Turns out Ryan Freel is only hard-headed when it comes to his self-perceived worth as a ballplayer.
Freel was placed on the 15 day DL with a head injury after being hit in the head by Boston pitcher Justin Masterson during a pickoff throw to first.
If you read regularly, you know that I was not a big fan of the Hayden Penn trade. But I have wondered if the presence of Ty Wigginton and the addition of Robert Andino made Freel redundant. I guess now we'll find out.
Radhames Liz was sent down to Norfolk to make room for Brad Bergesen. That's where Liz belongs for the forseeable future; he shouldn't have been called up to begin with.
Lou Montanez is being recalled from AAA Norfolk and will get a another chance to stick with the big club as the 4th outfielder and part time DH. Montanez has supposedly worked on his defense in the offseason (and I saw some of that improvement firsthand on Sunday) and he is destroying International League pitching through the first two weeks of the season. I think the team is better with Lou on the bench at this point.
Some are already grumbling about the lack of production from Felix Pie and seem to think that this spells the beginning of the end for Pie's starting gig. That would be disappointing.
They decided to give Pie a shot and they should stick with him at least through the All-Star break. Let's not go crazy based on 11 games.
Randomly, I decided to see how three young Baltimore outfielders fared during their first 38 games as regulars in the Majors.
Adam Jones
.223 AVG, 31 SO, 7 BB, 2HR, .633 OPS
Nick Markakis
.204 AVG, 17 SO, 9 BB, 2 HR, .604 OPS
Luis Matos
.350 AVG, 30 SO, 11 BB, .916 OPS
Jones didn't start to hit until mid-July last season. Markakis didn't take off until mid-June of 2006. And Luis Matos didn't start to come back to Earth until mid-July.
Early returns don't mean much. Eleven games mean even less. Let's give Pie a little more time before we run him out of town.
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