#Schadenfreude is a waiver-wire bitch, Orioles fans

Manny Machado, limping. / Photo via NBC Sports

After the season-ending knee injury to breakout Angels starter Garrett Richards, the Baltimore Orioles, per Peter Gammons, "are claming everyone," i.e., waivers on any pitcher being run through the wire who has half a fastball, including Bartolo Colon and Scott Feldman.

Well, if Matt Shoemaker can continue on his recent success, Hector Santiago pick it up, and C.J. Wilson start to earn his big free agent contract, the Angels, who have been lucky with starters this year until now, may not be too back off. (That said, Wilson's gotten a lot worse since the All-Star break, but Santiago's been steady and Shoemaker has improved.)

Also?

Now, it's time for payback for the Orioles, too.

The O's standout third baseman, Manny Machado, is done for the year with a knee problem, congenital not injury-related, it seems, that requires surgery.

And, the Orioles' in-house options to replace him, brave Bawlmore fans aside, are as bad as the Angels' local options for a pitcher.

Right now, they're trying the "mysteriously" "regressed" (read into that whatever you want, I'm surprised allegations aren't thicker) 1B Chris Davis there, even though he's played less than 80 games there in his career. Other "options" include Ryan Flaherty, who is below both the Mendoza Line of old-time baseball fame for Mario Mendoza and the Kozma Line of my modern sabermetric invention to "honor" Pete Kozma.

Other Orioles options are no better. ESPN lists Cord Phelps, who has played less than 5 games at third and less than 100 MLB games overall as the next option. Why ESPN says that, I don't know.

Utility man Steve Pearce is definitely the better option with the bat, but he's only played 10 games at third himself. They could keep Davis at third, but Pearce hasn't played a lot at first, either.

In any case, defense will also definitely drop off.

As for the schadenfreude? The Yankees, Royals, Tigers, M's, Jays, and Indians all have legitimate, "ethical" reasons to gobble up any infielder run through the waiver wire right now. Have fun in Charm City.

But yet, at NBC's blog on the news, Oriole fans are delusional enough to think they're going to get Adrian Beltre off the waiver wire. Man, I can be a Cards fan without being a stereotypical idiotic "homer" like that.

I hadn't realized that he'd already cleared waivers, per my comments over there, not checking that, just because I was primarily focused on pointing out how stupid all the Orioles fans are who thought they could get an easy deal on him, ignoring that he'd never clear that many waiver hurdles.

If the fans commenting at NBC are representative of O's fans' general intelligence, you deserve every bit of schadenfreude you're getting.

And, as for the one commenter who called me out for "busting a dream"? It wasn't even a dream, it was pure fantasy. No reality basis to it. Beyond that, many of the same Oriole fans were surely chortling over their own management blocking the Angels from waiver-wire pitching pick-ups.

And, with that, we've moved from schadenfreude to 100-proof hypocrisy.