Podcast: The Orioles are outsmarting themselves

In last week’s episode of the podcast, we could tentatively feel a bit better about the Orioles because they were in first place. They went on to defend that position with a thrilling comeback win last Monday night, providing a tantalizing look at what this team could be if enough things click into place at once. The rest of the week was not so fun, as the Orioles went on to win just one game in the three-game set with Arizona and then only one game in a four-gamer in Cleveland. That’s heading the wrong direction.

This week, after watching a couple of high-impact botch jobs that resulted from playing natural infielders in the outfield, I’m feeling frustrated about the ways in which it seems like the Orioles essentially outsmart themselves by thinking that they’re so clever that they can do obviously stupid things and make them work out. “Sure, it’ll be fine if we play Blaze Alexander in center field and Weston Wilson in left field to stack the lineup with righty bats against a lefty pitcher.” “Of course we can put some completely anonymous big minor league power guy in the cleanup spot and have that go fine.”

Typing them out, they sound absolutely ridiculous, and yet the Orioles have tossed Alexander into center field multiple times now, with it costing them both times. They have done the Johnathan Rodríguez as cleanup hitter thing multiple times too. It hasn’t worked yet. There are a number of problems that the Orioles have that they can’t do much about until either players get healthy or players with no immediate replacements start playing better. Even with this patchwork roster, though, they don’t have to post Alexander in center field. They should stop being stupid while trying to be so smart.

Check out the episode here:

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