My early look into the workings of Jim Palmer's "Nine innings to Success: A Hall of Famer's Approach to Achieving Excellence," released just last week, was when he asked me to do a personal written comment for one of the chapters: It was on "appreciation." Reading the galleys, I found Jim had taken his baseball experiences and set them to a nine-chapter look at achieving excellence. He discusses learning, excelling, perseverance, appreciation and more. In every chapter there are baseball...

CLEVELAND - Hyun Soo Kim walked into the visiting clubhouse at Progressive Field today and again found his name in the lineup once bench coach John Russell posted it in the hallway. That's four starts in a row for Kim, who begins tonight batting .410/.489/.487 in 15 games. He was hitless last night, but he took a pitch off his foot and twice made solid contact on balls that were turned into outs, including a drive to deep left-center field. Manager Buck Showalter had an amusing exchange with...

Now that the Orioles have ended that little four-game losing streak, they hope to start to build another winning streak starting this afternoon at Cleveland. Last night's 6-4 victory came with only six strikeouts, but also with 13 hits. Adam Jones and Manny Machado combined to go 7-for-10 with two doubles, three runs and an RBI. Mark Trumbo hit his 15th homer and the Orioles went 4-for-9 with runners in scoring position. Today, they look to go 2-0 in this series, but they'll need Ubaldo...

It's a hot, muggy Saturday here in the District, as sure a sign as we've experienced yet that summer has arrived. Which, the Nationals can only hope, means the ball is going to fly out of the park tonight. Dusty Baker has insisted all along he thinks he's got a warm-weather lineup. We saw it earlier in the week when the Nats hit five homers on another warm night. We'll see if it holds true tonight. That Nationals lineup will be facing an ace in Adam Wainwright, though this isn't the...

CLEVELAND - Yovani Gallardo will take a work day following this morning's simulated game and most likely start for Single-A Frederick in Thursday's doubleheader. The only way Gallardo fails to make his start for the Keys is if his shoulder doesn't respond favorably to the bullpen session. Otherwise, he's ready to begin an injury rehab assignment. The Orioles are hoping to get Gallardo up to 60 pitches at Frederick. Gallardo threw 45 pitches today in his simulated game at Progressive...

CLEVELAND - Yovani Gallardo threw a three-inning simulated game this morning at Progressive Field that consisted of 45 pitches, allowing him to get up and down as if making a regular start. I'll pass along Gallardo's quotes later, but you can safely assume that he was pleased with how his shoulder responded. He was encouraged by the late breaking on his pitches. It was a success. Gallardo isn't certain what's next. It could be another simulated game or a rehab assignment in the minors. Stay...

CLEVELAND - Adam Jones is leading off for the Orioles again, with Hyun Soo Kim batting second. Mark Trumbo is tied with Todd Frazier and Yoenis Cespedes for the major league lead in home runs with 15. Chris Davis has 30 game-winning RBIs in the last three seasons. Only four other players in the American League have 30-plus RBIs in that period: Josh Donaldson (40), Albert Pujols (39), Miguel Cabrera (32) and Lorenzo Cain (30). For the OriolesAdam Jones CFHyun Soo Kim LFManny Machado SSChris...

Shortstop Danny Espinosa's home run in the fifth inning was the 19th of his career while hitting right-handed. Even Espinosa didn't now if he had gotten all of the Jaime Garcia offering. "I wasn't sure. Kind of low and hooking a little bit, so really hoping for a double right there," Espinosa said. Later, Espinosa almost was able to hit a ball the opposite way. The potential double was caught in left field. "Thought I had a double to get that run in. He made a real nice play," he...

Strikeouts, what strikeouts? Even for a free-swinging team like the Orioles, the series in Houston was an outlier when you look at 52 strikeouts in three games. It was a major league record after all, so not only do we not see that often, we had never seen that. Through Thursday's games, there were four American League teams striking out at a greater rate than the Orioles. The ranking in the AL in team strikeout percentage: 26.0 - Astros 25.2 - Rays 23.2 - Twins 23.0 - Tigers 22.9 - Orioles We...

Max Scherzer likes to try to disrupt the timing of opposing batters and baserunners. He's perfectly content to hold the ball in the set position for three, four, even five seconds, hoping to catch somebody napping. Because of that, Scherzer has become quite accustomed to the opposition calling for time, stepping out of the box and hitting the reset button. And he takes no issue with any batter who does that. He did, however, take exception with plate umpire Alan Porter's decision twice during...