No pitcher suspensions on night one, plus other notes

On the first night of Major League Baseball's new "sticky stuff" rules, with baseball pledging to enforce the rules about pitchers using foreign substances and threatening transgressors with ejections and suspensions, there were no offenders reported that I could tell. As of around midnight, I had not seen any reports from any games of someone ejected.

Didn't we hear that most of the pitchers were bending the rules or, to say it another way, cheating?

Many suggested they were, but last night they apparently were not. Did they get the message and leave the Spider Tack at home? At Camden Yards, the umpires checked pitchers' gloves, hats and even their belts, and no one got tossed.

Before the game last night, Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said he had no idea how all this would truly play out. But he knew his pitchers would get looked at and have their gloves and hats inspected by the umpires.

"You're going to see umpires checking bullpen guys coming off the field, you're going to see random starting pitcher checks, so none of us have seen anything like this before and we'll see how it goes," he said.

And now we'll see how this is all going to work out over several days and weeks, but Monday seemed to pass without incident. Perhaps this will be no problem at all for pitchers.

"It has become clear that the use of foreign substance has generally morphed from trying to get a better grip on the ball into something else - an unfair competitive advantage that is creating a lack of action and an uneven playing field," commissioner Rob Manfred said in announcing the new enforcement policy. "This is not about any individual player or club, or placing blame, it is about a collective shift that has changed the game and needs to be addressed. We have a responsibility to our fans and the generational talent competing on the field to eliminate these substances and improve the game."

The penalty for the teams will be harsh. A player suspended for 10 games cannot be replaced on the active roster. A 26-man roster will shrink to 25 if you lose a pitcher. A team like the Orioles, carrying 14 pitchers and 12 position players, would have a hard time replacing a suspended pitcher. They have just a three-man bench already. They could send out a position player to get back to 14 pitchers but their bench would then consist of just two players, one a backup catcher. Such a team, if it really wanted/needed 14 pitchers, would have some issues. Or it could go with 13 and perhaps have to make a roster move or two during the length of the suspension to have a fresh arm or two available.

In announcing this recently, MLB's press release stated, "MLB will closely monitor the effect of this policy on competition, and on player health, and may make future modifications to the enhanced enforcement guidance as appropriate."

In other words, they will change anything they need to. Stay tuned to see how this all plays out as we move forward.

O's minor league homer leader was not drafted: After Monday's off-day on the farm, the O's four full-season minor league affiliates resume action tonight. High Single-A Aberdeen (23-17) will take the field at home against Rome with a lineup that adds an impact bat. Infielder Gunnar Henderson, 19, moves up from low Single-A Delmarva and gets reunited with his former teammate there in infielder Jordan Westburg. They are quite a one-two punch in the lineup.

Among everyday players on the O's farm, Westburg has the highest batting average at .323 and Henderson is second at .312. Henderson leads all O's minor leaguers with 39 RBIs and Westburg is second with 37. Henderson ranks third on the O's farm with a .944 OPS and Westburg is fourth at .940.

Then add J.D. Mundy to that duo. Mundy was a player the Orioles signed to a minor league contract last June after the five-round draft. The lefty-hitting first baseman from Roanoke, Va., began his college career at Virginia Tech and played his last two seasons at Radford. In 2020, he led the Big South Conference in homers, RBIs and slugging. He was a nice pickup by the Orioles.

He started this year with the dynamic duo of Westburg/Henderson in Delmarva and recently was promoted to Aberdeen. For the two teams over 33 games he has hit .311/.427/.672 with 10 doubles, 11 homers, 36 RBIs and an OPS of 1.099. Mundy leads all O's farmhands in homers, with one more than Adley Rutschman. He also ranks first on the O's farm in slugging, OPS and wRC+ at 195. In 13 games with the IronBirds, Mundy is batting .292 with seven homers, 16 RBIs and a 1.183 OPS.

O's lose series opener: The first of the three-game Orioles-Houston series ended this morning after midnight with the Orioles losing 10-2. There was a rain delay of an hour before the game began and of 41 minutes in the top of the eighth when the umpires inexplicably let the field get pounded with water before calling for the tarp.

The Orioles were being no-hit by Houston until Maikel Franco's two-run homer with one out in the eighth. The O's finished with just two hits as they fell to 23-49 and 1-11 the last 12 games.

Houston began the game leading the majors in average, OBP, slugging, OPS and runs. They were scoring 5.62 per game, so a pretty dynamic offense. They had 13 hits in the series-opening win.

O's pitchers have yielded 10 runs or more three times in the last five games and 10 times on the year. They've allowed 53 runs the last seven games and 87 in the past 12 games.