Oriole #1012- Francisco Pena

Last night's Orioles game featured two players making their debuts for the team. It's pretty rare for multiple debuts to occur in the same game other than at the beginning of the season in April or around the beginning of September, once the call-ups occur due to the expanded roster. One of the debuts, I was prepared for, while the other caught me relatively off-guard. In large part thanks to my dad, I was fully ready for Francisco Pena's Orioles debut. Not only did my dad produce his ubiquitous Old Man Cards, but he actually got three of these signed at Spring Training before I even arrived in Sarasota!

It seems like the Orioles generally pay a large amount of attention to the catching depth throughout the organization, so it's no surprise to see them sign a few extra catchers during the offseason. The O's purchased Francisco's contract from the Royals on December 2nd, and added him to their 40 man roster. He had played in nine games for Kansas City during the 2014 &'15 seasons, and was mostly known for his skills as a defensive catcher, which is something highly valued by the O's. 

The Orioles recalled Francisco from AAA Norfolk this past Tuesday after Caleb Joseph suffered a "testicular injury" (retching sounds) during Monday's game. He made his Orioles debut yesterday against the Red Sox and didn't disappoint. He kept Ubaldo's head screwed on tightly for the first five innings, quite and accomplishment given his recent performance on the mound, and went 2-4 with a HR, 2 runs scored, and 2 RBI. It was his first MLB home run, so it was a nice night all around for him. Not to mention that he caught the only runner attempting a steal against him to top it all off.

Baseball runs in Francisco's veins, as his dad is long-time MLB catcher Tony Pena, who played 18 seasons in the majors from 1980-97, mostly with the Pirates and Red Sox. In a cool twist to this story, his dad is currently the first base coach for the Yankees, who arrived in town last night ahead of their three game series with the Orioles this weekend, so father and son will likely take the same field at some point this weekend.

Good luck Francisco, keep up the great work as an Oriole! Although I don't expect you to hit a homer every game!

2016 Spring Training- Before I Even Got There...

As some of you may remember from last year, I did not make it to Spring Training due to having a six month old son, but my parents continued their yearly tradition of heading down to Sarasota to avoid the cold winter weather of the Northeast. Well, this year, while I did make it down for a few days, their trip was a bit longer than mine, and my dad spent some of the time ahead of my arrival snagging some autographs. By the time I got to Sarasota, he had already gotten 21 autographs in one day! He helped me out a ton last year, and this year, he provided an awesome start to my autograph-seeking adventure.















My dad was able to get all of these OMCs (Old Man Cards) signed and some personalized for me before I even set foot in Florida! (I just realized that I forgot to scan the three Audry Perez autos that he got, but I will show them off with the next batch.)

These were my first autographs of Chris Lee, Andy Oliver, Francisco Pena, and Andrew Triggs, so these personalized OMCs are heading directly for the collection if/when they make their Orioles debuts. Triggs is already out of the organization after the Orioles released him to make room for Pedro Alvarez and the A's added him to their team, so it seems unlikely that he will pitch for the O's at least in the near future. So Triggs is the commemorative Alex Gonzalez/Alex Hassan OMC autograph of the player who was out of the organization before Spring Training ended. Which is too bad since he signed a card for my son as well, but that's life! The other three guys could show up in Baltimore at some point in the near future.

I've been lucky in the past to get autographs of Jason Garcia, Chaz Roe, and Mike Wright in the past, so the non-personalized cards are available for trade. And thankfully Chaz didn't spell my name Rayn this time around.

Thanks for your help old man!

Hopefully, I will be showing off some more autographs sometime later this week. But two posts in a week is certainly a good starting point.