Before the season, I wrote a hopeful post about the Orioles, and gave several reasons why they might be a .500 team. I have since adopted an emergency NL backup team, the team has fired the manager, and they have hired Andy MacPhail, architect of the Cubs dynasty, as the COO. When a team is hiring executives from the Cubs to get better, you have hit rock bottom. So, let’s go back to a favorite topic of my professors, ex-wives, and fellow students: exactly how wrong I was.
The Orioles have amassed about a hundred corner outfielders, they can’t all suck.
It turns out, they can. And they are bickering over playing time. Nik Markakis has been all right, but everyone else has sucked so much that light cannot escape from left field.
The O’s might actually have a decent rotation.
Actually, this is true (insert story of blind squirrel and the nut). The rotation is officially decent. The Orioles’ starting pitching has a 3.84 ERA, which is good for third in the AL. It’s not the 1971 Orioles (four 20-game winners on one team), but it’s pretty credible. The starting pitching has been a bright point. Hell, even Steve Trachsel has been pretty good. No complaints.
The bullpen can’t suck as much as it did last year.
Yeah, it can. It might even be worse now that closer Chris Ray has decided to suck. The bullpen has tallied 18 losses, worst in the AL. The 5.16 ERA is just ugly as well, though not the worst in the AL. In the recent homestand, the Orioles went 1-9 thanks to a bullpen which blew five saves in ten games and posted a 6.00 ERA. Relievers now walk out to the mound carrying a can of gasoline to pour on the fire.
The middle defensive players are pretty damn good.
Roberts? Really good. Tejada? Well, no longer playing like an MVP candidate, but he’s been OK. But Corey Patterson has been cover-your-eyes awful. The good news is, he’s been so terrible, no one has really noticed that Ramon Hernandez has played badly. Simply playing poorly on this team doesn’t make you special. You have to hit the higher reaches of suckitude to get noticed. Which is why I admire Corey Patterson going all out to be arguably the least productive regular in all of baseball. Congrats, Corey. When you suck it up, you don’t kid around. Kind of like when I'm wrong. I wasn't just a little wrong, I was the fighting-a-land-war-in-Asia level of wrong.
No one on the team out and out sucks.
I’d like to pretend I never said that. It’s easier to list the Orioles who have not out and out sucked this year than to list those who have. Brian Roberts. Maybe Miguel Tejada. Every starting pitcher not named Cabrera. End of list.
The Devil Rays still exist.
And they are better than the Orioles now. It’s now a race for the worst record in the majors between the O’s and the Rangers. Luckily, the Rangers have no fans so no one is suffering. About the only thing the Orioles have done better than the D-Rays this season is employing players who do not commit domestic abuse.
So, I'm a moron. The O's suck. And I'm glad my backup team, the Diamondbacks, delivered the knockout blow to the Perlozzo regime this weekend. Time to go all out rooting for the Snakes. One game out...
2 comments:
The Rangers have at least two fans, but we have an out Orioles' fans don't. We can always escape ridicule by pretending to shift allegiance to the more successful Texas Rangers. You know: Walker, Texas Ranger. If only Chuck Norris chose to play baseball . . .
If Chuck Norris played baseball, he wouldn't use a bat. He would just hit home runs with a roundhouse kick.
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