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On Friday morning, the Orioles announced their Opening Day starting pitcher: Trevor Rogers. Still unknown is in what order the pitchers will line up behind him. It’s not even clear at this moment whether the Orioles will stick with a five-man rotation or if they will push it to six. The team has stayed mum about the possibility.
In this week’s survey, I asked Orioles fans about their feelings on what the team should do about this. As we know, behind Rogers, there’s also Kyle Bradish, Shane Baz, Chris Bassitt, Dean Kremer, and Zach Eflin. If they’re all healthy on Opening Day, that’s six guys. Here’s how fans responded to the question of whether the Orioles should go with a six-man rotation:
That’s a stronger majority than I expected for what I continue to think is a bad idea. Unless the starting pitchers are all going at least six innings per start, which is increasingly uncommon in baseball today, there’s just no way to keep managing a bullpen with seven guys.
Eventually, the Orioles will tip their hand and we’ll know what they are planning to do. Until then, we can only guess.
This week’s survey brought to you by FanDuel.
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