A very good friend of mine, who happens to be a former Maryland legislator, just got back from a visit to spring training and called me to tell me how bad the Orioles look right now.
I’m not surprised, but my older brother Paul – a Viet Nam vet and retired police officer – has an expression he often delivers when someone becomes unnecessarily concerned about something and begins to panic:
“Rest your neck!”
Honestly, I don’t have a clue what that literally means, but the gist of it is to calm down.
It applies here, because it’s still relatively early in spring training and everybody knows that you can’t put too much stock in early March statistics or results.
In fact, in my many years covering major league baseball (and yes, I’m high-hatting all of you right now) it was generally understood that there was often an inverse relationship between spring training won-loss records and regular-season outcomes.
The logic in that, of course, was that bad teams would try harder to win in the spring to convince their beleaguered fans to keep hope alive and keep buying advance tickets.
The illogic here is that the Orioles should be one of those teams after their disappointing 2025 season, but there are always exceptions to popular concepts that probably don’t make any sense in the first place.
I’ll concede that the O’s haven’t looked so great the past few days and it certainly doesn’t help that they’ve again started with several season-impacting injuries to second baseman Jackson Holliday, third baseman Jordan Westburg and relief pitcher Andrew Kittredge. After back-to-back seasons that were undermined by devastating pitching setbacks, it’s hard not to wonder what can go wrong next.
My buddy the former politician was more concerned about the poor defensive performance of the team during his visit to Ed Smith Stadium, but that would be the least of my worries. Coby Mayo is going to make some bad plays at third base, but this is the time to do that.
The club gave up on him as an everyday third baseman a year ago, but is fortunate to still have him – and have time to work on his skills at the position – now that there is really no telling if Westburg will be available to return there any time soon.
Mayo is a great prospect, and he’ll figure it out. If he is ready to bloom at the plate, then his bat should offset his early season defensive limitations. And I can claim I predicted a possible situation like this when I applauded president of baseball ops Mike Elias for not off-loading Mayo and Ryan Mountcastle over the winter when they acquired Pete Alonso.
Truth be told, I really wrote that because I thought that Elias was holding those two back for possible spring training pitching deals, but it also applied to the possibility the club might need them in spite of the arrival of Alonso and – at the time – no major worries about Westburg.
The Orioles actually look pretty good to me. They are going to score a lot of runs this year and the starting rotation might be pretty good even without the premier starter we were all hoping Elias would be able to sign. The bullpen is iffy, especially with Kittredge now doubtful for the start of the season, but the depth of the rotation has allowed Tyler Wells to move there to shore up the middle and late innings.
Nothing is ever perfect in the spring, except the weather, but I have one last piece of advice to those of you who are starting to get anxious.
Rest your necks.