Leading Off

Everything is terrible, and there is no hope in sight. The Orioles are so bad that Jake ran off to New Orleans, and Scott went off to the Dirty Jersey. And… stuff happened this week at baseball games. We won’t trouble you with the details, you don’t want them.

We can tell you that Manny Machado is still an Oriole, as of publish date of this episode – more than that, we (and the Orioles front office) can’t tell you anything.

Join us for The Drink of the Week. Don’t forget to drink socially with us on Untappd.

This Week on the Twitters

Here is what is happening in the world of Orioles Baseball, in 280 characters, or fewer:

Former #Orioles RF Nick Markakis makes his 1st All-Star team. Finally

— Roch Kubatko (@masnRoch) July 8, 2018

Can the entire Orioles roster go home and discontinue playing? Just run things back next year.

— Matt Kremnitzer (@mattkremnitzer) July 3, 2018

Could be our last Machadouble 😢

— Ryan (@ryguyblake) July 9, 2018

@orioles I fixed our attendance problem. Hawaiian shirt giveaway every night.

— Orioles Jesus (@OriolesJesus) June 30, 2018

What If?

It’s over. This “Buckle Up” era of good Orioles teams has given way to Dark Ages 2.0. And with that, all we have left is the memories… and the unknown. What if things had gone just a bit differently? What if the Orioles front office had made different choices? What if individual performances had gone differently? What if the luck dragon slipped back into its cave at just the right moment?

Both BEV hosts run through the “what ifs” that keep them up at night, and try to assign a value of their impact. But that’s just us. We really want to know what you think. Give us your best “what ifs” and tweet them to us @birdseyeviewbal.

The 6th Annual BEVy Awards

Well, it’s that time again: the 2018 BEVys are almost upon us. New listeners may be asking themselves “what are the BEVys?” Well – let us tell you:

The BEVys are our mid-season award show, where we and some of our friends and colleagues in the Bird-O-Sphere hand out made-up awards to members of the Orioles community. It could be players, fans, media… whoever.

The BEVys serve as an opportunity to take stock of where we are at the All Star break, and to look ahead to what we can expect for the rest of the season. Clearly, we started doing this back when that kind of thing seemed like a good idea.

You can expect most of the old gang to get back together, and a few new contributors this year.

But we at Bird’s Eye View traditionally offer a pair of awards. So here are our awards. We’d like YOUR help, dear listener, to pick the winners. I say “help,” because we’re not going to pretend like this isn’t simply Who’s Line Is It Anyway – where the games are made up and the points don’t matter. But you DO have the opportunity to influence our thinking!

Last Man Standing Award

Which Oriole will be the last, best person remaining on the roster? When the season ends, who will we look at and say “well, at least we have…”? This award is issued to a player we think will A) still be here on the final game of the season, and B) will have actually had a decent season. The nominees are as follows:

Adam Jones
Dylan Bundy
Tim Beckham
Cedric Mullins
One of the prospects that comes back in the Machado trade

Milestone That Hurt the Worst

This has been a season of low points. But which low point made you feel the lowest? We keep asking what is the Orioles’ (and your) rock bottom. But which of these sub-optimal things hurt the worst?

Losing the MASN Cup
Hitting 40 games below .500
Richard Bleier’s injury (and end of his Cinderella story)
Every time you realized you wouldn’t see Manny do that again as an Oriole
Chris Davis sets the all-time Orioles’ strikeout record

We’ll put up a poll and see what you think, In the meantime, please look out for the 6th Annual BEVy Awards – we expect the show to come out on Thursday, July 19, 2018. Then again, at any time between now and then, the O’s could screw this up and make the whole show irrelevant.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Who had a great week? Who had a tough week? Who made us ashamed to be Orioles fans? Find out in this week’s GB&U. The guys run through their Good, Bad, and Ugly for the week.

Tweet us your selections @birdseyeviewbal with #OsGood, #OsBad, and #OsUgly.

Blowing the Save

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Most podcasts try to end on a high note – the perfect coda to a quality program. That’s just not our style. Each week, we’ll end on a weak note, blowing the save with an item that didn’t quite fit into the episode, or something they simply need to get off their chests. It’s our version of taking the ball and pulling a Kevin Gregg.