at kickers, and so for us it's like any other position. This year we evaluated all these guys, we felt like he was draftable. We felt like he was the best kicker, and it made sense for us to take him."

The "haven't thought about it at this point" comment is eye-wash. Of course he's "thought about it", which is why they drafted Loop, a kicker, instead of a running back, linebacker or wide receiver, for example.

DeCosta and the Ravens still don't know what punishment, if any, Tucker is going to receive from the NFL as a result of their investigation into the sexual assault allegations that surfaced in Baltimore this past January.

The selection of Loop makes sense in that regard. For all the Ravens know, the NFL comes forward in mid-May and says, "Oh, right, we forgot to mention to you before the draft. Tucker's suspended for the first 8 games of the 2025 season."

Loop, had he not been drafted yesterday, would have almost assuredly signed with a team as a free agent either last night or today sometime. By drafting him, the Ravens have protection in the event the league tells Tucker to take a seat for a few weeks or few months this coming season.

But there's also the lingering possibility that all of this is a smoke screen for the Ravens beating the NFL to the punch and simply cutting Tucker after June 1st, which will help the team's salary cap and, presumably, help them save face within their fan base as well.

Either way, whether it's this year or next, Tyler Loop is your next kicker in Baltimore. He's either replacing Tucker in 2025 or 2026.

DeCosta can wordsmith it in whatever fashion he chooses, but the Ravens wouldn't use a draft pick on a kicker unless they were of the mindset they were going to need someone other than Tucker to kick for them. And soon.

Don't look now, but only three teams in all of baseball have more losses than the Orioles thus far in the 2025 campaign.

I told you not to look.

It's ugly, I know.

After yesterday's doubleheader sweep at the hands of the Tigers, the O's are now 10-16 on the campaign. Only the Pirates (17), White Sox (20) and Rockies (22) have more losses than the battlin' Birds. The Twins, I should point out, also have 16 losses so far.

The White Sox and Rockies were supposed to be terrible this season. Heck, the White Sox are preparing for a parade with 7-20 record. I don't think they won their 7th game until Memorial Day in 2024.

Oh, and here's a not-so-good note about today's game in Detroit. The Tigers are throwing the best pitcher in baseball (Tarik Skubal) at the O's.

Watch, today will be the day the Birds either get no-hit or they pound out 14 hits (9 off of Skubal) in a 7-3 win. You know one of those two is in the offing.

Anyway, Brandon Hyde's team continued to struggle at the plate yesterday.

In the opener, they did manage an almost unthinkable 11 hits, but were 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position and left 9 guys on base in the loss. Jordan Westburg, Ramon Urias and Ryan O'Hearn each had 3 hits.

In the nightcap, a 6-2 loss, the Birds left 8 runners on base and were 1-for-6 with runners in scoring position.

Flyers fans, please don't rush for your calculators. We'll do the quick math for you right here, by hand. 1-for-8 plus 1-for-6 is 2-for-14 with runners in scoring position in the doubleheader sweep.

2-for-14 isn't good. In fact, it's terrible.

Charlie Morton didn't start the second game, as Hyde went with Keegan Akin to open the contest and he handled 1.2 innings of work before turning things over to Morton.

I know what you're wondering.

Did Morton wind up getting the loss?

He did, indeed.

Morton went 3.2 innings and allowed 3 earned runs while walking 5 Detroit hitters. He's now 0-6 on the season. The end has to be coming soon.

The O's "big four" -- I made that up, of course, but they do represent four of the team's most-relied-upon-hitters -- of Henderson, Westburg, Rutschman and Mountcastle, all continue to struggle.

Not one of them is hitting over .220 a month into the season.

Slow starts happen all the time, to players of various quality levels.

Westburg looks like he might be starting to break out of his early-season funk.

Henderson is also showing signs of an uptick.

The biggest worry, though, is Adley Rutschman, who has a couple of oddly concerning statistical notes worth mentioning.

Not once this season has he produced two or more hits in consecutive games.

And he's now gone 11 straight games without getting a hit in consecutive games.

The Orioles have played 26 games in 2025 and Rutschman has three, yes, three, multi-hit games. And one of those was the opener in Toronto when he hit two home runs and produced three hits on the day.

It's way too early to judge his '25 season against what we saw from him in the second half of the '24 season. Everyone, as I wrote above, is capable of a slow start.

But if Rutschman's numbers don't improve, significantly, in the team's next 26 games, something is definitely "up" at that point.

His last 90 games, offensively, have been woeful.

In fact, "woeful" called and snickered.

Henderson's going to come around. I don't see any reason to worry with him.

The same with Westburg. He'll be hitting .260 by Memorial Day, if not higher.

I don't concern myself much with Mountcastle because we all know he'll hit Toronto like Ichiro used to hit everyone and he'll have the occasional power surge over a two week run that will boost his numbers to the "acceptable" level. He is what he is. A platoon guy at first base who helps out here and there against left handed pitchers and the Blue Jays.

Rutschman is the chief concern.

He doesn't have to be Johnny Bench.

But he can't be Brook Fordyce, either.

Heck, at this point, Fordyce's numbers look favorable in contrast to what we're seeing from Adley so far in 2025.

The Orioles have three guys hitting the ball through 26 games; Mullins, O'Hearn and Urias.

That's it.

Everyone else is under .250.

The starting pitching is shaky. We know that.

But yesterday, the Tigers scored a total of 10 runs in two games and won them both.

The Orioles went 2-for-14 with runners in scoring position.

You're just not going to win like that, no matter how good or bad you're pitching is in the moment.

The Rutschman saga is the story worth following the most, but others have to start percolating at the plate as well.

A 10-16 record can become a 14-25 record "like that" (snap of the fingers) and then you're in trouble.

Tonight's playoff game in Montreal isn't "must win" for the Capitals, but I'd call it a crucial game for Ovechkin and Company.

Washington is up 2-1 in the series, but it's a very tenuous one-game lead for sure. The Caps snuck out close wins in D.C. to open the series, winning the opener in overtime, 3-2, and then winning 3-1 in Game 2 but that one went down to the 20 seconds before Washington sealed it with an empty net goal.

Friday night's 6-3 loss in Game 3 was equal parts ugly and concerning, as the Caps' defense wasn't very good and they lost starting goaltender Logan Thompson to some kind of lower body (leg) injury.

Spencer Carbery wouldn't provide any news on Saturday, naturally. "I don’t have an update on LT," Carbery said. "I’ll get an update later on today from our training staff."

That, of course, isn't true. Carbery has an update. He's the head coach of the team and his best goalie was hurt on Friday night and might be out for an extended period of time. He has probably texted with the team's training staff more times in the last 24 hours than your teenage daughter has checked her TikTok account.

Carbery knows. He's just not disclosing any news. And that's perfectly fine. It's the Stanley Cup playoffs, not the CYO under-12 soccer team.

Montreal is dealing with their own goaltending issue, as their starter (Sam Montembeault) left Friday's game with his lower body injury but the Habs have listed him as "questionable" for tonight's game.

Add it all up and there's lots of drama this evening (6:30 pm start), including a lot of tension and ill will that surfaced throughout Friday's tilt in Canada.

Oh, and the Caps need a win, too.

Since they're still the Caps, there's always that possibility that this playoff series against the 8th seed Canadiens could go sideways.

I don't know what's worse.

Being the Flyers and not making the playoffs for five years.

Or being the Caps and cruising to the best record in the Eastern Conference only to lose your opening playoff series to a team that didn't get in the post-season until their final game of the year.

Because they're the Capitals, I have to consider all the possibilities.

I called this one a 4-1 Caps series win before it started, and tonight's the night that sets me up to be right on that one or wrong on that one.

A Washington win in Game 4 and they should be able to put the Habs away in Game 5 back home.

But a Montreal win tonight and it's a new series, totally, and the Canadiens will have all the momentum heading back to D.C. on Wednesday night.

When I said "Caps in 5" last week, I didn't know they were going to lose Logan Thompson, though. If he can't return in this series, the Capitals are going to have to step up their game, big time, in order to dispose of the pesky Canadiens.

Charlie Lindgren is decent enough. But not much more than that. He isn't going to lead the Capitals to the Stanley Cup title, I'm sorry.

If Thompson's injury is serious enough to keep him out for any extended period of time, D.C.'s hopes for a second championship are severely dented.

First things first, though. They need a win tonight in Montreal.

It's not must win. But it's close.

For you golf enthusiasts out there, I'll be hosting a 2-hour edition of "Fairways and Greens" later today on 105.7. The show airs from 4-6 pm.

I'm excited to be joined at 5 pm by Kevin Van Valkenburg of the extraordinarily successful website/podcasting group, "No Laying Up". Van Valkenburg will join me to talk about the recent Masters, Rory's win, and lots of other great topics from the world of professional golf.

I'm also unveiling my Top 10 "most underrated things about golf", a segment suggested to me by regular listener and e-mailer Steve Kline. I put a lot of time and effort into compiling the list for him today. I'll even run some of them by Kevin when he joins me at 5 pm.

I hope you can tune in.

Saturday April 26, 2025

#DMD

Issue #3896

"can he play football?"

The Ravens drafted a player last night with a bit of a troubled past.

Having seen several edge rushers go earlier in the night, Eric DeCosta addressed a vital team need with the 27th pick in the second round when he selected Marshall's Mike Green.

The selection was met with equal parts enthusiasm and confusion, for Green has twice been accused of sexual assault in his young life.

The Ravens "thoroughly" investigated those two charges, says DeCosta, and were obviously comfortable enough with their findings to take Green despite having another sexual assault situation still brewing within their own organization involving Justin Tucker.

"We understand the severity of what these allegations were, of course," DeCosta said on Friday night when questioned about taking Green. "But doing our due diligence, we are comfortable with Mike. I think the best is yet to come with him, and I'm glad we got him."

I hope no one misconstrues what I'm about to write as any sort of tacit approval of sexual assault. It's not that at all. And I'm speaking unofficially, of course, on the mindset of the team(s), not my own personal opinion of how these sorts of scenarios should be handled.

NFL teams, including the Ravens, are almost-entirely worried about one thing: Can he play football?

The words "almost-entirely" leave a smidgen of wiggle room for a club to pass on a college player if there's something in his past or present that is simply too much to ignore or overlook.

But for the most part, these days, that's the question teams ask when they're evaluating a player with a checkered past: "Can he play football?"

In Mike Green's case, the answer was a resounding "yes". He led the nation in sacks last year with 17.5 and there's almost no doubt had he arrived at this year's draft without so much as a parking ticket at Marshall, he would have been a top 10 pick.

When he was there late in the 2nd round on Friday, DeCosta didn't hesitate to snag him.

"We got as much information as we could," DeCosta said. "We considered the facts, we considered the allegations. We considered what the reports actually were and what they actually weren't, and we made the decision based off of that."

The decision they made was clear. "We're taking the best football player available to us right now. He's been involved in some things that may or may not have been entirely true. In the end, we got a terrific football player."

My phone lit up last night with people besmirching the Ravens for once again taking a troubled athlete.

I sent the same thing to all of them in reply.

"Give it a rest. If they win the Super Bowl next year, you'll be the first guy in Target buying a 'World Champs' tee-shirt on Monday morning."

The Ravens can only think one of two ways about Mike Green.

1) They investigated the (past) charges against him and are convinced there's not nearly enough evidence in place to find him guilty, let alone turn it into a criminal case.

Or...

2) They investigated the (past) charges against him and are convinced that, even if he is (was) guilty of sexual assault, no criminal record or prosecution means he's worthy of employment.

It's really that simple.

They either think he didn't do it or they think he did do it but there's not enough there to worry about.

And in both of those cases, the same question still winds up on the table: "Can he play football?"

You don't have to like that question. You might run your organization differently if given the chance. I get it.

But the days of NFL teams being worried about "criminal conduct", "allegations" and "stories from the past" are pretty much done.

The league stil cares about that stuff, because they like to act as if their brand is worthy of protection. But the teams? They're trying to win football games.

That's mostly why Justin Tucker is still on the team. Sure, that post-June-1 cut date still looms for Tucker and that might very well wind up being all the Ravens care about in the end. "Cut him after June 1 and save money..."

But if Tucker does return to kick for the team in 2025, it's simply a very public and open admission from the Ravens that they were not able to find a better kicker for the upcoming season so.......Tucker stays and kicks, despite the allegations against him in Baltimore.

Like I said earlier, you don't have to like it.

But it's not changing.

"Can he play football?" is all that matters to the Ravens and anyone else. Well, "almost-entirely" matters. There's that sliver of a chance a team might push back and say, "I don't care how many sacks he gets or touchdowns he throws, we're not employing (insert name here)".

In Mike Green's case, the Ravens were obviously more than comfortable taking him, while other teams clearly weren't.

The Ravens are tired of losing to the Bills and Chiefs. They hope Mike Green will help them beat those teams.

You can be upset with that if you want, but you're (likely) still going to the games next year and you're still wearing a purple jersey to the office on Friday and, you know, you'll check your morals at the door on Monday morning when you gather around the coffee machine at work and speak glowingly about Green sacking Joe Burrow twice in a 24-17 Ravens win over the Bengals.

Deep down at places you don't talk about at parties, you just want the Ravens to win, too.

It's just easier for you and others like you to portray outrage at the selection of Mike Green because it's not you that might lose your job if you don't improve the team's defense and the Bills roll past the Ravens again in the playoffs next January, 30-20.

"Can he play football?"

That's the only question any longer.

And this whole thing in Baltimore makes the Shedeur Sanders situation even more obvious and, yet, puzzling.

Sanders, depending on which expert you believe, was either the 1st or 2nd best quarterback available in the draft.

He was either #1 and Cam Ward was #2 or Ward was #1 and Sanders was #2.

You found no experts claiming that Jaxson Dart (who went to the Giants in the first round) was better than Sanders, although a few folks had it "too close to call" when choosing between the two.

Sanders has not yet been selected and the draft enters Round 4 today.

"Can he play football?" never seemed to be a tough question to answer when it came to Sanders.

Sure, his arm strength is a tad limited. That's his biggest weakness. You're not getting many 55-yard bombs out of him.

But everything else about him looked "NFL" according to the experts.

His scarlet letter isn't a sexual assault case or a domestic violence issue. He seems very "clean" when it comes to his personal life. No criminal activity, etc.

Sanders' issue appears to be more connected to his personality. "Brash, arrogant, abrasive, entitled..." Those are four words that have been associated with the former University of Colorado quarterback.

His dad, one of the best players at his position in the last 50 years, was also known to be "brash, arrogant, abrasive and entitled" both while he played and, more recently, while he coaches at the college level.

It seems sort of weird that "Can he play football?" matters when it's Mike Green but doesn't matter when it's Shedeur Sanders.

One of the worst phrases in sports is "black balled" because it opens up a can of worms that could lead to a dark, troubled path that people don't want to travel on.

"Black balled" was the source of the Colin Kaepernick saga, obviously. It's why he won a gazillion law suit.

Unless I'm reading the tea leaves wrong -- and taking into account what all of the experts said about Sanders leading up to the draft -- it would appear he might be being black balled by the 32 teams in the league. Or, at the very least, black balled by the eight or so teams that need a quarterback now or in their immediate future.

The Titans, Browns, Giants, Saints and Seahawks have all selected a QB in the first three rounds. The Raiders, Steelers and Jets both need one and haven't gone down that road yet, for some weird reason. Well, the Jets do have Justin Fields, so they won't need a quarterback until 2026, probably.

And the Raiders have Geno Smith. They might be OK until week 10 of the upcoming season.

But I digress...

Eight teams who needed a QB passed on Sanders with the first 100-plus picks in the draft.

Five of the eight actually took someone instead of him.

It would be different if the experts wouldn't have all agreed he was the 2nd best QB available in the draft, at a minimum. Some people even ranked Sanders above Ward, who went #1 to the Titans.

If there was a large general disagreement about Sanders' skill set, that would be one thing.

But there wasn't, really.

Yes, he can play football.

"But we're not touching him..."

It sure does seem weird.

But you go get 'em, Mike Green. Sack that quarterback, will ya!!??

O's SCOREBOARD
Friday, May 30
Orioles 2	White Sox 1
WP: Z. Eflin (4-2) LP: S. Burke (3-6) HR: none RECORD / PLACE: 20-36, 5th

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