masn-baseballs-orioles.jpgOrioles manager Buck Showalter covered a variety of topics in his post-game interview following today’s 3-0 win over the Ray. For example:

The weather
“That’s why the whole pine tar thing and about gripping the ball and stuff … to have as good a breaking ball, it amazes me that guys can throw a breaking ball at all in these type of temperatures. It all kind of evens out. The batters don’t have a feel. Baseball is such a feel game, which really puts more emphasis on … We played a really…Orioles manager Buck Showalter covered a variety of topics in his post-game interview following today’s 3-0 win over the Ray. For example:

The weather
“That’s why the whole pine tar thing and about gripping the ball and stuff … to have as good a breaking ball, it amazes me that guys can throw a breaking ball at all in these type of temperatures. It all kind of evens out. The batters don’t have a feel. Baseball is such a feel game, which really puts more emphasis on … We played a really good defensive game today.

More defense
“Nicky (Markakis) made a big double play. Chris (Davis) made some really good decisions today at first base. Didn’t go get a slow roller, came off the bag for a tag, read it early. J.J. (Hardy) backhanded a ball that goes into left field for a run probably. Zach (Britton) made a really good play.

Adam Jones
“Adam posting up, period. That’s hard to do. You look at the way this thing’s going on around the game. Most people aren’t playing the next day in a day game. That’s another testament to Adam. His effort level every day, it’s hard to do what he does.”

Jones bunting
“The baseball gods were kind to him. Usually when you do something real fundamentally sound, they kind of smile on you down the road. That was on his own, something (Wayne Kirby) had kind of talked to him about. He may not have felt like was carrying his usual offensive approach. Turned out to be a big play.”

Miguel Gonzalez
“Miguel weaved his way through five innings with a lot of foul balls again. Just hard to get another depth on a ball with weather like this to stay away from some of those foul balls. Most guys, if you’re going through periods where you’re giving up a foul balls, you’re not having a lot of depth separation between your pitches.”

More Gonzalez
“I think as the weather warms up, Miggy’s only going to get better. Maybe by, what, July, it might get warm? We’re going to be complaining about the heat here before too long. You know that.”