Lots of Orioles leftovers for breakfast

Craig Kimbrel sat in front of his locker after the best and especially the worst of his outings. The clubhouse doors opened to the media and he’d be waiting for it. That’s a professional. He didn’t duck reporters and avoid uncomfortable questions about his demise as closer in the second half, how he tried to fix it and why he failed.

The stats will be regurgitated and rightfully so. This is a results-driven business and Kimbrel didn’t produce or provide a sufficient return on the largest contract awarded under executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias.

Kimbrel wasn’t supposed to be Félix Bautista, but he also wasn’t supposed to be Jorge Julio.

It’s worth a reminder, however, that there’s a person behind the inflated ERA, WHIP and blown saves. The Hall of Fame candidate who provided leadership for a bullpen still short on experience. He set an example, and that included how to handle adversity and not redirect it to innocent parties. Place it where it belonged, on his shoulders.

The last time we saw Kimbrel was after manager Brandon Hyde’s media session that followed Tuesday’s 10-0 loss and the career-high six runs that had many fans booing him. Kimbrel sat on a bench outside the clubhouse with wife Ashely and young children Lydia and Joseph, in full dad mode, as if everything was right in his world.

Kimbrel never came to his locker that night while reporters were in the clubhouse, and it was empty the next day. The one time that he didn’t face the heat.

The Orioles got a strong half-season from Kimbrel and wisely made the choice to designate him for assignment, knowing he wouldn’t be on the postseason roster or have his option picked it. But that didn’t make it any easier on the people closest to him.

This is a long-winded way of asking whether Kimbrel receives a contract offer over the winter. Most of the people I ask in my informal poll think he’s done, whether or not by choice. I’m not convinced that a team won’t offer an incentive-laden deal. I don’t know whether he’d take a minor league offer.

It would be easier if we knew whether he wants to keep pitching.

Perhaps he won’t close again, at least on a full-time basis, leaving him with 440 career saves. But there might be an organization that thinks it can at least partially fill an empty tank.

* The Orioles carried a lead into the ninth inning yesterday, lost it and rode Anthony Santander’s walk-off home run to a 5-3 win over the Giants. The Royals were idle, widening the Orioles' advantage for the first American League Wild Card to three games. The Yankees lost, which reduced their division lead to four.

The first priority is winning the division again, but the Orioles won’t treat the Wild Card as a bitter pill. They just want to clinch and take their chances.

They always can refer back to the Rangers and Diamondbacks playing in the World Series as Wild Cards. The Rangers suddenly became a .500 club and relinquished first place in the American League West, but they won the franchise’s first title.

“That’s the thing,” Hyde said yesterday. “I saw an example of four or five teams that either got to the World Series or won the World Series that had really tough stretches, tough second halves, tough Septembers. But then got on … We ran into it last year. Texas finished the season terribly, flew across country and all of a sudden kind of got pissed off and started to swing the bat, and we ran into it. They rolled it all the way in through the World Series. So it’s definitely possible, and we’ll see.”

Why not the Orioles?

“We have the offensive ability. We showed it in the first half. We have the ability to do it,” Hyde said.

“We’re throwing the ball well. Our pitching’s been good. Our starting pitching’s giving us a chance almost every game.”

Hyde stopped himself and knocked on the table.

“I just did it,” he said.

“We’ve been terrible all across the board. No jinx there.”

* Santander received the appropriate hero’s treatment yesterday, getting mobbed at home plate and the prerequisite Gatorade shower. His flung his helmet high in the air and Colton Cowser snatched it like a fly ball. Good times were had by all.

Typical of these moments are other key contributors playing a supporting role, and that included left-hander Gregory Soto, who needed only one pitch in the ninth to coax a double play grounder from pinch-hitter Mark Canha after Seranthony Domínguez experienced his first blown save with the Orioles.

Per the Elias Sports Bureau, Soto is the fourth Orioles reliever since 2000 to earn a win after throwing fewer than two pitches. STATS research goes back to 1988 and the list isn’t changed.

Left-hander Cionel Pérez did it with one pitch on May 27, 2022 against the Red Sox and Tim Byrdak did it with one pitch on April 14, 2006 against the Angels. B.J. Ryan didn’t throw a pitch, picking off a Tigers runner on May 1, 2003.

Soto and the Red Sox’s Brennan Bernardino are the only pitchers do accomplish the feat this season. Cleveland’s Enyel De Los Santos was the last pitcher before Soto to do it in more than one-third of an inning last year against the Yankees.

Hyde noted afterward how Soto’s “had his ups and downs with us after the trade deadline, scuffled, pitched well, kind of bad luck and he gets put in a big spot there.”

“It’s a huge double play ball to give us some momentum there in the bottom of the ninth," said Hyde, "against a guy (Ryan Walker) that people don’t score against.”

Domínguez, by the way, is the first reliever to convert his first nine save opportunities as an Oriole since George Sherrill in 2008. Go easy on him.

* Jackson Holliday earned his own props yesterday with his two-run single that gave the Orioles a 3-2 lead in the fourth inning. He also walked and should have drawn another in the seventh except plate umpire Dan Merzel blew the call.

(Yes, an umpire exhibited a poor strike zone. Continue to breathe normally.)

Just as impressive as the single was Holliday’s leaping catch of Mike Yastrzemski’s 104.3 mph line drive to end the fifth inning. The kid has serious hops.

“Maybe if I had a little bit more time I could get a little bit higher, but I just jumped high enough, right?” he said. “That’s all you need.”

Holliday is making the conversion from shortstop to second base. The Orioles don’t want to move him to the left side of the infield and he ain’t a first baseman. This is it.

“It’s starting to get a whole lot more comfortable over there,” he said. “Obviously, I’ve had about a year of playing it. More comfortable each game that I play over there.”

* Hyde let Ryan O’Hearn bat against Giants left-hander Erik Miller in the sixth inning Wednesday night and was rewarded with a run-scoring double.

O’Hearn was allowed to face lefty Taylor Rogers yesterday with two outs in the sixth inning, and he lined a single into center field.

The left-on-left matchups are scarce with Ryan Mountcastle starting prior to his wrist injury and right-handed hitting Emmanuel Rivera and Coby Mayo now on the roster. But O’Hearn is 10-for-39 (.256) this season.

* Reliever Nick Anderson, shut down after straining his Achilles tendon two weeks ago during warm-ups with Triple-A Norfolk, is throwing in Sarasota.

Anderson didn’t sustain any structural damage, and the recovery period was estimated at three-to-four weeks.

The timing of his injury couldn’t be much worse. He was a definite option for the bullpen. Team officials were excited about his velocity and the data on his secondary stuff, with upticks across the board after he signed with the Dodgers. Anderson opted out and the Orioles signed him after expressing interest in past years.

They’d probably need to advance to the Championship Series for Anderson to be a consideration for the bullpen.

* Former Orioles minor league manager Gary Kendall had a memorable 2024 season.

Kendall was chosen as the Florida State League’s Manager of the Year, and his Palm Beach Cardinals just won their first championship in seven years.

The Cardinals hired Kendall in February 2022 after he spent 17 seasons in the Orioles organization managing Triple-A Norfolk, Double-A Bowie, Single-A Aberdeen and Delmarva, and Rookie-league Bluefield. Kendall, a Baltimore native, also was a scout for the Orioles from 1991-95.

The Baysox won the 2015 Eastern League championship under Kendall.

Kendall and Norfolk pitching coach Kennie Steenstra were let go in October 2021.