Baltimore Orioles can’t bet on Chris Davis in the ALCS

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The Baltimore Orioles will hold a light team workout at Camden Yards today which will be closed to the general public. This on the heels of hundreds of fans meeting the team on their trip home from Detroit at Camden Yards yesterday. I suspect that short of the announcement of the ALCS roster and the starting rotation, there won’t be much news out of the Orioles until Friday. The game times however were announced – for the first two games of the series in Baltimore, that is. Game one is scheduled for 8:07 PM on Friday, and Game two will be at 4:07 PM on Saturday. However the question is whether or not suspended first baseman Chris Davis will be on that roster.

Courtesy of Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY Sports

Honestly, I wouldn’t bet on it. First off, Davis has five games remaining on his suspension. (So in theory if the O’s lose this series in a four-game sweep, he’d also be suspended for Opening Day, 2015.) At it’s longest, the series will go seven games which means that Davis would have the opportunity to play in two of them. Furthermore and probably most importantly, Buck Showalter would have to play with 24 men on the roster for the games in which he would in theory be suspended. In an ALCS situation where every roster member could be used at any given time, that’s probably not the greatest idea.

On the flip side, if the Orioles win this ALCS in a four-game sweep, Davis would have to sit out game one of the World Series. However that aside, if the ALDS against Detroit had gone the full five games, I suspect that Buck Showalter might have had a tougher decision to make regarding Davis. It’s tough to in effect make your team play short-handed when they’ve fought this hard to get to where they are now.

And the fact is that Steve Pearce and Ryan Flaherty have done the jobs they’ve needed to do in Davis’ stead. I suspect that if Davis sees the field again in 2014, it would be as a third baseman – with Pearce remaining at first. But the Orioles can only hope that they have a decision like to make down the road. Because that would mean that the magical ride of 2014 is moving forward.