Weather robbed us of the Orioles getting to play yesterday. Given their all-too-frequent play this season, it may be that nothing was lost to the fan in not seeing the Orioles. As Zagreus is frequently reminded in the video game Hades, there is no escape. There will be two O’s games today, whether anyone likes it or not.

Maybe we will like it. The Tigers are not very good this year, and they are particularly reeling recently. Detroit is in the middle of a stretch where it’s lost seven in a row and 15 out of 17 dating back to May 4. We got one demonstration of that on Friday night. Even the Orioles for all of their problems dispatched those guys.

This is going to be a split doubleheader, with games scheduled for 12:35 and 6:05. I think it’s an absolute shame that the Orioles are not just putting those together as a traditional two-for-one doubleheader. I don’t believe that there are enough seats sold across both of these games to make it impossible to smash everybody together for one gate. They should do it.

My suspicion is that the reason that they aren’t doing it like that is because the postponed Saturday game was the Samuel Basallo bobblehead giveaway. The bobblehead-industrial complex must be fed. There are people who will whine if they do not get a separate gate to get their precious bobbles. Now, the Orioles should not cater to this mindset, just for starters. But even if they must, just make some more bobbles and give out vouchers if there won’t be enough for the one gate. They can get away with not doing this because it doesn’t ultimately matter, the only people who are going to complain are weirdos like me and even then not for long. Still, it sucks.

Hopefully the doubleheader itself doesn’t suck. The Orioles have the potential for a nice momentum swing here, if they can play well enough to accomplish it. Taking both games today doesn’t solve all of their problems, but it does put them farther down the path of solving their problems. Even a split at least gives them a series win for people to feel good about, if they want to feel good about that. This all may be a temporary reprieve if the O’s just go and get dunked on by the Rays again starting tomorrow.

That’s a problem for tomorrow. A problem for today is that the 2026 version of Trevor Rogers is pitching one of the games. What’s going on with him? I don’t know. Whatever is wrong probably wasn’t fixed since the last time he pitched. Maybe he will surprise me. Sooner or later I would figure he’ll start pitching at least like a 4.50 ERA guy. That would be better than the disaster we’re getting.

Brandon Young is pitching the first game, with Framber Valdez going for Detroit. The Tigers had TBD for Sunday listed even before it turned into a doubleheader and they’re still TBD. Your guess is as good as mine.

Orioles stuff you might have missed

Albernaz defends Orioles use of analytics (Baltimore Baseball)
Ahead of Friday’s win over the Tigers, the manager indirectly responded to some of the postgame comments that Ben McDonald made on MASN after the sweep at the hands of the Rays.

The Orioles must restore their self-belief this homestand, if they have any left (The Baltimore Banner)
Not believing in themselves hasn’t really seemed to be their problem to me. I might even say that believing in what they’re doing too much is a greater issue.

Last, there’s this update on the starting rotation coming out of yesterday’s rainout:

Since the Orioles have both yesterday’s and today’s originally scheduled starting pitchers going today, and they don’t get an off day until June 1, that means there will be no one on regular rest on Thursday. What will they do about it? That’s a problem they can worry about until Thursday, since they’ve got five starts to get through before then. This year, you can’t take for granted that the current five guys will make the five starts. Or count on more than two of them at most to pitch a decent game.

Birthdays and Orioles anniversaries

The Orioles have now played 51 games. In their 51st game last year, Trevor Rogers made his first start of the season and the O’s beat the Red Sox, 2-1, in the second game of a doubleheader, giving the team an 18-34 record. Heading into today, the Orioles are four wins better than that. It’s not enough! Games 52 and 53 were wins as well, so it would take a sweep by the O’s today to stay four games ahead of the 2025 Orioles.

One lone former Oriole was born on this day. Exactly 100 years ago, infielder Willy Miranda was born in Cuba. Miranda played for the team from 1955-59 and died in Baltimore in 1996.

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday to you! Your birthday buddies for today include: physicist Daniel Fahrenheit (1686), England’s Queen Victoria (1819), actor Tommy Chong (1938), and rapper Heavy D (1967).

On this day in history…

In 1626, Dutch colonial governor Peter Minuit purchased the island of Manhattan for his budding colony, New Amsterdam, from an adjacent native settlement of the Lenape people.

In 1844, Samuel Morse sent a telegram message from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore. The message quoted the Bible, “What hath God wrought,” as it inaugurated commercial telegraph lines.

In 1935, the Cincinnati Reds hosted the first ever night game in MLB history, winning a 2-1 contest against the Philadelphia Phillies.

And that’s the way it is in Birdland on May 24. Have a safe Sunday. Go O’s!