Years ago, I set in the cold, metal bleachers for a night game at Pfitzner Stadium in Woodbridge, Va. I was there not only because I enjoy baseball, but to watch a Nationals prospect named Anthony Rendon. It is easy to tell the legit prospects from the organizational talent at that level and it has nothing to do with skill. Rendon was giant compared to the other minor leaguers. Looking at him now it would be hard to believe. He's not a large major league player but compared to the other...

Trey Mancini is a rookie that feels two other rookies on the Orioles are doing very well with their September call-ups. Mancini has played in 144 big league games. Austin Hays and Chance Sisco have played in a combined 18 games with the Orioles. Mancini got his September call-up last year and has gone where Hays and Sisco would like to go - he's become an everyday player for the Orioles. For now, the 25-year-old Mancini is pretty impressed with 22-year-old youngsters Hays and Sisco. Mancini...

ATLANTA - Everything was moving along nicely. The Nationals had just scored a run in the top of the eighth, cutting the Braves' lead to 3-2. They weren't necessarily going to complete the comeback and win the game, but neither were they going to incite mass chaos on the field that led to an eight-minute delay ... Er, maybe they were. What transpired between the time R.A. Dickey recorded the final out of the top of the eighth and the time Sammy Solís threw his first pitch of the bottom of...

September can be challenging if your team isn't one of the 10 still playing postseason baseball. With eight games remaining, the Orioles are five games back of a playoff spot and would have five teams to hurdle over to get there. They haven't been mathematically eliminated yet, but it's not looking good. In recent years, this part of the season has been exciting around Charm City. Lately, my Facebook memories have been filled with pictures of the O's winning the American League East or...

ATLANTA - Tanner Roark pitched well, but not well enough to overcome some sloppy defense behind him, a lack of offense from his teammates and a bizarre wholesale lineup change by the Nationals in the eighth inning. The end result was a 3-2 loss to the Braves, who thanks to R.A. Dickey's pitching gem won the last of the 19 head-to-head matchups between these division opponents for 2017. (The Nats narrowly won the season series, 10-9.) The Nationals trailed much of the night in this one, unable...

Orioles right-hander Gabriel Ynoa was making just his sixth career major league start tonight and third with the Orioles. If this was any sort of audition for him to be a rotation candidate for 2018, he passed the test tonight. Ynoa allowed five hits over a career-high eight innings as the Orioles beat Tampa Bay 3-1 to start a four-game series. It is the final home series of the season. Ynoa was in control most of the night. From the third batter of the third inning through the first of the...

The Orioles broke their streak tonight of consecutive innings without a run at 26. Busted it, jumped on it, grinded it in their heels. Then they started a new one and relied on Gabriel Ynoa to make an early lead stand up. Manny Machado hit a two-run homer to put the Orioles ahead just two batters into the bottom of the first inning and Ynoa pitched a career-high eight innings in a 3-1 victory over the Rays before an announced crowd of 14,967 at Camden Yards. Trey Mancini contributed an RBI...

ATLANTA - Stephen Drew knows the odds are stacked against him. He hasn't played in two months, and he still almost certainly needs surgery this winter for a tear in his abdomen. But the veteran infielder has been able to ramp up his workouts over the last week, and today in addition to taking batting practice he also ran extensively at SunTrust Park. All that leaves Drew with one simple goal in mind: Try to make it back to play again for the Nationals before the end of the regular...

Right-hander Gabriel Ynoa (1-2, 4.18 ERA) will make his eighth appearance and third start for the Orioles as they open a four-game series tonight with the Tampa Bay Rays. It is the last home series of the 2017 season. Ynoa is getting a chance to show what he can do and maybe even get a jump on the competition for a 2018 rotation spot. His first start was at Cleveland and he went 4 2/3 innings, allowing seven hits and three runs on 77 pitches. In his last start at New York, he went 4 1/3 innings...

Is Ubaldo Jiménez making his last start tonight for the Orioles? This isn't a question regarding 2018. The Orioles won't re-sign Jiménez as a free agent. I have no idea what kind of offers he's going to field over the winter, but this team won't jump into the bidding. The rotation over the remaining eight games is mostly a riddle. The only confirmed starter moving forward is right-hander Jeremy Hellickson, who takes the mound on Saturday against his former team. Kevin Gausman will get...