The sunny disposition that Colton Cowser carries into games, the clubhouse and pretty much every step in life was put to the test Wednesday night. The Orioles lost Game 2 of the Wild Card to again get swept out of the playoffs. Cowser wasn’t on the 2023 Division Series roster, went 1-for-7 against the Royals and dealt with the additional pain of a

We've been doing these Opening Day media predictions for 15 years now, and I'm always grateful to my colleagues on the Nationals beat for their willingness to participate and subject themselves to the inevitable ridicule that follows. And there's definitely some ridicule to be doled out as we look back at our 2024 predictions. (Hey, I'm just as gui

Here is the thing about baseball: It can indeed break your heart. And in a sport that takes six months to play 162 games and can seem never-ending, the actual playoff ending can take about 24 to 48 hours. All those games, all those ups and downs, all those emotions, then it's over in a blink. And a whimper for the Orioles scoring just one run. Mike

When the Orioles swapped out pitchers late in the regular season to cover innings and allow manager Brandon Hyde to set up his bullpen for the postseason, they selected left-hander Tucker Davidson’s contract from Triple-A Norfolk, designated him for assignment a day later and recalled Colin Selby. When they set their Wild Card roster, they kept Sel

Despite a 16-win improvement in 2023, the Nationals were careful not to call last year a success. Even though they jumped from 55 to 71 victories, they still lost 91 games for their fourth straight losing season. “I don't think that it's a successful season, but it's a very encouraging season,” said general manager Mike Rizzo on Sept. 13, 2023. “No

When it comes to the Orioles offense, some of the judgements of it show recency bias, and that is understandable. As the team struggled late in the year the offensive performance and production dropped. Fewer runs led to fewer wins, pretty easy to understand. In scoring just one run in two games in the playoffs, the offense that came up short often

More baseball is being played while the Orioles regroup and think about 2025. They'll move past the crushing Wild Card loss to Kansas City but also use it to avoid feeling this way next fall. Since we're looking back ... * The Orioles worked backward over the last few seasons and it’s skewed perceptions that lead to some skewering of the organizati

Go back and peruse some random Nationals lineups from 2022, and you’re likely to find a lot of names who aren’t here anymore, many of them veterans in the waning days of their careers. Move ahead to 2023, and you’ll find a few more promising young players, the so-called first wave of prospects who either were acquired via trade or drafted and devel

During the first day of the Orioles offseason, executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias and manager Brandon Hyde took numerous questions from reporters trying to assess what went wrong again for the Orioles with a quick out in the playoffs. Elias spoke for over 30 minutes. After a 91-71 regular season, and 192 wins, the second-most i

The final game of a baseball season, and especially in the playoffs, can resemble a high school graduation. You sit next to someone in homeroom for four years and realize you probably won’t ever see each other again. Paths are more likely to cross in sports, but the Orioles know that their spring training clubhouse won’t look the same. Players will