Mel Antonen

With non-waiver trading deadline approaching, a look at possible buyers and sellers

With non-waiver trading deadline approaching, a look at possible buyers and sellers
The July 31 non-waiver trading deadline is approaching and speculation is flying about players moving to contenders. Soon it will be out of control. The Nationals might be looking for an outfield bat off the bench - how about Boston's Shane Victorino or Philadelphia's Jeff Francoeur? - and bullpen help to boost the bridge from rotation to closer. The Orioles could be looking for a corner outfielder. The Dodgers need starting pitching. The Mets need another bat and are shopping for a third...
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Mel Antonen

Will Nationals be able to shake off injuries to maintain control of NL East?

Will Nationals be able to shake off injuries to maintain control of NL East?
The National League East is playing out as expected, except for a minor detail. The pitching-rich Nationals are the first-place team, but the general consensus at the start was that their lead would be bigger than the two-game margin they have over the New York Mets. The Nationals and Mets are similar. Both have strong rotations, reliable closers and questions about the relievers that connect the two. Also, each team is dealing with injuries to key players. The Mets' overall ERA is 3.23,...
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Mel Antonen

Different feel in AL East, where no one is dominating, everyone is flawed

Different feel in AL East, where no one is dominating, everyone is flawed
This isn't the American League East we are used to seeing. The division has gone from baseball's best to mediocre. But at least it is competitive. This year, every team in the division has flaws. Every team is trying to stay above .500. In an earlier time, a team two wins above .500 was buried. Not this year. No AL East champion has won fewer than 95 games in a season going back to 2001. Last year, the Orioles won 96 games to win the title. This year, the AL East champ could have the fewest...
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Mel Antonen

Reworked Home Run Derby showed it was time for a change in annual competition

Reworked Home Run Derby showed it was time for a change in annual competition
Baseball's intrigue is supposed to be all about being timelessness, so who would have though that a time clock could have been so valuable to a baseball event? The Home Run Derby, created in 1985 at Minnesota's Metrodome, was reborn with energy, excitement and drama Monday night in Cincinnati's Great American Ball Park. The best thing that ever happened to the derby was the buzzer-beating home runs by Todd Frazier and Albert Pujols. Frazier, the hometown hero for the Reds, won the event when...
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Mel Antonen

O's All-Stars hoping to return from Cincinnati with memories aplenty

O's All-Stars hoping to return from Cincinnati with memories aplenty
Manny Machado spent part of Sunday preparing for his All-Star trip to Cincinnati. He was folding his No. 13 gray Orioles uniform, trying on his orange glove and packing his Orioles duffle. The 2015 All-Star bag was going to Cincinnati empty, but the plan is to return with it full of memorabilia. At 23, Machado, the Orioles' youngest leadoff batter since Paul Blair in 1965, will be one of four Orioles representatives in Tuesday's All-Star Game. Machado was 21 when he played in his first...
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Mel Antonen

Handicapping the major awards at the midpoint of the season

Handicapping the major awards at the midpoint of the season
As the All-Star Game approaches, here are candidates for baseball's major awards based on the the first half of play: * AL Manager of the Year: A.J. Hinch, Houston; Joe Girardi, New York, Paul Molitor, Minnesota. ... Any of these could win the award, but Hinch is leading Houston's turnaround with two starters, Dallas Keuchel and Collin McHugh, and a lineup that doesn't have a .300 hitter. Jose Altuve was hitting .298 going into Friday. ... Girardi has a dominating bullpen, but there are...
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Mel Antonen

Breaking down All-Star teams selection process

Breaking down All-Star teams selection process
Just to be clear, it is true that Major League Baseball's selection process for the All-Star teams is confusing. So, let's make it easy in four steps: First, the fans vote for nine starters in the American League and eight in the National League, the AL getting one more because of the designated hitter. Then, the players determine nine AL backups and eight NL backups along with eight pitchers for both teams, which includes five starters and three relievers. The third step belongs to the the...
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Mel Antonen

A look at one American League All-Star team ballot

A look at one American League All-Star team ballot
The American League All-Star team will be announced Sunday. Here's a ballot where the starters' common thread is bounceback seasons: First base: Prince Fielder, Texas At 31, Fielder, who leads the majors in multi-hit games, is contending for the AL batting title after a neck injury limited him to 42 games and three home runs last season. This year, he hit his 300th home run, joining his dad, Cecil, in that group. The only other father-son combo to have 300 home runs each is Bobby and Barry...
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Mel Antonen

A look at one National League All-Star team ballot

A look at one National League All-Star team ballot
Here's one ballot for the National League All-Star team, which will be announced Sunday by Major League Baseball: First base: Paul Goldschmidt, ArizonaThe Diamondbacks are one of the best run-producing teams in the NL, and Goldschmidt might be the best player in team history. He's an excellent defensive player who hits with power and gets on base more than 47 percent of the time. And, he might end up with 25 stolen bases. Backup: Anthony Rizzo, Chicago Cubs Second base: Dee Gordon,...
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Mel Antonen

Will rotation problems around major leagues lead to early trades?

Will rotation problems around major leagues lead to early trades?
With a month to go before the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline, the Orioles and Nationals are surging, but each could use help. In addition to health, the Nationals' biggest need is bullpen help that bridges the rotation to closer Drew Storen. The Orioles' bullpen is fine, but will they trade for a bat or pick up a starter that they can control for a couple years, given Wei-Yin Chen and Bud Norris are eligible for free agency after the season? Should Norris be traded so Kevin Gausman can...
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Mel Antonen

Longtime Oriole Nick Markakis is enjoying his transition to the National League

Longtime Oriole Nick Markakis is enjoying his transition to the National League
After nine seasons with the Orioles, outfielder Nick Markakis is running into all kinds of firsts with the Atlanta Braves, none more challenging than facing two of the baseball's best lefties - Clayton Kershaw and Madison Bumgarner - for the first time on the same road trip. Markakis, a left-handed batter, had a single and double against Kershaw, the Dodgers' three-time National League Cy Young Award winner. A few days later, Markakis went 0-for-3 with two fly balls and a grounder against...
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Mel Antonen

Are Max Scherzer’s last two games the best ever?

Are Max Scherzer’s last two games the best ever?
Max Scherzer threw the second no-hitter in Nationals history and beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 6-0 Saturday at Nationals Park. Given that Scherzer had pitched a one-hit 4-0 shutout in Milwaukee in his previous start, it is a good argument that Scherzer has put together the greatest two-game accomplishment in history. Scherzer's performances invite comparisons to Johnny Vander Meer, the Cincinnati Reds starter who threw consecutive no-hitters in 1938. Vander Meer, a lefty, had 11 walks and 11...
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Mel Antonen

How do you fix All-Star voting process that's become a Royal pain?

How do you fix All-Star voting process that's become a Royal pain?
Second baseman Omar Infante of the Kansas City Royals is hitting .204 and leading American League second basemen in the All-Star voting. If the voting holds and Infante makes the starting lineup for the game in Cincinnati next month, it won't be the first time a player has been the subject of national ridicule for making the All-Star team without impressive statistics. Check out 1988 and Athletics catcher Terry Steinbach, who the fans voted into the starting lineup even though he was hitting...
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Mel Antonen

Nats' Storen stops trying to be someone else, finds success

Nats' Storen stops trying to be someone else, finds success
Closer Drew Storen's daily routine starts in the Nationals clubhouse a few feet from his locker, where he sits in a brown leather chair and scouts the opponent's lineup on TV. "You can see a lot more on TV than watching from the side,'' Storen says. He does the hot tub and stretches, and in the sixth inning, he heads to the Nationals bullpen. Then, if there is a save situation, a familiar scene unfolds: The right-field bullpen door opens and No. 22 sprints to the mound amid a thunderous...
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Mel Antonen

Ex-minor leaguer with familial ties steered Orioles to Brooks Robinson in pre-draft era

Ex-minor leaguer with familial ties steered Orioles to Brooks Robinson in pre-draft era
The third day of Major League Baseball's amateur draft is today. The first year of the draft was 1965, and it was established so that the rich teams couldn't buy up all the talent. Before the draft, players were scouted and recruited in the same manner that college recruiters used to go after high school athletes. But some players, such as Orioles great Brooks Robinson, who was elected to Cooperstown in 1983, had to find other ways to get noticed. Robinson wasn't followed by scouts as an...
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Mel Antonen

Surviving injuries will be key to several races in majors

Surviving injuries will be key to several races in majors
The Orioles got catcher Matt Wieters back into their lineup Friday night in Cleveland, although second baseman Jonathan Schoop's return is still a ways off. Wieters has been out since May 10 of last season. In Washington, infielder Anthony Rendon, who finished fifth in the National League MVP voting last season, is back with the Nationals, but the Nats are still without outfielder Jayson Werth and pitchers Doug Fister and Stephen Strasburg. Rendon had two hits in his first game back and then...
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Mel Antonen

More doubleheaders would benefit Major League Baseball

More doubleheaders would benefit Major League Baseball
Although it wasn't scheduled at the start of the season, the Orioles and White Sox played a traditional doubleheader at Camden Yards on Thursday, a throwback to the 1960s when scheduled doubleheaders were the norm. After the first game, there was no clearing the stadium. No day-night deals. No needing two tickets for separate games. No set time for the start of the second game - except that it would start at 4:40 p.m., 40 minutes after the first was done. The Orioles and White Sox played two...
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Mel Antonen

Hot-hitting Paredes had long journey to Orioles (with other MLB notes)

Hot-hitting Paredes had long journey to Orioles (with other MLB notes)
Jimmy Paredes' eight-year journey to the Orioles, as well as a spot among the American League's batting leaders, has a Houston Astros connection to it. The New York Yankees signed Paredes in 2004, and when the Yankees needed an experienced bat for their 2010 stretch run to the American League East title, they traded Paredes to the Astros in a deal that brought then designated hitter/first baseman Lance Berkman. The Astros figured Paredes would be their second baseman, but when Jose Altuve...
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Mel Antonen

NL East review: It took a while, but Washington has returned to top spot

NL East review: It took a while, but Washington has returned to top spot
Nothing has changed in the National League East: The Nationals are the best team in the division and they're playing that way. After falling as many as eight games behind the Mets in the NL East with a 7-13 start, the Nationals have returned to first place, where they are expected to stay. And they are in first place even though three of their best players are on the disabled list and their elite pitching staff isn't firing on all cylinders. The Mets, the team that made headlines with a good...
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Mel Antonen

AL East review: Surprises and disappointments in season's first two months

AL East review: Surprises and disappointments in season's first two months
The first two months of the season are in the books, and the one certainty is that every team in the American League East has flaws. The defending champion Orioles have been inconsistent. The Yankees have slowed after a hot start. The Red Sox have had rotation problems and can't score runs. The Blue Jays don't have as much pitching as they thought, but they can hit. And the Rays have all the pitching, except most of it is on the disabled list. For your Memorial Day reading pleasure, here is a...
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