When Japanese right-handed pitcher Roki Sasaki signed as an international amateur with the Los Angeles Dodgers, baseball’s defending World Series winners got a top pitcher for a very modest signing amount.

The rich got richer.

That angered some fans who speculated that the Dodgers had some sort of handshake agreement to add Sasaki all along. I don’t know about that, but the industry seemed to expect the Dodgers to get him months ago and they did.

What troubled me about the team recruitment of Sasaki was his “homework assignment” for various clubs during the recruiting process. What he asked teams to do before meeting with him. And that was to assess why his fastball lost some velocity in Japan during the 2024 season and how they would fix that.

I don’t know how many teams completed their homework assignment, but clearly some teams went deep into possibly helping the pitcher fix his fastball and did not even get him on their team. That sounds to me like Sasaki and his camp crossed a line here or pushed an envelope a step or two too far. Tell me how I can be better so I can take that to my new team and stay good, he seemed to be saying.

On the one hand, some complained about a lack of star-power last year when No. 5 seed Texas played No. 6 seed Arizona in a World Series matchup featuring teams that played in the Wild Card round.

This year is very different.

For just the fifth time since 1995, the World Series features the winningest clubs in each league. It is the first World Series pitting the major markets of New York and Los Angeles since 1981.

While some fans may not be excited about a Yankees-Dodgers matchup, the ratings figure to be good, maybe great. Last year’s five-game World Series with the Rangers and Diamondbacks was the least watched with an average audience of 9.08 million viewers.

According to a Forbes article, the TV ratings have been mostly good this year.

Jumping around the baseball world with a few random notes and takes.

Well at least this year the narrative that the top teams don’t win in baseball and that it’s hard to have a five-day layoff before the playoffs for division winners, were blown all to heck.

We need a new narrative!

Last year wild card teams played in the World Series when No. 5 seed Texas beat No. 6 seed Arizona.

This year’s matchup is the top-seed New York Yankees from the American League and No. 1 seed Los Angeles Dodgers from the National League.

They are two of the most important players on the Orioles roster. They both have had some struggles in their short careers. We are talking here about Gunnar Henderson and Adley Rutschman.

If one player got turned around in Gunnar, can’t Rutschman do the same in 2025?

Sure he can and after producing an OPS of .814 in 2023 to rank 15^th in the American League and .893 in 2024 to rank seventh, does anyone even remember Gunnar’s struggles?

Yep, probably not.

But early in the 2023 season there were even fans calling for Henderson to be sent back to the minor leagues. From Opening Day 2023 through May 12, Henderson had this batting line - .170/.341/.310/.651 over 33 games. Through June 8 and 54 games he had started to turn it around but still was batting just .206 although his OPS was up to .732. The rest is history.

LOS ANGELES – The Orioles won by 3-2 on Tuesday night. They beat the Los Angeles Dodgers with a shutdown bullpen and a go-ahead homer by Ramon Urias.

They were in excellent shape to win the series from the club with the best record in the majors and one with a great home record. But two losses followed, and the Orioles fell to 1.5 games back of the idle Yankees for the AL East lead.

Their bullpen had a strong series, how about that? But their starters and batters did not.

The win one, lose one mode might be enough to get the Orioles to the playoffs but they will need to play better when they get there.

The O’s offense hit .182 this series, scoring 10 runs with six extra-base hits in Los Angeles and they went 3-for-20 with runners in scoring position.

LOS ANGELES – Orioles right-hander Corbin Burnes, who had an ERA of 8.71 his previous four starts, gave up six runs last night as the Orioles lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers. But just one run was earned over five innings.

Does that make it challenging to evaluate how Burnes pitched?

In the Dodgers third, with the O’s leading 3-1 and one out, an error was charged to third baseman Ramon Urias. They could have had two outs and none on, but the Dodgers went on to score four unearned runs – three on Teoscar Hernández’s 431-foot home run.

The fault of the pitching or the defense? Both to blame?

Said manager Brandon Hyde: “He only gave up that one earned run, the (Shohei) Ohtani homer. Pitched much better than the line. Like I said we didn’t play our cleanest defensively. We had some chances to get out of innings. But we’re not scoring a ton of runs either and helping our guys out.”

LOS ANGELES – In front of a sellout crowd on the road, with a chance to gain a game on the Yankees, against a hot team with the best record in baseball, the Orioles pitching made three runs stand up. 

The Orioles bullpen – the much-maligned O’s bullpen – stood tall.

They had repeated chances to give up the big hit, the soul-crushing hit, the hit to blow the game. But they did not.

The same bullpen that had struggled so badly in recent weeks? Yes, that bullpen.

In what had to qualify as one of the O’s best and most impressive wins of the year, they beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 3-2 Tuesday to open a big three-game series.

Now an O's team that has fallen to second-place, one that lost twice via walk-off results at Citi Field, one that has lost four of six and six of 10 and that is 29-32 since June 13, goes into a demanding stretch of games.

The Orioles host first-place Houston for four at Camden Yards beginning tonight. Then the Birds fly across the country and play three in Los Angeles against the first-place Dodgers starting Tuesday night.

It's a tough seven-game run for an O's team that is 16-16 since the All-Star break and got swept three in a row at Houston in late June. The Orioles scored 11 runs in that series opener but lost 14-11 at Minute Maid Park. Then they lost 5-1 and 8-1 decisions, outscored in that series, 27-13 by the American League West leader.

With a win by the Yankees 6-0 over the Guardians today, the Orioles (74-54) are one game back in the AL East heading into tonight's game.

While O's starting pitchers have allowed two earned runs or less six times the past eight games, the Baltimore bullpen has been scored on six straight games with an ERA of 6.43 in that span. The O's pen has allowed eight homers the the last six games over 21 innings.

With their eight-game win streak now over, the Orioles look to start a new one tonight as they also continue their pursuit to catch the Tampa Bay Rays atop the American League East. 

Chris Taylor’s grand slam in the sixth last night turned a two-run deficit into a two-run lead, helping the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Orioles 6-4 in the series opener. The O’s led the game 3-0 after two innings and 4-1 after five.

The Dodgers (54-39), who have won six of their past seven series, are 7-1 the last eight games and 15-6 in their past 21. They are now 25-23 on the road, 14-9 versus AL teams and 3-4 against AL East clubs.

They improved to 22-9 in series-opening games with their 22^nd comeback win of 2023. They have an MLB-best 70 come-from-behind wins since the start of the 2022 season.

The Orioles had their season-long win streak snapped; they had outscored their opponents 60-20 during the eight consecutive wins. Every victory during the streak came against a team that entered the game with a .500 or better record. Had that streak reached nine, it would've been the longest win streak for the Birds over .500 or better clubs since taking nine in a row from July 9-17, 1998.

Cedric Mullins remains out of the Orioles lineup, his day-to-day status extended while he recovers from right quadriceps tightness.

Aaron Hicks is playing center field again tonight. Austin Hays is in left and Colton Cowser is in right.

Jordan Westburg is the third baseman, and he’s batting ninth.

Gunnar Henderson remains atop the order. He’s hitting .350 with a .650 slugging percentage against breaking pitches since June, according to STATS, compared to his .128 average and .277 slugging heading into the month.

Tyler Wells has a 3.18 ERA and the majors’ lowest WHIP at 0.927. He’s allowed two earned runs in each of his last seven starts, and two or fewer in eight straight.

During a season that has featured a lot of excitement already, this week in Birdland might produce max excitement. The Orioles will play their next seven games versus the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Tampa Bay Rays.

The Dodgers (53-39) had a six-game winning streak snapped by the New York Mets in 10 innings on Sunday.  The Dodgers, the 2020 World Series champions, have won the National League West 10 times in the last 11 seasons, winning 100 games or more four times in that span.

The Rays, who got off to a 13-0 start and a 20-3 start this year, have been leading the AL East wire-to-wire thus far. But after the Orioles win Sunday and Tampa Bay’s loss at Kansas City, their division lead is just one game over the Orioles, who are one game better than Tampa Bay in the loss column.

The Orioles have not been this close to first since the second day of the year. By the third game on April 2, they were 1-2 at Boston and they were two games behind. And have been at least that far back until Friday night when the Rays were rained out and they pulled within 1.5 games. Now the lead is down to a single game in the standings with the Rays 60-36 and the Orioles 57-35.

Before the Orioles and Rays start a four-game series on Thursday at the Trop, the Rays will play three games against Texas. So, while the Orioles will play the NL West leaders the next three days, the Rays will be meeting the AL West leaders.