Rob Long | Host 105.7 Baltimore

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That's betterhelp.com slash positive. Rob Long joining us from our Baltimore affiliate 105.7 The Fan, getting set for his big bad morning show. Rob, will you please answer that question yourself? I think it was a successful season, definitely. The expectations change, however, you know, that'll be you. You go into the season, people expect you to win. Do it in 81 games because they think you'll take a step back from last year as if last year were fluke. And then all of a sudden you look up at the all-star breaking and you're right there.

So then your expectations change. So although I think it was a successful season, it was a very disappointing ending. What happened? How did they fail to mount a charge against the Rangers? Well, I mean, just as a person who's been up close and personal, watching this team all year, you start seeing it down the stretch. If you look down the stretch and going back to Houston, they scored one run, what was it, one run in Houston and two runs. And then they won a couple of ball games in Cleveland, two to one. They beat the Nets, one to nothing. They beat the Boston Reds, two to nothing. Then they got shut out against Boston. So basically those runs became scarce down the stretch. And that bit them in the playoff.

They continued in the postseason. They did have the loud outburst on Sunday at home, but they were trailing big. When teams are up big, they do some things different.

They tend to be a little bit more relaxed. Even though they put up eight runs and a loss on Sunday, what happened to this team is they just stopped scoring runs and stopped hitting. They would stop hitting team of runners in scoring position, but not down the stretch, not the last two weeks of the season. Is it Rangers pitching?

Do you think it was experience? And as you point out, this started at the end of the regular season. A couple of the guys mentioned after the game, though, that it's our first time through this. It's our first experience in the playoffs as a group. A lot of these guys, of course, making their October debuts. Anything you can pinpoint? I think it's a perfect storm.

I think it's a little bit of all those things. Rangers pitching showed up. I can't say it wasn't Rangers pitching.

When Nate involved, he all of a sudden could become a top of the line starter. He was not that good down the stretch. He did well in the wildcard and great last night.

So you got to take something. You got to tip your hat for the Rangers pitching because all of a sudden they became top notch. But I think also, you know, you saw experience in there as well on top of a team that was struggling offensively to start with when the postseason began. So I think it was kind of a perfect storm. Rob Long is with us from Baltimore.

Sports Talk morning host on our affiliate, 105.7 The Fan, also host of O's Extra on Mathen. So how are Orioles fans feeling this morning then? You know, well, we'll wait to see.

But just by the responses that I saw on social media, you have some who are going to throw dirt just because that's the type of people they are. But I think for the most part, Orioles fans feel optimistic. You said something about, you know, the announcers and players saying, you know, they'll be back.

I think most of the fan base feels that way. You can never predict getting back to the postseason, especially when you have a veteran team because it's a thin line between being a veteran and being old. But when you have a team that your nucleus is this young, this inexperienced, this was great experience for them and you feel confident about this team getting back to the postseason, especially, you know, not only just the opportunity to win the East, but you also have three wildcard spots. I feel confident that this is a team that will get back to the postseason and take this loss. You know, I keep hearing that's eight consecutive postseason losses for the Baltimore Orioles. That started in 2014.

Middle school, they had nothing to do with that. I think they think this postseason will help them out, especially make them hungry. I mean, you know how it is when you know where the finish line is anyway, when all you've had in 162, it's hard to fathom getting past 162.

But now that these guys go into spring training, knowing what it feels like to go beyond that, I think the creative differences of hunger from them beginning in spring training where they may have just picked up on that this year, halfway through when they stopped believing they could do it. All right. I want to circle back to the question. It had 630 responses on your Twitter.

I don't know how many of those you actually read, but here is Brandon Hyde's response to whether or not 23 is a success. We're supposed to win 76 games, won 101 in American League East. Really proud of our group.

They defied all the odds. Nobody gave us a chance. They got these guys play their butts off for six months. We just didn't play well for these last three, unfortunately.

But it's definitely a successful season, and these guys are going to be really good going forward. So that's the manager's take on it. I'm not sure what the fans had to say to you. So, mixed bag of the comments that you were inundated with on Twitter?

First of all, he's right. Some of the experts had to win 76 games. I thought that was a joke from the very beginning. This team was legit last year. They didn't sneak up on 83 wins. I thought this team, worst case scenario, was going to be the third wildcard team coming into the season. That was my prediction that they'd be a wildcard team. So that's 76. He's right. That was the prediction, but that was never my expectations on this team.

I thought they were much too good for that. But again, I didn't read all 600. Shame on you. But most of them, the feeling that I'm getting, I would say at least 80 percent of the people that I've read are saying, yes, it's a successful season.

But I think most agree with me. Success because of the expectations from the beginning. Disappointed because those expectations were raised based on the way over 162. This team became a team that we expected to get to the ALCS.

I did. The hitting was just good. The pitching was good. But now we're seeing the impact of the bullpen.

I thought going into the trade deadline, people around here were talking about starters. And I said to them, listen, man, you win out of the bullpen in the postseason now. And I thought that was something that they needed to really focus on.

I came to learn that they did focus on that. They just weren't willing to give up the pieces that other teams wanted. And I don't blame them. You know, you've got some studs still remaining in the bottom leagues.

I think I'll hold on to some of them before I trade them off. They just couldn't put together the pieces that they wanted for a bullpen. Fujinami coming over from Oakland just wasn't the answer.

He wasn't even on the postseason roster. I think what they have to address in the offseason, especially with Batista being down with Tommy John surgery, they've got to address that bullpen. No fewer than three legit pieces have to be added to that bullpen for the Baltimore Orioles for next year because that's what it takes to win in the postseason. They briefly had the lead in game number two. So they jumped up with the two runs in the opening frame before the Rangers just opened the floodgates where they have nine in the next couple innings, if I remember correctly. But what was the atmosphere like at Camden Yards for the return of postseason baseball? Amy, I've been through every stage of Camden Yards from the beginning to the swamps, to the bad teams, back to the playoffs. I've never experienced, not even over the day, I've never experienced what I did, what I experienced on Saturday and Sunday.

And I'll tell you why Sunday to me was even more special. When the Rangers were up nine to two, the crowd got louder. They got defiant. It's almost like they felt like they could will their team to win. And I've never experienced that at Camden Yards.

It was just electric. I was glad Madison did not have the broadcast because it's national, but we had pregame, we had postgame. So for the first time I really got to soak in the crowd and walk around the crowd during the game because I had no in-game responsibilities. And it just, you know, from the rooftop deck to Utah street, to in the club level, it was just, it was a buzz throughout the stadium that I've never seen. And I've seen some great moments that I was in the stadium when Delvin Young had the bases loaded double, but I've never seen, I never felt and witnessed nine innings of what I witnessed on Sunday.

Rob Long is with us from Baltimore for just a couple more minutes. You're awake now, right? Can I drop a question on you that we've been asking our listeners or throwing out to our listeners? I've been awake since four. Oh, how? Okay, but why? Because the show starts at six.

You can call preparation. Whatever you could do it the night before, I suppose. But between the game though, well, I guess it wasn't, wait, shoot, which game was earlier? No, you had the later game last night. Yeah, I did. So did you get any sleep? Uh, I got a nap. A nap, yeah. Okay, so this is what we're asking our listeners to do on this edition of the show. It's not really a question. It's more about fill in the blank. Word association, if you will, but I know you're smart and you're, you're already awake, so you're going to be good. When I say Ravens, you say what through week five? Um, no, no, no, no thinking. Let's go.

Let's go. Inconsistent, very inconsistent. That's the word I throw in there. They're, they're inconsistent bunch. Uh, I think game five, week five was, was their inconsistency on display. Uh, at times they looked to dominate at times. They looked at the head. They didn't have a clue. Um, you know, some passes were caught, some passes were not called. This is a very, very lots of drops. And the problem is, Amy, we saw this last year.

This is not new. You know what I mean? You had a huge lead against Buffalo. You lose the game. You had a lead against Miami.

You lose the game. This is last year. So I think this is a very inconsistent bunch. You don't know what you get from time to time with them from half to half, from quarter to quarter. And, and, um, they've got to develop some kind of continuity, uh, some kind of, some kind of plan. It seems like sometimes they don't have a plan. You go out for a fourth and two, are we going to go forward?

Are we not going to go forward? Why did you snap the ball? Because I saw the defense move. Oh, wasn't it a no snap situation?

And I mean, so that to me, it makes me as this, but what was the plan? You should never ask what was the plan when you're looking at a professional sports team in general, but it's just, you know, that there's just so many things that happened in that that you can look at as a microcosm of where they are right now. Well, and, and to maybe even narrow it down a tad bit more in the fourth quarter on back to back possessions, well, the Steelers and then the Ravens, you've got the Ravens recovering what was essentially a fumble on a punt, right? But, but it was a Steeler that knocked the ball out of his own teammates arms. So the Ravens, the Ravens get that on a punt return. They get the possession, but then a couple of minutes later, Lamar Jackson throws an interception in the end zone on a, on a ball that probably shouldn't have been a 50-50 ball. It shouldn't have been available for the DB to take it away from that was from OBJ, right? So that's the type of inconsistency right there in the microcosm of a couple of minutes.

Absolutely. He's dropping dimes early as some of them were dropped. And then, you know, instead of throwing the ball to the back pile on with either OBJ makes a great catch or it falls on your kicker gets the field goal. You're right. You're throwing an exception and all of a sudden now Pittsburgh has the momentum. The Ravens gained Pittsburgh, the momentum on so many occasions. And finally Pittsburgh said, you know what? I'm gonna take advantage of it and win this game. It's just very, you know, uh, the block punt, you know, we talked about it.

We, you know, about my co-host Ed Norris was, was screaming bloody murder. How do you give up a block punt to the A-gap? And I agree with him. You don't give up a block punt to the A-gap. You make somebody make a great play coming off the edge.

You do not give up a block punt. Yeah. Gotcha. All right. Well, plenty to talk about.

That is the beauty of our business though. I certainly understand if Orioles fans are feeling a bit muted this morning. Uh, it was a great season.

Now they've got a little playoff taste under their belts and they'll talk about it on one oh five seven. The fan that's Rob Long sports on Twitter, Rob Long sports, big bad morning show host of O's extra on math in one of our BFFs here on the show and clearly awake and ready to tangle. Thank you, Rob. Always good to talk to you.

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