Here are some Mark Reynolds homer notes after he hit Nos. 19 and 20 in Monday's game.
* Reynolds' last five hits have been homers and seven of his last eight hits are home runs.
* With 20 homers, Reynolds became the first Oriole since Charles Johnson in 2000 to hit 20 or more homers before the All-Star break. Johnson hit 20 in 2000. According to Elias, the last Oriole to hit 20 before the break in his first year with the Orioles was Frank Robinson (21) in 1966. Robinson won the Triple Crown...
After getting nine at-bats late last year with Double-A Bowie, Orioles prospect LJ Hoes began this season back with Single-A Frederick.
But on May 23, he moved back to Double-A and this time he is staying there. Hoes currently is wielding one of the hottest bats on the O's farm and in 35 Baysox games, he is now batting .320 with no homers, 17 RBIs and a .745 OPS.
He also has a most respectable 16-to-13 strikeout-to-walks ratio.
Over his past four games, Hoes is 10-for-16. Over his past 14...
You have to wonder if Vlad Guerrero's time as the Orioles' cleanup hitter is coming to an end.
Manager Buck Showalter talked about his concern over Guerrero during the O's last homestand and made similar comments to reporters in Texas yesterday, indicating that if he needs to make an adjustment there, he will.
The time has pretty much come for that.
I still remember the excitement around Baltimore when Guerrero was signed and the message boards leading up to that were buzzing with how the...
The Short-Season Single-A Aberdeen IronBirds today added three Orioles top-10 draft picks from the 2011 class.
The IronBirds added third-round pick RHP Mike Wright, fifth-round pick LHP Matt Taylor, and ninth-round pick RHP Devin Jones. They join seventh-round LHP Trent Howard, and the IronBirds now have four of the Orioles' top-10 draft picks on their roster.
Wright made 16 starts this past spring for Eastern Carolina University. A three-year starter for the Pirates, Wright went 6-4 with a...
The Orioles begin a series in Texas tonight against the Rangers. The Orioles really enjoyed their last visit to Arlington.
They swept four straight, July 8-11 last year right before the All-Star break, from a Rangers team that would go on to win the American League. They won by scores of 6-4, 7-6, 6-1 and 4-1.
This was the Orioles' first four-game sweep at Texas in 34 years, since June of 1976 and their first four-game road sweep of any kind since 1995.
The players that drove in the runs in...
Mark Reynolds can sure fill up a stat sheet.
He now has 18 homers to lead the Orioles. He has 46 RBIs and that ties Adam Jones to lead the club. He is also first on the Orioles or tied for first in doubles (15), runs (43) and walks (50).
His 50 walks are more than twice the next highest total on the club and that is the 24 walks issued to Luke Scott.
Reynolds is batting .229 and is on a pace for 36 homers and 92 RBIs with the Orioles at the mid-point of the season, the 81-game...
Batting fourth for the first time all year, Mark Reynolds hit another homer, and this one helped get the Orioles a win.
After the Birds blew a 3-0 lead, Reynolds' two-run blast to left off Scott Proctor in the seventh, gave the Orioles a 5-4 lead and win today by that score as they salvaged the final game of the series in Atlanta.
The Orioles ended a five-game losing streak and are 36-45 at the 81-game, halfway point of the season.
Reynolds, who earlier had a sac fly, went 3-for-9 in this...
When rookie lefty Zach Britton was 4-1 with an ERA of 2.84 at the end of April, his first month in the majors, who would have thought he'd have just six wins total with the All-Star game approaching?
But Britton posted just one win in May and one win in June. It certainly wasn't because he had pitched poorly. His ERA is 3.38 through 16 starts.
But when Britton took the mound in Atlanta today, he did so with just one win over his last 10 starts since a May 1 victory versus the Chicago White...
Those that were expecting the Orioles to have a tough 10-game road trip are probably not surprised at the losses the last two nights in Atlanta.
The Orioles got shut out on one hit in losing Friday. They got three homers and 13 hits and still lost last night.
They have that look and feel again. That look of a team heading south and the feeling when watching them that something will go wrong at some point to make them lose again.
How you get out of such a rut I am not sure, as Orioles teams...
Mark Reynolds hit two homers tonight in Atlanta and Nick Markakis added another for the Orioles. But, thanks in part to a play that was not made in Atlanta's fourth inning, the Orioles lost 5-4 to the Braves tonight.
With two outs and none on in the Atlanta fourth, Chipper Jones doubled and Freddie Freeman walked. Then Dan Uggla hit a liner to left. Luke Scott got his glove on the ball, but could not make the catch as a run scored and the O's failed to nail down the inning's third out on...
Orioles third base prospect Josh Bell left Game One of Triple-A Norfolk's doubleheader tonight with a left knee injury. He had just one at-bat in the Tides' 4-2 loss to Charlotte.
Bell is leading all O's minor leaguers in home runs.
On the year he is batting .256 with nine doubles, two triples, 13 homers, 36 RBIs and an OPS of .733.
A club official did not know the severity of the injury yet but initially thought it was likely that Bell would not need to go on the minor league seven-day...
As Jake Arrieta takes the mound tonight at Atlanta, here is an interesting Arrieta stat.
He is the toughest Orioles' starter to get a base hit off of. Opponent batters hit just .233 off Arrieta while that number is .251 against Zach Britton and .263 against Jeremy Guthrie.
There are some observers that feel Arrieta has the best "stuff" on the staff. He has a fastball that hits the mid-90s and a nasty slider. But he struggles with command and control and that is often a battle for him. If...
When the All-Star game reserves are announced on Sunday, my guess is that Adam Jones will be selected to the American League team for the second time.
He would be my pick and, in my opinion, has been the Orioles' best player this year.
Until I looked it up, I almost forgot he hit just .218 in April. But in May and June, Jones hit .313 with an OPS around .850.
On the year, in 78 games, he is batting .286 with 15 doubles, 13 homers, 46 RBIs and an .801 OPS. Sure he could still draw more...
Congratulations to one of the real good guys in the Orioles minor leagues. Single-A Frederick Keys manager Orlando Gomez posted his 900th career minor league managing victory this week.
He got the milestone win Thursday night in a 4-0 win at Lynchburg as Nick Haughian pitched six scoreless innings. Gomez then picked up number 901 in last night's 6-1 win over Lynchburg as Bobby Bundy gave up just one run over seven innings to get to 8-5 and tie for the league wins lead.
Gomez, a native of...
Things can change fast in baseball. A struggling team or player can turn things around with one good night or one good series.
The Orioles need that in the worst way right now.
Most of Oriole Nation seems to be predicting doom and gloom for the 10-game road trip against the Braves, Rangers and Red Sox that begins tonight at Atlanta.
Here are some daunting stats as the road trip begins:
* The Orioles have lost six of their last eight games and are 5-12 over the last 17. Since winning...
In taking stock of the recent struggles of the Orioles' starting rotation, I took a look at some of the recent stats and found that the O's starters were struggling really for the entire month of June.
In the last six games, all at home, O's starters pitched to an ERA of 9.21 and they didn't have one starter go longer than 5 2/3 innings.
The Orioles have just one quality start over the last 13 games and a starting pitcher ERA in that time of 6.58.
But you can go back through the entire...
When Brian Matusz throws his first few pitches tonight, most of us will turn our attention to the radar gun to check out his velocity.
But, just as important for Matusz will be his command and control of his other pitches. All four of his pitches have been finding too much of the middle of the plate recently, as he has given up 14 earned runs in 11 1/3 innings over his past three starts.
So watch Matusz's secondary pitches tonight and how he is commanding them. It could be just as important...
Blake Davis is certainly enjoying his time in the major leagues. He has been with the Orioles since June 18 and is batting .313 (5-for-16) over five games.
For Davis, he is in the majors about two years after it looked like he might make it the first time. He was having a solid spring training in March of 2009 with the Orioles and coming off a season where he hit .284 at Bowie. His stock was on the rise and he made a good impression in big league camp.
But then he suffered an ankle injury...
The Orioles may be teetering right now. Teetering on the brink. They have fallen seven games under .500 for the first time this year and their recent play makes it look like it could get worse before it gets better.
They need to beat Jaime Garcia tonight to avoid a three-game sweep by the Cardinals. Garcia is 6-3 with a 3.06 ERA on the year and has pitched to an ERA of 2.59 in June.
Friday night, they begin a 10-game road trip at Atlanta. The Braves have now won eight of 10 games and will...
The Orioles have failed to follow up their series victory over Cincinnati with more momentum as they have now lost the first two games of the series with St. Louis.
Chris Carpenter pitched a complete-game, seven-hitter on 132 pitches as the Cardinals beat the Orioles 5-1. He is now 3-7 with an ERA of 4.00.
The Orioles fell behind in the second inning for the second night in a row and they failed to get clutch hits for the second straight night. After going 0-for-7 with runners in scoring...