On Tuesday, Sept. 17, something strange happened in the Baltimore Orioles organization. No, it wasn’t the firing of a Hall-of-Fame closer (more on that in a second). It was GM Mike Elias making a spontaneous media appearance in a spirit of … contrition?? Entering the “trade deadline in particular and the offseason,” explained Elias,
I was very fixated on pitching, pitching depth, pitching improvements. Going into the [July 30 trade] deadline, our rotation was scuffling. As it has turned out, we’ve had pitching injuries, but they’ve come way more on the position player side in very unexpected ways.