The Orioles still don’t have a manager. There’s still time. Today’s stuff: A minor signing Paul Goldschmidt Jersey , draft retrospectives, Mussina’s HOF case, and more."Hello, friends.There are now 119 days remaining until the next Orioles game. If you want to count down to fake baseball games in spring training, that is a smaller number by close to a month. I don’t want to count down to fake games, so I’m not going to figure out exactly what that number is. Sorry.Although some mild anxiety seems to have seeped into some of the more mainstream Orioles writers about the lack of a manager and the fate of the holdover coaching staff, I think that new GM Mike Elias has given plenty of reason for fans to be confident that he’ll hire a good candidate to be the manager and that there will be a good coaching staff too. This does not mean the 2019 Orioles will be a good baseball team, though it should mean they will be a better one than they just were.The reality is that the existing coaching staff should probably be swept away en masse. The Orioles just finished a 47-115 season. No one should expect to keep his job. They may not have been a problem, but they sure weren’t the solution. That’s all there is to it. Better luck in the next job.Around the blogO’sphereMike Mussina’s Hall of Fame case (Fangraphs)Mike Mussina is a Hall of Fame pitcher. The only question is when a sufficient percentage of the voting members of the BBWAA get their heads out of their butts and notice this truth.Considering challenges of constructing a coaching staff (School of Roch)One challenge is that a lot of the good candidates already have jobs, which is indeed a bit of a problem.Orioles making moves for present, but 2019 draft clearly in focus for new GM Mike Elias (Baltimore Sun)One thing that the Orioles are going to have is a lot of money to spend on talent in next year’s draft class. Being bad doesn’t have many perks, but that’s one of them.Rajsich’s drafts produced major leaguers, but no stars for Orioles (Baltimore Baseball)Scouting director Gary Rajsich is among those who won’t be returning. This all probably was not his fault.Mike Elias starting off well as Orioles GM (MLB.com)To be honest, it doesn’t take much for an MLB executive to impress MLB.com, but still... positive press!Orioles sign right-hander Josh Lucas to minor league deal (Baltimore Sun)Elias was heavily involved in Cardinals drafts when this guy got picked in 2010.Birthdays and anniversariesIn 1975 http://www.piratesfanproshop.com/authentic-josh-bell-jersey , two different Orioles received the last of many Gold Glove Awards. Brooks Robinson won for the 16th consecutive season, while Paul Blair won his seventh straight Gold Glove and eighth overall.There are a few former Orioles with birthdays today. They are: 2017-18 outfielder Craig Gentry, 2008 catcher Guillermo Quiroz, 1989-90 pitcher Brian Holton, and 1990 reliever Joe Price.Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! Your birthday buddies for today include: novelist Louisa May Alcott (1832), first woman elected governor Nellie Tayloe Ross (1876), novelist C.S. Lewis (1898), author Madeleine L’Engle (1918), baseball broadcasting legend Vin Scully (1927), Coen Brother Joel Coen (1954), actor Don Cheadle (1964), soon-to-be baseball Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera (1969), and rapper The Game (1979).On this day in history...In 1394, the King of Korea of that time, Yi Seong-gye Willie Stargell Jersey , moved his capital from Kaesang to Hanyang. Today, Hanyang goes by another name, Seoul, and is still the capital of (South) Korea.In 1807, Portugal’s King John VI fled from Napoleon’s advancing forces. He would eventually establish the Portuguese court in Brazil for the remainder of the Peninsular War.In 1877, Thomas Edison made his first demonstration of the phonograph.In 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced the formation of the Warren commission, which was tasked with investigation the assassination of President John F. Kennedy just six days previously.In 1972, Atari released Pong, which is credited as the first commercially successful video game.**And that’s the way it is in Birdland on November 29 - or at least, unless something happens later, which it might if the secret manager search reaches an unexpected conclusion. Have a safe Thursday. The Los Angeles Dodgers would love to use these games away from Dodger Stadium as a fast road to a National League West title.So far, though, the Cincinnati Reds are providing quite the roadblock.The Dodgers were coming off two wins in a key three-game series against the first-place Colorado Rockies when they began a three-game series in Cincinnati on Monday — seemingly with a chance to build up some quick wins against a last-place team that came in 22 games below .500.Article continues below ...Instead, the Reds improved to 5-0 against the Dodgers this season by winning 10-6 http://www.piratesfanproshop.com/authentic-josh-bell-jersey , riding NL batting leader Scooter Gennett’s four hits and three RBIs. Eugenio Suarez homered off Dodgers starter Alex Wood, who was roughed up for seven runs (six earned), and eight hits in 3 2/3 innings. Newly acquired reliever Ryan Madson (1 inning, 4 hits, 3 runs) wasn’t much better.Surprisingly, Los Angeles has a losing record against two of the NL’s three last-place clubs, the Reds (0-5) and the Miami Marlins (2-4).“If they’re (the opponent) is a playoff team or not, it doesn’t matter too much to us,” Gennett said. “Hopefully, we can look (at the end of the season) and see we had a good last month.”The Dodgers need a much-better start Tuesday night from left-hander Hyun-Jin Ryu, who has pitched well with a 4-2 record and 2.16 ERA. The problem is that he has made only 11 starts because of an ongoing problem with a groin injury that sidelined him from May 2 until Aug. 15.Ryu will go against the unpredictable Luis Castillo (8-12), the Reds right-hander who is capable of delivering an excellent start or an ineffective one. He pitched 6 2/3 scoreless innings against the St. Louis Cardinals in a 4-0 win on Sept. 1, but between that start gave up 10 runs, seven earned, in 8 1-3 innings in losses to the Chicago Cubs and San Diego Padres.Ryu made one of his poorest starts his last time out Felipe Vazquez Jersey , giving up five runs (only one earned) and an alarming 10 hits in six innings of a 7-3 Dodgers loss to the New York Mets on Wednesday. The rest of his line looked good — eight strikeouts, no walks — but it was a subpar outing for a pitcher the Dodgers very much need to produce in the final three weeks of the season.“I didn’t think we played good defense behind Hyun-Jin and I thought the way he threw the baseball was better than the linescore,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said afterward. “We didn’t give ourselves a chance. There were plays we usually make, you could just look around the diamond. Whether it’s added pitches or a run that scores that shouldn’t. For us, at this point in time, we’ve got to play better baseball.”They certainly didn’t Monday night. Wood fell behind 2-0 in a span of three batters in the first inning, walking Billy Hamilton and hitting Jose Peraza with a pitch ahead of Joey Votto’s two-run double on his 35th birthday. Gennett followed a batter later with an RBI single and scored on shortstop Manny Machado’s error on Brandon Dixon’s grounder.“They’ll continue to go at you offensively and you’ve got to score as much as you can,” Reds interim manager Jim Riggleman said.They did, too, as the Reds made it 10-4 against Madson in the sixth on Gennett’s RBI single and Tucker Barnhart’s two-run single.The Dodgers scored twice in the seventh and had the bases loaded with one out, but reliever Jared Hughes got Yasiel Puig to line into a double play.“Any win right now is good for us,” Gennett said. “We’re trying to finish the season strong and get some confidence to carry into the offseason and into spring training.”The Dodgers got closer Kenley Jansen (irregular heartbeat) back Monday after he was advised to skip the Rockies series, and they recalled former top prospect Julio Urias, a left-hander who is recovering from shoulder surgery in 2017. He had a 5.40 ERA in 11 rehabilitation appearances in the minors.