Nick Ashbourne

You look at the other sides of the outfield, the corners,

unless Nathan Lucas is out there or Miles Straw, which is often as a sub or facing a left-handed pitcher.

You know, you've seen a lot of Pignango, a lot of Sanchez out there.

Those players don't move particularly well or not great defensive outfielders.

And then Alejandro Kirk, you know, he is the most important defender on this ball club and missing him for extended period of time.

As much as Heinemann is... More than Jimenez, you think?

I would say so, yeah.

Okay.

So as much as Heinemann is a good receiver and Valenzuela has shown off the arm at times, this is a near gold glove catcher.

And again, I would describe catcher as the most important defensive position.

Missing him is huge.

And you can even go to the infield and say Ernie Clement being, again, near gold glove or gold glove caliber third base, moving him to second hasn't maybe been as smooth as expected.

It's not like the team has become a disaster defensively, but they went from being...

perhaps the best team in the league defensively, to having that not be a massive asset for them.

I'll spin a little bit of a positive about that because you're right.

They don't have a bunch of cupcakes on the schedule.

The cupcakes that they had were, to be honest, the Marlins.

So we'll see how that goes if they're able to close out that series.

The Pirates are an interesting team in terms of their record and talent and where you think that team's actually going to net out.

But the Orioles are a club that's five games below .500 as we record today.