It was September 2020 and the shortened 60-game season was nearing its end. On Sept. 6, right-hander Dean Kremer, a key player in the Orioles' trade of Manny Machado to the Los Angeles Dodgers, made his major league debut. It went quite well. Over six innings he gave up just one run and one hit versus the New York Yankees as he got his first big league win and the Orioles beat New York, 5-1. Six days later he faced the same team and allowed just one run on five hits. A few days later he faced...

The non-tender deadline in 2019 brought a trade that wasn't popular with Orioles fans who still vented over the decision a week earlier to place infielder Jonathan Villar on waivers. Villar wasn't coming back with an estimated arbitration raise pushing his salary to $10.4 million. The Orioles were motivated to move him for the right return, which turned into left-hander Easton Lucas. "It's hard to let him go, but we've got to keep an eye on our strategic objectives, which prioritize the...

The anticipation surrounding the major league debuts by top Orioles pitching prospects Grayson Rodriguez and DL Hall in 2022 is thicker than wet concrete. The foundation of the rebuild. MLBPipeline.com ranks Rodriguez as the No. 1 pitching prospect in baseball and eighth overall. Hall is 72nd overall. Drew Rom isn't in the top 100. He's 25th among Orioles prospects, the seventh pitcher listed and the fourth left-hander after Hall, Kevin Smith and Zac Lowther. Pitchers who didn't match...

As the calendar turns to a new year this January, a new baseball season is on the horizon. When it will actually begin, however, remains to be seen. The lockout is currently keeping teams from making any major league roster moves, which is a shame because Mike Rizzo is usually very busy during the year's first month. No matter the pace of an offseason's free agent market, we have seen the Nationals general manager put together a competitive roster well before the start of spring training year...

The talent that pumps through the pipeline in the Orioles system, with renewed force over the last few years, is accompanied now by an even flow that's moving managers and coaches. The club hasn't announced its minor league staffs, but Single-A Aberdeen manager Kyle Moore is going to Double-A Bowie, while Buck Britton replaces Gary Kendall at Triple-A Norfolk. IronBirds pitching coach Josh Conway has been bumped up to the Baysox as the replacement for Justin Ramsey, who joins the Tides. The...

Last month, we published our first quiz of the lockout, focusing strictly on Nationals pitching trivia. Today we come back for another round, this time focusing only on hitting trivia. Some of these questions hopefully will be simple enough for semi-serious fans to answer, featuring some of the most recognizable names in club history. Some of them are only for the truly die-hard among us, featuring some names most will have long since forgotten. There are 20 questions in total, with all...

When I came across this article recently, the prevailing feeling was jealousy. This guy has caught 81 home run balls during big league games over the years. Over the years, before I began to work in the media and more than a few years ago, I attended hundreds and hundreds of games. My home run caught count is zero. Yep, only 81 behind and my days in the stands hoping to catch a homer are pretty much over. I think there are stories out there of fans claiming to have caught thousands of baseballs...

Unless the Orioles conducted minor league business in secrecy and the transactions didn't hit the wire, there hasn't been a move made since the Dec. 16 announcements on catcher Anthony Bemboom and pitcher Matt Vogel. The Vogel deal was confirmed earlier that week and the club later shared the news. Bemboom will try to win a job in spring training, perhaps starting if Adley Rutschman remains in Triple-A. Vogel hasn't pitched for an affiliated team since 2017 and hasn't moved past high...

Mother Nature handled most of the snow that buried my driveway and car last Monday and again Friday morning. Wait for the temperatures to move above freezing and do some light sweeping later in the day. A veteran move. Also, a pandemic move with little reason for me to be driving. The lockout could impact the report dates for spring training, where the biggest weather menaces are those torrential downpours that last about 15 minutes and threaten morning workouts. They also make for a sloppy...

A week has passed since I stuck my head inside my mailbag. And I've been told many times to get my head out of my mailbag. Or something similar. You ask, I answer, you ask again and I'm either accommodating or a jerk. It's fun for the whole family. Your questions and my responses are unedited. We run with scissors here. We pet stray dogs. We go to 24-hour diners and order fish at 2 a.m. We live on the edge. Also, my mailbag takes the last chocolate chip cookie on the tray and leaves your...