Oriole #998- Chris Parmelee

Did you all happen to catch the O's game last night? It was a slobber-knocker as the Orioles demolished the Phillies 19-3. They hit 8 home runs in the game, which is an all-time team record, and my dad and I had actually talked about going to the game before deciding against it. Oh well, at least it was fun to watch on TV. And Chris Parmelee contributed to the win with one of the best ever offensive debuts by going 4-6 with two home runs.

Apparently, Chris was only the second Orioles player ever to hit two homers in his debut, following Sam Horn on April 9, 1990, and just the third with four hits in his debut following Horn and Ronny Paulino on April 7, 2012. Let's just hope that Parmelee's time in Baltimore ends better than Paulino's did, as he ended up with just twelve additional hits over nineteen games following that four hit debut.

Parmelee has a decent track record, as he was the Twins first round selection (20th overall) in the 2006 draft. He played for the Twins from 2011-14, but never appeared in more than 101 games in a season, and finished his time in Minnesota with a .249 average, and 24 home runs over 273 games. 

The Orioles signed him as a free agent this past January and he had been tearing up the AAA International League all season long and was hitting .312 with 6 homers and and on-base percentage near .400 over 61 games. However, he wasn't on the Orioles forty man roster, and is pretty much a 1B/corner OF of which the O's already have too many guys taking up spots on the roster. But they had to give him a shot or risk losing him to a competitor as he had a June 15th opt-out date. And I know that it's a very small sample size, but the move is already seeming to pay dividends. Now if he can only continue to produce, he should settle in nicely on the team. 

As I so often write, thanks goes once again to my dad for his helping making this Old Man Card as well as getting it signed for me on his Spring Training trip. Thanks to him, this will slide very nicely into a permanent spot in the collection. 

Since Parmelee is now officially Oriole #998, we are really knocking on the door of the 1000th debut in team history. I'm pretty sure that very few people are as excited for it as I am, but it's a cool milestone and I can't wait to see who it will be; I think I should do an update post about the remaining candidates for #1000. Hopefully I will get that up in the next few days.