It’s been a quiet day in baseball. Just a couple of smaller notes:
- The Orioles are optioning #1 overall prospect Jackson Holliday. Holliday tore up AAA to start the season with a 1.077 OPS before his call-up, but has hit just .059 while posting a 50% strikeout rate in 10 big league games. I’m sure this is the end for him, and he won’t be back soon to spend the next decade terrorizing the Jays. Nope, that’s a wrap.
- Yet more pitcher injuries around the league, as Wade Miley needs Tommy John and Jesus Luzardo goes on the IL with forearm tightness that I’m sure the Marlins are praying to their hideous neon fish gods won’t result in a surgery of his own but we all know how this usually goes.
Tonight is game one of three against the Dodgers. The KC series was a big disappointment after a pretty strong stretch of play. Sitting at .500 on the season doesn’t feel great, but the optimist’s view is that they’ve played 8 series and 6 have been against teams that are .500 or better. The pessimist’s retort might be that things don’t really get any easier, with only two of their next seven against bad teams (and the Twins only barely). If they can hang on, though, there’s a nice long swing through the central divisions in late May through mid June that should afford some opportunities to bank wins.
Chris Bassitt (2-3, 3.90) faces off against Gavin Stone (1-1, 6.00) on the mound tonight. Here are the lineups: