Adam Jones, 2014 Panini Donruss #82

Adam Jones hasn't had a great year in the early going. He sat out a week with a rib injury, and entered tonight's game batting .211 with one home run. But tonight Adam did something he's never done in 1,253 previous big league games: he drew three walks. The Orioles' center fielder is not known for his plate discipline, to say the least. Two years ago, he walked only 19 times all season. Thankfully, the O's did not let Adam's patient streak go to waste, as they battered the Royals 8-3. Chris Davis homered as part of a four-hit night. The red-hot Mark Trumbo drove in four more runs, and leads the team with 15 RBI. Mychal Givens and Brad Brach combined to pitch 3.2 perfect innings of relief, with Givens stranding the bases loaded with a pair of strikeouts to bail out the returning Brian Matusz in the sixth inning. So the Orioles remain the only team in the American League East with a winning record, and they lead the Red Sox and Blue Jays by 3.5 games each. I'll take that.

Chris Davis, 2014 Panini Donruss #5

He's baaaaaaaack! Of course, he never officially left. At about eight this morning, news broke that Chris Davis and the Orioles had agreed to a seven-year, $161 million contract. This ends a lengthy staring contest between the O's and their most prolific power hitter. "Crush" has given me and the rest of Charm City a lot to cheer about in four-plus years with the team. Although I have my reservations about the Birds breaking the bank from now through age 37 for a player with such an uneven career record, I don't think there's any question that they're better in 2016 with Davis than they'd be without him. I'd like to think that Chris chose to remain in Baltimore in part because he wants to be the first player to hit the B&O Warehouse on the fly in an official game. That's what they call unfinished business.

There's still a month until pitchers and catchers report, and there may be moves left to make; there are certainly several significant free agents on the market. (I wouldn't mind a short-term splurge for Yoenis Cespedes or Justin Upton if the opportunity arises, and Doug Fister would be an intriguing rebound candidate in the rotation, for instance.) But the four major free agents from the Orioles - Davis, Darren O'Day, Wei-Yin Chen, and Matt Wieters - have all come off the board, and all but Chen are staying put. I wouldn't have predicted that, but then again, I came to terms long ago with just how little I really know about baseball.

Manny Machado, 2014 Panini Donruss #125

When you're hot, you're hot. The O's win streak has reached six straight games, as they throttled the Yankees again tonight by a 9-4 score. Another 15 hits for the Baltimore bats, including home runs by Nolan Reimold, Manny Machado, and David Lough. Manny had three hits and four RBI, and is on a 14-for-30 pace over his last seven games. That's the kind of performance you like to see from a leadoff hitter. The top of the American League East is getting pretty cozy, with the Yanks dropping into a first-place tie with the Rays. The Blue Jays, who have used some sort of dark Canadian magic to rattle off ten consecutive wins of their own, are one game behind the leaders, and the Orioles are lurking a game back of Toronto. Meanwhile, Boston is firmly in the cellar with a 27-36 record, five games behind Baltimore and seven back of first place. The next 101 games should be interesting.

Jonathan Schoop, 2014 Panini Donruss #268

The good news: there was an Orioles game today. The bad news: they got smoked by Detroit, 15-2, with Ubaldo Jimenez failing to complete two innings. The good news: It doesn't count. If the season started today, I'd go out on a limb and say that Buck Showalter wouldn't have written out this lineup:

1. SS Everth Cabrera
2. 2B Jonathan Schoop
3. RF Nolan Reimold
4. DH Matt Tuiasosopo
5. LF Travis Snider
6. 3B Jimmy Paredes
7. C J. P. Arencibia
8. CF David Lough
9. 1B Christian Walker

Yep, that's a Grapefruit League away game lineup if ever I saw one. But Opening Day is a month from Friday!

Jonathan Schoop, 2014 Panini Donruss #37

I know it's been out for a while, but last night was the first time that I had spotted Panini's new Donruss-themed cards for sale at one of my nearby Target stores. At a hefty $2.99 for an eight-card pack, I contented myself with two packs and called it a night. I actually rather like the design, with the strip of baseballs in the center of the border evoking the 1987 Donruss set. But the team colors are an improvement over its predecessor. Oddly enough, the white border and the city and player name on the bottom make me think of 1978 Topps more than anything else. As you can see, I pulled a card of young Jonathan Schoop, who has a very good chance to be the Orioles' starting second baseman when the season begins in nine days. The single best thing about this set might be the return of our old friend, the Rated Rookie subset. We missed you...or at least I did. If I was only going to get one hometown player out of my packs, Schoop may have been the one to get. I wouldn't say these are exactly worth the price tag, but it's worth grabbing a few impulse packs for the novelty of it all.