Back In Town...

I should leave town and lose track of the O's more often it seems.



I have been in Tulsa, away from the internet and ESPN (mostly) for the past five days and the O's have won every game.



I am still catching up with all the news and boxscores and I have still not changed my expectations for the team after writing off the season last week but we would all agree that winning is better than losing.



Quick observations: Steve Trachsel pitched his annual complete game this week. How big was Nick Markakis' homerun last night?



Pretty big as it turned out, moving the WPA .132 with a single swing and effectively putting the game out of reach. (Courtesy FanGraphs.com)


Mr. Reluctant looks like he has finally pitched himself out of the setup role which is a good thing. Funny how Baez was reluctant to accept the setup role and now the O's are reluctant to have to send him to the mound in any meaningful capacity.


More analysis to follow...

I'm Set Free

I've been set free and I've been bound
To the memories of yesterday's clouds...
And now, I'm set free

- Lou Reed


Sorry I have not been posting, I am leaving town for Memorial Day weekend and needed to work a little extra before I left...

It's an annual tradition for me and last night that tradition has continued. I have written off the season and will be far less tortured for the next few months now that I realize there is little hope for a 2007 turnaround.

The standard was set back on May 17th after the O's were swept by Toronto. if the O's don't win the rest of the series for the month, they will have no shot at contending for anything and I will divorce myself emotionally from this team. As you all know, the O's beat the Nationals but were unable to win the rubber game with Toronto last night. Was it a lot to expect? Maybe. But if the O's aren't better than the Nationals, an injury depleted Blue Jay team, an injury depleted Oakland team and the Royals then there isn't much hope for success this year. None of those teams (save maybe Oakland) is going to be very good this year.

They are now 5 games below .500.

It's over.

After this post, I can continue the rest of the year with cold statistical analysis and looking for trends for next season and I won't be so miserable when Mr. Reluctant blows yet another game. I won't be miserable when Sam Perlozzo make some silly move to put the game in jeopardy. I won't be miserable when the infield botches double plays.

I'll still be watching but I will be a lot more at peace.

I'm set free.

Minor League Report

Norfolk: 18-26



3B Mike Cervenak has been raking it this season slugging .485 and has hit 6 homeruns. On the mound, SP Garrett Olson continues to impress striking out 44 in 54 inning with a WHIP of 1.06. He's only an injury away from getting his shot with the club.



Bowie 22-21



OF Val Majewski is hitting .2.65 and slugging an anemic .368 which saddens me to see. The best hitter on the team, OF Nolan Reimold, has been injured for much of the year. Only IF Oscar Salazar has put together a decent season at the plate hitting over .300 with 5 homeruns thus far.



The starting pitching has been nondescript but James Hoey and Felix Romero are racking up the K's out of the bullpen. Romero has struck out 39 over 25 innings for an eye popping rate of 14 K/9. Hoey's doing even better striking out batters at a 14.1 K/9 rate while only walking 3 batters all year? Would he look good in Baltimore setting up for Chris Ray? Yes, he would.



Frederick: 21-20



The Keys are in first place in the Northern Division of the Carolina League and are led by several players having fine years with the bat. 3B Ryan Finan leads the way with 4 homers and slugging .469 on the year. There is also a trio of regulars batting better than .300 in 2B Jonathan Tucker (.304), SS Blake Davis (.319) and LF Jacob Duncan (.323).



On the mound only P David Hernandez has distinguished himself as a starter with a 3.26 ERA and 50 K's over 47 innings. Brandon Erbe has been disappointing, sporting a 5.35 ERA (and a deceptive 3-1) record. The culprit: he's walking 4.7 per 9 and has giving up 5 homers.

Shorebirds: 20-25

Brandon Tripp has been the Shorebirds best player this year but has also been on the disabled list since May 6th. Without him, Chris Vinyard has led the way belting 9 HR with a .291 average.
The good news is that 1B (C) Brandon Snyder has been the third best offensive force on the team but the bad news is he's doing it hitting .265 with 5 HR.

Weird stat of the day: SP Pedro Beato is sporting a 3.50 ERA over 9 games and is 0-0. That's right, he has no decisions at all. The best pitcher so far has been Brad Bergesen with his 2.45 ERA and sub-1.00 WHIP.

Random O's Related Notes

I may be the only one left out here not calling for Sam Perlozzo's head at this point. Support for Sam has eroded with The Oriole Post and Oriole Central having joined Oriole Magic is calling for Perlozzo's removal. The general opinion of Camden Chat and the comments on Roch Kubato's blog echo the sentiment. Even Roch is questioning Sam's decision making and David Steele at the Baltimore Sun is calling for Perlozzo to be cut loose.





Why should Sam remain? I've got three reasons.





A) I believe a manager should be given a full two years to show what he can do. We should probably let him play out the string.





B) It's not his fault nobody's hitting.





C) It's not his fault Mr. Reluctant is a bum. (Although as I mentioned before, Baez has had enough second chances. Take him out of that setup role now!)





I don't agree with many things Perlozzo does (bench makeup, bullpen deployment, etc) but the O's should be a winning team even with a modest offensive output and they haven't been able to manage even that.



But this team will be in a lot of nip and tuck games and Perlozzo has not shown a knack for winning the close ones. Managers really don't affect the game much during games that aren't particularly close but good management is needed to guide the team to close wins. The sparkline below shows wins (up bars) and losses (down bars) for the O's this season. The red bars are games decided by one run.






That's a lot of red below the line (especially lately) and it's the most damning evidence of Perlozzo's poor management thus far.


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John Maine got shelled on Tuesday and roughed up again last night. The beatings will continue, mark my words.

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Former Oriole "Stumblin' " Jack Cust has been making the most of his latest major league opportunity with the A's hitting .283 with 8 HR in only 14 games. Good for him and I hope it works out for him this time. He's been an outstanding minor league hitter for years.

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Paul Bako sucks. He lives on his reputation as a defensive specialist but I haven't seen evidence of it this year. His bumble of a pop foul induced by Brian Burres in his last start merely highlights his struggles behind the plate this year. And we all know what a lousy hitter he is. Really, there was no one better? Even Alberto Castillo may be a better fit.


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A fine article over at the Roar From 34 about the state of the overworked bullpen. Although they proclaim they are not "statheads" they do a nice job of breaking down the stats to make their point.

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A really interesting stat that is stunning to me is Jeremy Guthrie and his ability to adjust to hitters the second and third time through the lineup.

1st PA: .326
2nd PA: .163
3rd PA: .091

Not only is it unusual for this number to drop as the game progresses, it drops dramatically. Once he's "stretched out" completely, Guthrie could become quite a workhorse in this rotation.

Like Nailbiters? Get Used To Them...

When your pitching is respectable but your offense can't seem to hit the ball with authority, close games are what you're going to get. Baltimore had three extra base hits on Sunday for the first time in over a week. Every other team in the AL did this at least once this weekend. The O's have only hit one homer over the last week. Only the woeful White Sox offense keeps the O's from being last in the league in slugging.

How did this happen? Even before the injuries to the pitching staff, the offense figured to be more of a sure thing heading into the season. It's been anything but.

Here's the SLG for the key offensive players for this year and from last year:

             2007  2006
Hernandez    .380  .479
Markakis     .426  .448
Millar       .425  .437
Roberts      .401  .410
Huff         .389  .478
Tejada       .378  .498
Gibbons      .374  .458
Payton       .371  .418
Patterson    .309  .443
Mora         .428  .391

So only Millar, Mora and Roberts are doing about what you would expect from them based on last year. Huff, Tejada, Patterson and Hernandez are all at least 90 percentage points lower than last year. This team is getting no power from the guys expected to drive in runs. That's how you collect 12 hits but only get 3 runs for you trouble.

Looking on the bright side, given Baltimore's futility at the plate and all their pitching woes, they are only four games under .500 which is miraculous at this point. If the bats start to come around there is still time to salvage the season but time is getting short.

More from this weekend: It's time to mention Jeremy Guthrie in the same breath as Erik Bedard, Daniel Cabrera and Adam Lowen when talking about the O's rotation of the future. Another monster game from Guthrie on Saturday as he scattered 4 hits, struck out 10 and walked none. He didn't get the decision but he shut the Nationals down. Is he another Bruce Chen or is he legit? I don't know for sure. He looked to me to be a guy who teams would figure out the second time through the lineup but that has not been the case. Will the league catch up? I still have a feeling they will but I'd love to be wrong.

Erik Bedard was a monster today too. He struck out 12 and walked three while surrendering a lone run but the bullpen blew it for him today. And for good measure, he collected two hits and drove in a run.

Mr. Reluctant is looking bad these days. He gave up two runs today and takes the loss as the Nats pulled ahead in the 8th. Baez also started the Mother's Day Massacre rally last Sunday and made Friday night's win two runs closer than it needed to be by giving up a homer to Ryan Zimmerman. Before the season, I pointed to Baez as the weakest link of the relief pitchers signed in the offseason and so far he is proving me right.

A day off today, hopefully the O's hit the batting cages. And muscle up on the ball. The Blue Jays and A's are coming to town, two teams that aren't any better then we are...

Can Anybody Hit One Over The Fence?

The O's are power deficient. While they don't have a premier slugger, they do have several guys who were expected to pop 20-25 HR and a couple that could maybe hit 25-30 HR. We're a little over a quarter way through the season and Melvin Mora and Nick Markakis are on pace to hit 19 apiece. Not too bad until you consider that this total would lead the team. Only Aubrey Huff and Kevin Millar would top 15. (Considering Millar's limited playing time, he has hit pretty well this season. He leads the team in HR per plate appearance and at-bat for at-bat has been the best Oriole run producer this year.) For the Twins this might be acceptable but not for the guys we have in this lineup.

Of course, homeruns aren't everything but the O's are an anemic slugging team overall, slugging sub-.400 which indicated they aren't "just missing" and stroking doubles instead. Unless you have a team full of Ichiros, Mark Graces and Tony Gwynns, having your sluggers hit in the teens for HR totals is not going to get it done.

Mazzone has done as well as could be expected this year given the injuries. The offense needs to pick up the slack.

Hit some out fellas. Please?

Stunned Silent

Maybe this blog thing wasn't such a good idea...it's way too depressing sometimes.

It's been over 72 hours now and I think I'm finally in a good place to write about the Orioles again.

I was plugging away at a post Sunday afternoon that was going to be all about the positive steps the O's were making. It was going to be about how the O's have won 7 out of 10, taken two straight series against division rivals. It was going to be about using this last 10 game stretch to springboard into a stretch of games against the woeful Blue Jays, Royals and Nationals to finish the month. It was going to be a hopeful entry that the O's were righting the ship and on their way to respectability. Baltimore was up 5-0 with one out in the ninth and Jeremy Guthrie was leaving the game.

Then the wheels fell off. I won't detail it again, it's been done plenty in the last four days.

Whose fault is it? Nobody's really. (Yes, I mean it...) The only man who you can lay some blame on is Mr. Perlozzo and that's only for his mismanagement of the bullpen. Mr. Reluctant couldn't hold the lead, couldn't muster two outs. (But to be fair, he may have a tired arm. All the major components of the bullpen are on record paces for appearance and innings. At some point Sam, you have to leave a starter in who doesn't have it to take one for the team.) Ray didn't have it and that will happen. If Melvin Mora would have been at third instead of nursing a jammed finger in the 9th, the O's probably survive. If Ray holds on to the ball, the O's survive. It sucks but it happens. I should take my own advice obviously but you can't have an NFL mentality when watching baseball.

There was nothing wrong with Perlozzo taking out Guthrie. They're trying to stretch him out and I'm sure next time he'll get the chance to finish. You don't want to get the guy hurt by having him do too much, too soon. I'm sure Mazzone had some input on that and I'll defer to him on that decision. If your bullpen can't hold a five run lead and get two outs, there's not much to be thrilled about in tighter situations.

Then to add insult to injury, Baltimore lost two nip and tuck games to Toronto the last two nights.

To highlight the good, the loss on Sunday doesn't diminish Guthrie's accomplishment. That was a beautiful game he pitched on Sunday. And Brian Burres pitched a great game to win on Friday. These were two guys thrust into the rotation due to injury and they have performed admirably. Both of these guys were claimed off of waivers when other teams didn't want them. The front office got them for nothing. If only one of them develops into a serviceable starter this year, the Duquette/Flanagan duo have a nice feather to put in their cap. (I have watched Burres pitch tonight and he did a nice job again.)

The bats need to wake up. Only the Royals and the Angels have hit fewer homeruns in the AL this season. If you have pitching like the Angels, you can win like that for awhile but we don't have that kind of pitching. Right now the two major issues are the overworked bullpen and the lack of power in the lineup. Even with the injuries to the starting rotation, the starters are pitching well enough to win.