After losing their sixth straight Tuesday in another all-around, head-shaking effort, the Orioles only chance of not being swept by the Boston Red Sox on Wednesday afternoon is to beat – or outlast, anyway – stud lefty Chris Sale.
And they’ll have to do it with a guy who has never thrown a big league pitch facing Boston’s powerful lineup.
Not a promising proposition.
Still, the Orioles are at least gonna have a little history going on today at Camden Yards against the Red Sox.
With Andrew Cashner hitting the disabled list Tuesday with a strained lower back, the Orioles are giving today’s starting assignment to 24-year-old right-hander Yefry Ramirez.
I have no idea how well he’ll pitch, but I do know—thanks to baseball-reference.com – that Ramirez will be the first Yefry (he pronounces it like Jeffrey) to ever appear in the majors.
Oh, there have been other pro-baseball-playing Yefrys – four others and a fifth with Yefry as a middle name – but none has made the big jump to the show.
Weather and airline travel permitting, Ramirez will be the bigs’ first Yefry. And chances are he’ll get to face the majors’ only Xander, as in Bogaerts, Boston’s star shortstop.
So, what else is there to know about 6-foot-2, 220-pound Ramirez besides the unusual first name?
Well, the Dominican Republic native was one of several players the Orioles have acquired for international signing bonus slots. They traded slots to the New York Yankees last July 31 for the 24-year-old right-hander, who at the time was 10-3 with a 3.41 ERA in 18 starts at Double-A Trenton.
He was 5-0 with a 3.66 ERA in six starts with Double-A Bowie to finish last year and was named by mlb.com as the Orioles’ 17th best prospect heading into this season.
In 12 starts at Triple-A Norfolk this year, Ramirez is 3-4 with a 4.33 ERA. He’s allowed 53 hits, 20 walks and struck out 63 batters in 60 1/3 innings.
Ramirez was signed by the Arizona Diamondbacks as a 17-year-old amateur and spent a year playing the infield, primarily third base with a little bit of first and shortstop thrown in. He hit .169 in 44 games in the Dominican Summer League in 2011 and was switched to the mound the following year.
He was taken by the Yankees’ in 2015 as a Rule 5 minor leaguer. He’s got a good changeup, a low-90s fastball and a 38-30 record in the minors.
“This guy’s pretty athletic. Hard worker, made some strides. He’s had a history of winning just about everywhere he’s been” Orioles manager Buck Showalter said. “He’s been good this year down there (in Triple-A), he’s been real good. And then he’s had some challenges like a lot of young pitchers. A young guy. But I like the fact that winning’s kind of followed him around. He’s learning a lot, if you think about his experience level as a pitcher when he started out as a position player.”
Sure, the Red Sox are starting the perennial Cy Young candidate Sale for a likely sweep.
But the Orioles are making a little, first-name, baseball history.
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Question for you Dan .... if Yefry were picked up by the Jankees in 2015 as a rule 5 guy, how is it that he's yust now making his 1st Major League appearance?
I note that you said he was a rule 5 'minor leaguer'. Does this somehow differ from regular rule 5 player? Yust wondering.
Boog: After the MLB phase of the Rule 5 draft, two level of minor league ones are held. It’s basically the same concept. Players of a certain age/minors service time level are eligible to be drafted by another team and promoted to a higher level but must stay there all year. So it happens at AAA and AA. Ramirez was drafted at the AA level.
Boog, jou crack me up.
Bring him on ... I see that he has some experience playing first base - can he hit over .150?
He is a .169 career minor league hitter in 44 games. Statistically, only a slight upgrade.
Been looking forward to seeing what the Os younger players/prospects can do. The way this season has gone bring them up and lets get a good long look. Hope he has a succesful debut today.....don't expect any run support though.
I don’t know how long the look will be. Cashner isn’t out long. But will be interesting to see what he can do.
Talk about a tough assignment. Well good luck Yefry and we must remember one thing--not to base his future on this one start. Oh and he will miss the run support he had at Bowtie.
Yikes--Bowie
I kind of liked Bowtie
This move just confirms how bare the minor league system is for prospects. They need to consider moving anyone on this rebuild. Its definitely going to take 3 to 5 years to be able to compete.
Impossible to tell window in my opinion. Things pop differently in this game.
A few times in the past an effective player seemingly comes out of no where...The place coincidentally where we are residing
And Os have had plenty of those throughout the years.
Dan Duquette would have been fired by every other MLB organization at this point. Instead, he's making decisions for the Orioles future. What a no good, horrible idea.
As I’ve said before, major decisions weren’t made by Duquette alone before this year, won’t be made by Duquette alone this year and will be made by at least partial committee in the future. It’s how things work here.
I'm not sure I believe that. Just ask the Bluejays if they'd be interested in his services.
To be fair, the field manager overseeing fundamental entry-level mistakes made repeatedly on a nightly basis with zero adjustments being made would be gone too. We can give Duquette some leeway, since it sounds like he hasn't been allowed to do his job since 2014, but a manager standing by while veteran major leaguers continue to make decisions a High School Junior knows not to make is inexcusable. I know he drops folksy witticisms and in 8 years has delivered a whopping one first place finish but Buck Showalter has been a disaster.
After today’s game, I’m wondering if the whole team hasn’t packed it in? Both Manny and Adam are making mistakes that rookies make. There’s no “life” to this group. Looking back on Showalter’s resume the same thing happened to all his previous teams... get off to a great start... play well for a few years and then it blows up. I still think that McDowell was (and still is) a mistake. He coached Atlanta down to become a last place team but now, with him gone, look where they are at. Then there’s Coolbaugh! What a joke for a hitting coach. This is not just a “pile it on when they are down” comment. I’ve said it for the past two years. Coaches are there to make players better but look at the O’s hitters over the last few years... averages down, down, down
Can we just start the firesale already?
In all honesty, he's probably the best prospect we've picked up by dealing slot money. Probably means little to nothing but it can't hurt to see what we have down there. Maybe one of Hess or Ramirez can be a legitimate starter going forward.
Hess has shown some promise toward that end so far.
well woop te do. Hope he is a future HoF pitcher and if so we'll all remember today. Hope so.