There will be lots of folks questioning the Orioles for their early August call-up of hotshot prospect Manny Machado.

Not me.

I’m firmly in the “what the hell, why not?” camp.

Machado’s promotion from AA Bowie to the big league club in time for tonight’s game against the Royals makes perfect sense when you consider the rest of the details of the 2012 season in Baltimore.

They’re somehow only five losses behind the Yankees with 50 games to go and yet, they’ve been borderline-horrible in several aspects of their on-field product throughout the season.

And that’s why bringing up Machado makes sense.

It seems like it’s the wrong thing to do.

But it also seems to me that a team with no real first baseman, third baseman or left fielder couldn’t possibly be in the pennant race after 110 games.

It’s also more than reasonable to assume that a team with starting pitching as woefully inconsistent as the Orioles have had this season would be battling for last place, not first place.

And when you have an offense that has been – at times – wretched knocking runners in, it’s safe to say the team should be 9 games UNDER .500, not 60-51.

But, somehow, the Orioles are 60-51, and to anyone who has watched the games this season – like me – it’s gone from “fun” to “I figured they’d go in the tank” to “they keep hanging around” to “there’s something weird going on”.

Bringing up Machado might be weird, but the whole season has been weird thus far.

It doesn’t matter that the kid has only played two games at third base in the minor leagues.  I’ll bet you a chinese lunch he’s better than Betemit and Reynolds at third — combined.

Go ahead and call Machado up…

That’s what I say.

It wouldn’t shock me at all if he goes 3-for-5 tonight and knocks in the game-winning run in the 10th inning.

If he does, that, too, fits perfectly with what we’ve seen from the 2012 Orioles.

None of it makes sense.

But we’re enjoying the hell out of it, that’s for sure.

I hypothetically asked the question a few weeks ago on “The Reality Check” on AM1570 WNST.net.

“If the Baltimore Orioles are able to remain in the postseason hunt into September, will it have any impact at all on how you watch/support the Baltimore Ravens in September?”

I pointed out at the time that the two teams did not have games scheduled at the same time at all during September. (The Ravens’ Week 1 Monday night and Week 4 Thursday night primetime home games come on scheduled off days for the Birds. The Week 2 game at Philadelphia is scheduled for 1pm while the O’s are scheduled to play after 4 in Oakland. The Ravens’ Week 3 game also happens in primetime while the Birds take the field in Boston at 1pm.) There would be no direct conflict unless there is a weather related reschedule, or possibly if the Orioles were to make the postseason.

The truth is that there is no basis for comparison when it comes to how Charm City sports fans would treat this short crossover period. The Orioles’ last run to the postseason came in 1997, before the Ravens had captured the collective imaginations, hearts and back accounts of the Mid-Atlantic region’s sports fans. If we date back to the time when the Baltimore Colts and Orioles shared the city; mass media consumption, television coverage and big business of sports were incomparable to 2012.

Reaction to the question was quite varied. Some fans said they wouldn’t change any priorities related to the Ravens because football simply had become more significant to them. Other fans said they couldn’t imagine making any early season football game a priority while the Orioles were in pursuit of their first playoff appearance in a decade and a half. Still others thought it impossible to think that they would have to alter the way they paid attention to or supported either franchise, stating that other cities (namely Boston and New York) have never appeared to struggle with the same problem.

For many, the topic remains the elephant in the room. It might actually happen, they just don’t want to talk about it. They’d rather say things like “let’s just see if the Orioles can hold up their end of the bargain.” The Orioles however took the opportunity Wednesday to remind you that not only does the elephant exist, it’s an actual f*cking elephant.

Perhaps the Baltimore Orioles’ decision to purchase the contract of Bowie Baysox INF (and former first round pick) Manny Machado and allow him to make his MLB debut Thursday night has nothing to do with the fact that the Ravens are opening the preseason against the Falcons in Atlanta.

Of course, perhaps the correlation is absolutely purposeful.

Perhaps the Orioles wanted to take a strike against the pro sports team in town whose success has relegated them to “orange-headed stepchild” status 364 days a year (yes, I’m giving the Birds Opening Day. Nothing more.)

Perhaps members of the Orioles organization had a conversation this week about the lackluster attendance figures at Oriole Park at Camden Yards for the three games against the Seattle Mariners and said “this is probably going to be worse Thursday since fans will want to stay home and watch the football game. Let’s try to combat that somehow.”

Perhaps Peter Angelos (well…probably not Old Man Angelos but someone he allows to advise him and/or make decisions) is still pissed off about the Ravens’ Facebook jab from Opening Day and decided they wanted to put a dent in the football team’s television ratings-which will likely already be hurt by the fact that the game had to be moved from WBAL to WMAR and will be going up against the NBC affiliate’s continued Olympics coverage.

Perhaps there’s still bitterness for how the teams’ MASN-fueled relationship fell apart in 2010 and the Orioles wanted to flex their muscles a little bit to remind the Ravens they’re now working a network (Comcast SportsNet) that has clearly made the Washington Redskins a greater priority over the last two seasons.

Perhaps the Orioles are hoping they can play off the small bit of fan angst created when the Ravens ended their Westminster Training Camp tradition and win the hearts of young sports fans who are angry they can’t get autographs at McDaniel College. Perhaps they’re hoping to steal back part of an already small market that has partially abandoned the Orange and Black.

The story of Wednesday night was supposed to be local product Steve Johnson, who won his first major league start in front of numerous friends and family at Camden Yards in the Orioles’ 9-2 win over the Seattle Mariners.

Johnson earned his first big-league win exactly 23 years to the day his father Dave Johnson won his first major league game in the Orioles’ famed 1989 “Why Not?” season. It was a touching moment to see friends and family greet the 24-year-old pitcher in the hallway outside the clubhouse following the game as the Orioles completed a three-game sweep and won their fifth consecutive game.

However, the headline was short-lived with the shocking news that the Orioles will promote 20-year-old shortstop Manny Machado from Double-A Bowie to Baltimore for Thursday’s series opener against the Kansas City Royals. The announcement came shortly after 11 p.m. and just minutes after it was learned the organization would promote top pitching prospect Dylan Bundy to Bowie for his next start.

What a night.

Many will debate the merits of promoting a 20-year-old shortstop from Double A to play third base, a position at which he’s only played two games in 219 minor-league contests. Machado hit his 11th home run of the season on Wednesday night and was hitting .266 with 59 runs batted in 109 games for the Baysox this year.

The numbers aren’t overwhelming, but the potential is, as executive vice president of baseball operations Dan Duquette and manager Buck Showalter are counting on Machado to contribute to a club in the midst of a pennant race this late in the season for the first time in 14 years.

His transition to third base might have its share of growing pains, but the defensive struggles of Mark Reynolds and Wilson Betemit have set a low bar at the hot corner. Some scouts have projected an eventual move to third for the 6-foot-3 infielder anyway, but that long-term decision doesn’t have to be made right now.

Unlike the announcement three years ago of the Orioles promoting catching phenom Matt Wieters, this wasn’t a decision made a couple days in advance to boost ticket sales on a Friday night in late May. The club will likely see more walk-up sales than usual on Thursday night, but the Ravens’ televised preseason opener in Atlanta will stunt the potential of more people showing up at Camden Yards.

Whether you agree with the promotion or not, this was a decision based solely on giving the Orioles a better chance to win now by promoting their most attractive positional asset in the farm system. Machado must play every day for this move to make any sense, and manager Buck Showalter has made no secret about his affection for the young infielder’s ability and mental makeup.

It may work, or it may not.

But it’s a bold strategy, one made with no regard for delaying the start of his service clock as the Orioles have done with other young players in recent seasons.

No one really knows if Machado is ready to handle third base for a contending major league club, but we’re about to find out. If he’s truly the special talent so many inside and outside the organization have tabbed him to be, early struggles will not ruin his psyche or potential for success in the future.

A fun and compelling season is about to get that much more interesting on Thursday night.

The promotion came out of left field, but, then again, so has everything else about this 2012 season in which nearly every statistic suggests the Orioles should be resting well below the .500 mark while they instead hold a 60-51 record and are tied with Detroit and Oakland for the American League wild card lead.

I’ll borrow a 23-year-old expression that’s been used over and over in this unlikeliest of seasons for the Orioles.

Why not?

PRESS RELEASE

The Orioles announced after Wednesday’s game that they plan to select the contract of shortstop Manny Machado from Double-A Bowie before Thursday night’s game against Kansas City. He will be making his major league debut.

Machado, 20, has batted .266/.352/.438 with 11 home runs and 59 RBI in 109 games with the Baysox this season, including a .275/.365/.505 line in 91 at-bats since the All-Star break.

The Orioles’ first round selection (#3 overall) in the 2010 First Year Player Draft out of Brito Private School in Miami, FL, Machado came into 2012 rated as the #2 prospect in the Orioles organization and the #11 prospect overall by Baseball America. He played in the MLB Futures Game in Kansas City in July, going 1-for-3 with a double, two RBI and a run scored. Machado was a 2011 South Atlantic League All-Star.

Machado entered play on Wednesday a career .263/.343/.428 hitter in 218 minor league games over three seasons (2010-2012).

I was in Paris when the Baltimore Orioles’ trade for veteran DH Jim Thome became official and didn’t get much of a chance to opine about it. My guess is that I would have politely said something along the lines of “sure, Jim Thome is better than no one, but is a part time DH with little left in the tank really going to make much of a difference?”

I’m glad I didn’t have the chance to say that. Boy would there be egg all over my face.

Thome has come to the plate in six of the Birds’ eight games since being acquired. He’s managed to collect five hits (all singles), score a run and drive in another. He’s also walked four times and struck out 11 times. He’s been far from terrible since arriving, but hasn’t really made much of a difference in the lineup either. The O’s have won three of the eight games they’ve played since acquiring Thome and enter the All-Star break without scoring a run over their last 21 innings.

The Birds finished the first half of the season with a 45-40 record, good enough for 2nd place in the AL East and currently holding what would be the second Wild Card spot in the American League. The troubling part is that over their last 19 games before the break, they compiled a 6-13 record and averaged scoring less than three runs per game during the stretch.

I don’t want to seem like I’m taking the Orioles’ pitchers off the hook during the stretch. The team allowed nearly 5.5 runs per game during the same stretch, demoting starting pitchers Tommy Hunter, Brian Matusz and Jake Arrieta to AAA Norfolk in the process.

I’ll stop short of labeling the stretch “a disaster” for the Birds, but I’ll admit that I went through about ten minutes of inner monologue before I decided the term would be unfair.

I’m not particularly mad at Thome for not lighting the world on fire during his first week with the Orioles. It would be unfair to expect any player to become a serious catalyst in just one week, but there was absolutely zero reason to expect a soon to be 42 year old who hasn’t put up particularly good offensive numbers since 2008 to be the one to do it.

The truth is that the Thome acquisition is going to bug me until the Orioles decide they want to acquire players who are actually good.

I know WNST.net’s Drew Forrester said Sunday the Birds “had better” make moves to upgrade the team before the July 31 trade deadline. My column today isn’t just an echo of Forrester’s sentiments. My column is much more particular.

I’ve said for some time that the Birds cannot view their start to the 2012 season as a sign that they’re on the cusp of turning the page. There simply is not enough evidence of that being the case. There is significantly more evidence of the Birds experiencing good fortune thanks to a couple of nice pieces (OF Adam Jones, C Matt Wieters and P’s Jason Hammel & Jim Johnson notably) and an element of luck via injuries to rival teams.

I’m certainly not backing off of those statements. The start of the 2012 season is in NO WAYS a sign that the Birds’ “rebuilding” plan has worked, or that former executive Andy MacPhail and current GM Dan Duquette have put together a group of players that are just a year away from reaching greatness. The reality is that there just aren’t enough good players either currently at the Major League level or set to reach the majors in the next year or two to suggest the team will be able to win for more than half a season.

The players I mentioned before (Jones, Wieters, Hammel, Johnson) are good players. Unfortunately, that’s about where the list ends.  OF Nick Markakis and SS JJ Hardy are supposed to be good players. SP Wei-Yin Chen and RP Pedro Strop have showed signs that they might be good players. P Dylan Bundy and SS Manny Machado are believed to be good players for the future. Thome and 2B Brian Roberts USED to be good players. 3B Mark Reynolds and 1B Chris Davis (or is that 1B Mark Reynolds and OF Chris Davis?) are players you want to believe are good but you know better.

With trade rumors swirling this week of the Orioles going to get an arm at the possible expense of Manny Machado, some O’s fans are pleased and others are strongly against it. This season in Double-A Bowie, Machado is hitting a modest .264 in 84 games. He does have an impressive 48 RBI’s, a strong 10 stolen bases and a decent OBP of .347. But are those numbers good enough for the Orioles to still have the utmost confidence in their first round pick of a few seasons ago?

The Baltimore Sun was amongst many media outlets that first reported that the Orioles are shopping around for Zack Greinke, the ace of the Milwaukee Brewers. Greinke was ejected in yesterday’s ballgame against the Astros for spiking a baseball after a call at first base, clearly he’s frustrated with his play in Milwaukee. The Orioles have a very strong need for another starting pitcher to counteract with Tampa and the Yankees. With Hammel and Chen both having outstanding seasons, one more great pitcher would be a huge help. And Greinke who is 9-3 with a 3.17 ERA, would absolutely fit that need. Greinke won the Cy Young while winning 16 games with one of the worst teams in baseball that season. He is a stud on the hill and the Orioles as well as every organization in baseball would be lucky to have him. But the question that Orioles fans are asking; is Machado too much to give up?

JJ Hardy is locked up for another 2 seasons after this season and he has been one of the best shortstops in baseball. With the Orioles competing at the All-Star Break, and getting to the point they are at with some dismal starting pitching of late, I believe it is an obvious move. Machado has been good in the minors, but not great. Matt Wieters was great in the minors and it showed how quickly he was called up. Machado was drafted a year before Dylan Bundy, yet Bundy has gained a significant amount more of attention as far as call-ups go. I understand many Orioles fans will disagree with me, but Greinke is only 28 years old. He has shown no sign of slowing down. The Orioles haven’t made the playoffs in over 15 years and with a legitimate line-up this season, my opinion is you have got to make the move.

A friend of mine made the argument that we wouldn’t win the World Series if we reached the playoffs, but he didn’t quite think that through did he? We would have made the playoffs for the first time in 16 seasons. This city needs a baseball home playoff game. That should be the goal. So in my opinion, make the move Birds.

The All-Star break is upon us. And, if the season ended today, the Orioles would be headed to the playoffs. Thursday’s disaster with the Angels notwithstanding, the Orioles have reached halftime without completely faceplanting as most of us expected they would. The bullpen has been the most pleasant surprise, with an ERA still close to the best in baseball. The offense (long balls in particular) has also been a big reason for the success, with Adam Jones on pace for 40 homeruns and several others flirting with 30.

However, just like last year, the most glaring weakness has been the defense. Unfortunately, the O’s also lead the league in errors, which has cost them at least three or four winnable games already this season. The other coin flip has been the starting pitching, which lately seems to always be either stellar or awful on any given night. Jason Hammel and Wei-Yin Chen are aces more often than not, but the other three rotation spots have been consistently shaky with occasional flashes of brilliance.

The Orioles have already made a splash in the trade market this year by acquiring DH Jim Thome from the struggling Phillies for a pair of minor leaguers. For awhile now, I’d been wondering if they were really serious about being buyers this year like Dan Duquette said, and if, to that end, they would be looking to pick up another legitimate starting pitcher. Today when I checked my fantasy team (the Mercersburg Rebels, currently in 1^st place), the news feed told me that the Orioles are trying to make a trade with the Brewers for RHP Zack Greinke. It also mentioned that the O’s have two highly-touted prospects in Dylan Bundy and Manny Machado that might be part of such a deal.

For the last few years, I’ve always made it a point to have Greinke on my fantasy team. He routinely goes deep into games, puts up lots of strikeouts, and has a very good ERA and WHIP. He won the 2009 AL Cy Young with the Royals, no easy feat when one considers that they’ve been about as bad as the Orioles over the last decade. This year, his record is 9-2, while his team is currently under .500 by five games.

So, all indications are that he would be an excellent pickup if the Orioles can pull this off. However, I would not part with Bundy or Machado to make it happen. Since Milwaukee lost Prince Fielder, they’re in need of a firstbaseman. Perhaps Mark Reynolds could be part of this trade? True, he’s not crushing the ball like he was last year, but Miller Park is definitely hitter-friendly. And now that the Orioles have Chris Davis, there isn’t a tremendous need for Reynolds here anymore. It would also make a big dent in that error rate.

Another thing to consider here is that the era of Brian Roberts is, regrettably, over. He’s given us some tremendous years, but unfortunately the Orioles simply cannot depend on him as an everyday player anymore. Therefore, letting go of Manny Machado would be unwise, because he will be coming of age right about the time when Roberts is officially finished. I don’t think I even need to elaborate on why trading Dylan Bundy would be a bad move, unless of course the Brewers are offering significantly more than just Greinke.

I have to admit, it’s a VERY nice thought that the Orioles’ rotation could eventually consist of Hammel, Chen, Greinke, Britton, and whoever gets their act together. That, coupled with Jones, Wieters, Davis, Markakis, Hardy, and our current bullpen would almost have to be a serious contender.

However, I must reiterate that even if this becomes reality, we are not yet free of Peter The Terrible, and I still remain unconvinced that the Orioles have truly turned the corner as long as he remains in the warehouse.

What do you think? Should the Orioles trade for Greinke? Is there someone else out there you’d like to see them pursue? Comments are always welcome.