The World Series is set! Last night, the Tampa Bay Rays defeated to the Cleveland Guardians 7-3 to advance to their third World Series. They lost to the Phillies in 2008 and to the Dodgers in 2020.
On Friday, the Rays will travel to Milwaukee for game one of the World Series. Neither the Brewers nor the Rays have won it all in their franchise histories. In a nice turn of events, the World Series will take place between the best team in the National League and the best team in the American League.
As for the Guardians, they’ll have to wait at least one more year to bring home their first World Series title since 1948.
It’s not as exciting as having a team in the postseason, but the Orioles had news of their own yesterday. President of Baseball Operations Mike Elias finally hired himself a General Manager. We’ve all been loosely calling Elias the GM since he was hired, even though he received a secret promotion to POBO prior to the 2025 season.
In the latest and biggest shakeup in Elias’s front office, he added Jared Banner as GM to lead player development and coaching and assist Elias with more strategic efforts. This follows his moves at the end of the regular season, when the Orioles parted ways with Matt Blood, the vice president of player and staff development, and reassigned Sig Mejdal. Mejdal had been an assistant GM in charge of the team’s analytics; his new role will focus on emerging technologies.
Banner comes to the Orioles from the Cubs, where he had been since 2020. Starting in 2024, Banner served as assistant GM. As Mark Brown said in his story yesterday, none of us really know much about Banner. The successes and failures of an assistant GM from another city aren’t necessarily made clear to even baseball sickos.
One thing this front office shakeup shows is that Mike Elias realizes that his regular way of doing business did not work. Now, my opinion is that Elias should have been fired after his failed rebuild. But he was not fired and we are stuck with him going forward. I approve of him making moves and bringing in outside voices to provide different ideas and perspectives. The Orioles’ front office has been notoriously insular.
Is this hire the right move? None of us knows. But while I cannot applaud Elias for the pick, I do applaud him for making changes. The cynics will have other opinions on the matter. They’ll say that Elias is just adding another fall guy for when it all goes wrong, or that there is no way Elias could make a good choice given his overall failure. I don’t think that is true. And honestly, since he is sticking around, I’ll choose to hope for the best.
Links
All the ways new Orioles GM Jared Banner can make an early impact– The Baltimore Banner
Jon Meoli’s take on how Banner can make his mark with his new team.
Makes you wonder – MASN Sports
For some non-Banner talk, here is Roch Kubatko with random Orioles thoughts.
Baltimore Black Sox sculptures will complete the city’s baseball story – The Baltimore Banner
If you don’t know Toby Mendez’s name, you definitely know his work. Mendez sculpted the statues of Orioles legends located behind center field at Camden Yards. Now he’s sculpting 10 players from the Baltimore Black Sox of the Negro Leagues. The statues will be placed in the new Westport Waterfront Park.
Birthdays and History
Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! You have two Orioles birthday buddies. Bobby Floyd (83) started his career with the Orioles and appeared in 47 games with the team from 1968-70. And Ty Blach (36) pitched in five forgettable games for the Orioles in 2019.
On this day in 2015, the Vance Worley era for the Orioles began. They claimed him off waivers from the Pirates. He appeared in 35 games for the Orioles in 2016, mostly out of the bullpen.
That’s about it for Orioles history, if you can even call it that.
On this day in 1982, the Milwaukee Brewers played game seven of the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals. The Brewers led 3-1 going into the bottom of the sixth but could not hold the lead. The Cardinals scored three times in the bottom of the sixth and twice in the eighth to back and capture the title. In just a few days, the Brewers will get to make new World Series memories.
In 1990, the Reds completed a sweep of the A’s in the World Series. Pitcher José Rijo allowed just one run on two hits over 8.1 innings. Future Oriole Randy Myers got the last two outs for the save.
In 2002, Francisco Rodriguez (also a future Oriole) became the youngest player to get the win in a World Series game. K-Rod had just 15 games of MLB experience when he pitched three shutout innings in game two of the World Series. He was 20 years, 286 days old. If you’re wondering about Jim Palmer, he was 20 years and 356 days old when he won game two of the 1966 World Series.