Orioles take Esposito in second round

Orioles take Esposito in second round
The Orioles also had the fourth pick in the second round of today's First-Year Player Draft, and the 64th overall selection. They used it to take Vanderbilt junior third baseman Jason Esposito. Esposito batted .362 this year, with 22 doubles, eight homers, 55 RBIs and a .560 slug percentage in 60 games. Baseball America calls the 6-foot-2, 200-pound Esposito "a college version of Marlins prospect Matt Dominguez in that his glove is ahead of his bat." He played shortstop this spring, but is...
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Jordan said O's had interest in Bradley and talks of bypassing Rendon

Jordan said O's had interest in Bradley and talks of bypassing Rendon
Orioles scouting director Joe Jordan said he "got the guy he wanted" in drafting Dylan Bundy with the fourth pick in the first round last night. But was Bundy really the guy the Orioles wanted all along? "This was always the guy we had in our sights and that was going to be in the conversation," Jordan said. "There were just a lot of good players at the top of the draft. We knew coming in he would be in play for us and he didn't do anything to disappoint us. There was no one we had any...

Machado heads up five Delmarva All-Stars

Machado heads up five Delmarva All-Stars
The Single-A Delmarva Shorebirds will host the South Atlantic League All-Star game June 21 in Salisbury and the team will be well represented in the game. Manny Machado and four of his teammates have been named All-Stars. Machado will be the starting shortstop for the Northern Division team and will be joined on the squad by Delmarva's Ty Kelly, Michael Ohlman, Jacob Pettit and David Walters. The game will feature the top three draft picks from 2010, as Bryce Harper of Hagerstown, the top...

Orioles make Wright pick in third round (and say Simon in fourth)

Orioles make Wright pick in third round (and say Simon in fourth)
In the third round of the First-Year Player Draft, the Orioles used the 94th overall selection on East Carolina right-hander Mike Wright. Baseball America rated Wright as a fifth- or sixth-round talent and the 74th-best right-hander in the draft. The Orioles disagree. Wright was 6-4 with a 2.79 ERA in 16 starts, with 30 walks and 75 strikeouts in 100 innings. He lost 2-0 to St. John's in Game 2 of the Charlottesville Regional on Friday, allowing two runs and seven hits, with four walks and...

Matthew Taylor: A non-scientific analysis of hanging around

Matthew Taylor: A non-scientific analysis of hanging around
I recently read an interesting Wall Street Journal article by Matthew Futterman that, like many statistical analyses these days, challenged conventional baseball wisdom. In this instance, the cherished-but-challenged wisdom is as follows: "It's not a sprint, it's a marathon." Futterman writes that baseball is in fact very much a sprint and that the beloved boys of summer generally know how they'll finish the season even before the summer solstice. Here's a key passage from the...

A Bundy of joy

A Bundy of joy
With the fourth pick in the 2011 First-Year Player Draft, the Orioles selected a high school pitcher from Oklahoma. They took the one whose name had been associated with them for many weeks leading up to tonight's first round. Rather than throw the industry a curveball, the Orioles chose Dylan Bundy of Owasso (Okla.) High School. The most recent mock drafts had the Orioles selecting Archie Bradley of Broken Arrow (Okla.) High School, but the Orioles went with Bundy, the pitcher most often...

Jakubauskas confirmed for tomorrow (plus A's lineup)

Jakubauskas confirmed for tomorrow (plus A's lineup)
The Orioles will give Chris Jakubauskas the start tomorrow night against the Oakland Athletics unless he's needed in relief tonight. Jakubauskas was chosen over Alfredo Simon, who threw 50 pitches in relief yesterday. The Orioles could have purchased Mitch Atkins' contract from Triple-A Norfolk, since he would be working on normal rest. Jakubauskas hasn't started a major league game since April 2010 with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He lasted only two-thirds of an inning before being hit in the...

O's select RHP Dylan Bundy with first-round draft pick

O's select RHP Dylan Bundy with first-round draft pick
The Orioles tonight selected right-hander Dylan Bundy of Owasso (OK) HS with their first selection in the 2011 First Year Player Draft, the fourth overall pick of the draft. Bundy, 18, is a 6-foot-1, 200-pound right-handed pitcher from Sperry, OK. In his senior season, he went 11-0 with a 0.20 ERA and 158 strikeouts and five walks in 71.0 innings. He also batted .467 with 11 home runs and 54 RBI. Bundy was named the Gatorade National Player of the Year. His older brother, Bobby, was the...

Archie Bradley

Archie Bradley
With the fourth pick in tonight's draft the Orioles selected Oklahoma prep right-hander Archie Bradley. His name first surfaced in the last 18 hours or so as someone that could be high on the O's draft board. Bradley, out of Broken Arrow High, goes 6-foot-4 and 215 pounds and this year went 12-1 with an ERA of 0.29. In 71 innings he walked 11 and fanned 137. Bradley pitched a two-hit shutout and fanned 14 when his school, Broken Arrow, beat Bundy's Owasso squad for the Oklahoma 6-A state...

Danny Hultzen

Danny Hultzen
With the fourth pick in tonight's draft the Orioles went for a college left-hander and took Bethesda, Maryland's Danny Hultzen from the University of Virginia. The 6-foot-3, 200-pounder is a two-time ACC pitcher of the year and three-time All-ACC first team pick. This year so far he is 11-3 with an ERA of 1.57 in 15 starts. Over 103 1/3 innings, he has allowed 69 hits, just three homers, with 17 walks and 148 strikeouts. His batting average against is .189. Hultzen has pitched four...

Showalter on high school vs. college in the draft

Showalter on high school vs. college in the draft
While he was not talking in any specifics about tonight's draft, Orioles manager Buck Showalter was asked his take today on the age-old draft question: Should a team take a college player that can get to the majors quicker, as opposed to a high school player that could eventually be the better player? "I think it depends on who they are," Showalter said. "If you look at, for us to get where we want to go, we hope one of the guys we might draft become a one or two starter. For us to...

Showalter talks draft

Showalter talks draft
O's manager Buck Showalter said he has talked to scouting director Joe Jordan today and that "Joe feels like he's going to have to make a choice between two. Two guys are going to be there (that he likes)." Showalter is very interested in all things about the game, including the draft, and was asked about his outlook for tonight where the Orioles have the fourth overall pick. "From listening to Joe talk, we're going to get a good player at four. Happy with all the possibilities. There...

Orioles lineup against Oakland

Orioles lineup against Oakland
Robert Andino 2B Nick Markakis RF Adam Jones CF Vladimir Guerrero DH Derrek Lee 1B Matt Wieters C J.J. Hardy SS Mark Reynolds 3B Nolan Reimold LF Brian Matusz LHP

Monday Memory: Old Otterbein Church and its peanut ministry

Monday Memory: Old Otterbein Church and its peanut ministry
Admit it: you've passed by Old Otterbein United Methodist Church on Conway Street a bazillion times en route from lunch or dinner at Harborplace to an Orioles game at Camden Yards. Since 1771, Baltimoreans have been worshiping at the historic brick structure, now wedged between the Convention Center and the Sheraton Hotel, and this 2007 YouTube video proves that parishioners apparently have a sense of humor about the position of Yankees and Red Sox fans in the universe. Well, either that...

Matusz back on the mound

Matusz back on the mound
My vision has become blurred from reading all the mock drafts. And yes, everyone seems to think the Orioles will take Oklahoma high school pitcher Archie Bradley tonight with the fourth overall pick. The Orioles most certainly like Bradley, as do a lot of other teams that consider him worthy of a top 10 pick, but I'm sure they also want his name floated out there, just in case pitchers Dylan Bundy and Danny Hultzen are willing to lower their price tags. Remember when the Orioles supposedly...

Some math on the draft; Law now projects Archie Bradley to O's

Some math on the draft; Law now projects Archie Bradley to O's
Here is something to keep in mind about the First-Year Player Draft in baseball that begins with round one tonight: The large, large majority of the players taken through 50 rounds will never make the majors. The math says most draft picks have little shot. It's even dicey for first-round picks. There are no sure things. Baseball America executive editor Jim Callis is one of the best experts anywhere on the draft. He told me that perhaps less than 50 players drafted this week will have better...

Klein headed to DL

Klein headed to DL
Double-A Bowie reliever

Matthew Taylor: Pondering what might have been for O's

Matthew Taylor: Pondering what might have been for O's
It's not often that I find myself 10 pages deep into MLB.com's sortable player statistics, but that's how far you have to go to find Mark Reynolds if you search by batting average. It turns out that page 10, which in this case lists players ranked between 451 and 500 for average, is a pretty interesting place for Orioles fans. In addition to Reynolds who, for the record, is No. 460 for average, page 10 contains names of guys who have played for the Birds this season or who were talked about...

My take on the Orioles draft tonight

My take on the Orioles draft tonight
For the last week or two, most pre-draft speculation has centered on the Orioles taking Oklahoma high school pitcher Dylan Bundy with the fourth pick in tonight's draft. But what if University of Virginia lefty Danny Hultzen and Bundy are both still on the board when the Orioles pick? What if Hultzen is gone, but Trevor Bauer of UCLA is still out there? (I am kind of assuming that Gerrit Cole and Anthony Rendon will be gone by the fourth pick, but nothing is for sure in the draft). A...

Blue Jays use the longball to top O's 7-4 in series finale

Blue Jays use the longball to top O's 7-4 in series finale
The Orioles had a chance to win a series today against a Toronto team that tormented them last year, by winning 15 of 18 against them. But Yunel Escobar's three-run homer in the fourth off Jeremy Guthrie broke a 2-2 tie and Toronto went on to a 7-4 win this afternoon in front of 25,431 at Camden Yards. The Orioles are just 7-22 in their last 29 games against Toronto and are just 3-10 this season in their last 13 games versus American League East opponents. Guthrie falls to 2-8 with an ERA...