O's may take the field again on Wednesday, plus other notes

By Steve Melewski

Orioles

July 27, 2020, 3:35pm

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It is the luck of the schedule. The bad luck of the schedule for the Orioles. After winning two of three in Boston and with the hopes of getting off to a decent start, they had the misfortune to be the team next scheduled for four straight games against the Miami Marlins.

No offense to the Marlins, but until the team and its medical staff and Major League Baseball get a handle on how hard the coronavirus has hit their team, they probably should not play any club. And the prospect of playing them over the next few days can't be thrilling to the Orioles. Again, no offense to the Marlins, but the virus is nothing to mess around with.

The Orioles, according to several players we heard from during summer camp, did a great job with putting extensive preventative protocols in place. Two players tested positive, but now Dwight Smith Jr. and Anthony Santander are back. Now the team, which seems to be scoring high in how they've handled the pandemic challenge, runs into the Marlins.

The Marlins and Orioles did not play last night and will not tonight, either. The hope is that test results allow the Marlins to field a team Wednesday night in Baltimore. If they can, will the clubs just play two games in two days or will they try to make up one or both of the games that had been scheduled in Miami with one or two doubleheaders? The Orioles are not scheduled to returned to Miami this summer.

Birdland was in a pretty good mood Sunday night. By Monday morning that changed, through no fault of anyone connected to or rooting for the Orioles. Now we await whatever comes next and hope for the resumption of baseball on Wednesday.

Put that ball in play!: Here is a surprising stat, and yes it is a small sample size of just three games. Through Sunday's MLB games, the American League offense with the fewest strikeouts is Baltimore's. O's hitters fanned just 17 times (and drew 11 walks) at Fenway Park. That is one fewer strikeout than the Los Angeles Angels' batters have to this point. Detroit batters fanned 46 times over the weekend against Cincinnati, and that was the most by any AL team, with Kansas City second. Royals batters fanned 40 times versus Cleveland. The O's rank fifth in the AL with 16 runs scored and fifth with 44 total bases.

Through the opening weekend there were seven AL players batting at .500 or better, including two Orioles. Shortstop JosÃ© Iglesias is batting .538 (7-for-13) and Hanser Alberto is at .500 (6-for-12). The AL's leading hitter through Sunday is Boston's Jackie Bradley Jr. who is at .636 (7-for-11). He had three hits in the season opener and two each Saturday and Sunday.

After Sunday's game, O's manager Brandon Hyde talked about Iglesias' four-hit game, which matched his career best, and also about players avoiding strikeouts.

"Iggy's going to put the ball in play and he's going to take a good at-bat. Always done that," Hyde said. "Uses the whole field. You saw him flip a breaking ball down and away to right for a hit. He could have had five hits if that ball didn't hit (pitcher Matt) Barnes there. He hit that on the screws, too. I love Iggy's approach. He's not going to hit whatever he's hitting now for 60 games, but he's off to a nice start and he's taking some really good at-bats for us, and everybody knows that I like guys who put the ball in play and force action. And we have some guys who can do that."

Cole was on a roll: New O's pitcher Cole Sulser has now pitched in eight career MLB games, covering 9 1/3 innings, without allowing a run. That includes seven games when he was called up by Tampa Bay last September and his O's debut on Sunday. He got his first MLB save, getting the last six outs at Boston. It was his longest career outing, topping a five-out game last year.

The right-hander fanned two and threw 20 of 28 pitches for strikes. Sulser averaged 93.5 mph, topping at 94.4 mph on his 18 four-seam fastballs, according to baseballsavant.com. He threw six sliders and four changeups or, really, splitters, and a couple looked real solid. He got two swings and misses on those four splitters.

Sulser's path to the majors was not an easy one. He turned 30 in March, has been in the minors since 2013 and has undergone two Tommy John procedures, the first when he was in college at Dartmouth. But he had a real strong finish to his Triple-A season in 2019. After June 30 he went 3-0 with a 1.07 ERA with five walks to 49 strikeouts in 33 2/3 innings. When the pitching-rich Rays cut him loose, the O's put in a waiver claim and added him last Oct. 1.

"I think what I can bring to the table, at least what I think my strengths are, is hopefully the ability to throw strikes, attack hitters and I have some experience, just in terms of playing minor league baseball and professional baseball for so long," Sulser said during a summer camp Zoom interview. "Being able to go out there and compete every day and be a guy that is going to attack the zone and try to make hitters earn their way on base. That is what I think I do well."

He did that well on Sunday in Boston. Click here for more on Sulser. In that article he provided a nice endorsement for the Orioles' pitching program and its use of data and analytics, which he compared favorably to his previous organizations in Cleveland and Tampa Bay.

Alumni report: Former O's right-hander Dylan Bundy made a strong debut on Saturday for the Los Angeles Angels. Bundy pitched the Angels to a 4-1 victory over Oakland, which had won the previous night with a walk-off grand slam. He went 6 2/3 innings, allowing three hits and one run with no walks and seven strikeouts on 90 pitches.

Speaking of former Orioles, Minnesota's Nelson Cruz is the first AL Player of the Week. Over the weekend against the Chicago White Sox he went 7-for-13 (.538) with seven runs scored, two doubles, three home runs, 10 RBIs, a walk and a 1.385 slugging percentage. On Sunday, Cruz scored four runs and added two doubles, two homers and seven RBIs to lead Minnesota to a rubber-match win against the White Sox.

At 40 years, 25 days old, he became the fourth-oldest player in MLB history to amass seven RBIs in a single game, joining Hall of Famers Stan Musial and Reggie Jackson, as well as Jason Giambi. In addition, he became the second-oldest player with four extra-base hits in a game since 1901, joining Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson.

Last night, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred was interviewed on MLB Network about the Marlins situation and the coronavirus in baseball.