Welcome Orioles fans, and baseball fans in general, to my very first blog entry. You’re probably asking yourself, who is this guy and why should I care what he thinks? Well, first of all, you’re talking to yourself, so you have more issues than worrying about why I’m taking the time to blog about baseball. More importantly, I am a rare combination of sports fanatic. I love the Orioles, but I’m also not blinded by my fandom. I will openly criticize the team when I feel they’ve made a mistake (or, like, lots of mistakes), and can be rational and realistic when it comes to expectations and the team’s possibilities.

Having been born in 1986, I’ve never seen the Orioles win the World Series, or even get to one, so I’m not obsessed with getting back to the “Oriole Way” or fantasizing about the days of Brooks, Palmer, and Boog. I’m obsessed with the Orioles of now and the future. I want to look ahead. I’m more Nick Markakis than Frank Robinson, and more Adam Jones than Paul Blair.

Continue reading "Welcome Aboard!"

In my opinion, the reason a lot of people aren't as knowledgable as they'd like to be (or I'd like them to be, for some, but that's another story) isn't because they don't want to be. It's because they just aren't sure where to look for good information.

There was a time when the only place I went to get sports news was espn.com, and that just isn't helpful enough sometimes, so I thought I'd throw out a few sites that I always go to when I'm looking for certain information.

First off:

OriolesHangout is one of the most knowledgable Oriole sites out there, and is always a good option for O's related news. Their forums are also very well-organized.

This site is the place to go if you are looking for the contract status of any player, manager, or even GM. Very easy to find what you are looking for. Definitely the go-to site when trying to look at player's salaries. 

Continue reading "Helpful Links"

It was a nice, easy win for the Orioles tonight, and a very important one at that. Knowing that the next three pitchers for Toronto are all very tough (Marcum, Burnett and Halladay), it was crucial to pick up a victory tonight if we want to have a shot at getting 3 out of 4.

I don’t think it’s necessary to do a basic game recap every night, because everyone watched every inning, right? Ok, maybe not, but what I’ll do after every game is just give some thoughts about some things that happened.

- Radhames Liz is going to be a reliever. I just don’t think he can consistently get guys out to be a starter. I think his stuff is terrific, and that he could be dominant out of the bullpen. He just loses his release point pretty easily, and I think coming in for an inning or so and being able to just let it loose may help him out. We've seen how well the transition has worked for Jim Johnson, and I think Liz' stuff would be even better in a relief role. We have a lot of starting pitching prospects coming through the minors (I’ll have a post on that tomorrow), and I see Liz being bumped from the rotation, perhaps even by early August, depending on what happens at the deadline.

Continue reading "Orioles 8, Blue Jays 3"

As I mentioned briefly at the end of last night’s post, Rotoworld came out with their updated list of the Top 150 prospects in baseball. The O’s showed very well, putting 8 players in the Top 150, all of them actually in the Top 110. Only Oakland and Cleveland had more on the list, which is a great sign for the Birds. This list discounted players that are currently in the big leagues (so no Radhames Liz or Garrett Olson for the O’s) and also didn’t count players yet to sign (therefore no Brian Matusz).

Here are the O’s representatives:

4- Matt Wieters, C, 22 years old

A+, Frederick: .345/.448/.576/1.024
AA, Bowie: .346/.433/.538/.971

Wieters, the first-round pick out of Georgia Tech last year, has done just about all you could ask of him in his first season as a pro. He raked at Frederick and has hit nearly as well at Bowie. There is lots of speculation that he could be the Orioles Opening Day catcher next year if the team can find a taker for Ramon Hernandez. I feel Wieters should get a call-up in September just to get him a look at major league pitching, but my guess is the more conservative Andy MacPhail keeps him in the minors for the rest of the season and lets him rest after Bowie’s season ends.

Continue reading "Orioles Prospects Getting Some Praise"

These guys have been nice enough to add a link to my blog on theirs, so I thought I'd return the favor.

The Bad Oriole is one of my favorites. Sean does a great job discussing the team. He is often uber-critical, but always backs up his points with facts and makes solid arguments.  

Fistbumps is a bit more humorous, but J.D. knows his stuff as well. Always good for a Bird-related laugh or two.

UrbanShocker is an Orioles blog that also focuses heavily on Dominican baseball. Whether you are an O's fan or not, if you have any interest in the Dominican leagues or players from there, check this one out.

Again, I just want people to be able to see as many O's-related opinions that are out there, and all 3 of these are good options. 

Also, I probably won't do a post-game entry tonight, as today is my younger brothers 21st birthday, and duty calls as the older brother. However, I should be able to watch most of the game from the bar, so I'll weigh in tomorrow on tonight's game. 

Continue reading "Other Orioles Blogs"

Tough loss for the Birds last night, as they fell 10-8 to Toronto. Same story as usual, at least of late. Lots of offense, bad starting pitching, and a shaky bullpen, and another defeat grabbed from the jaws of victory. My thoughts:

- I did watch the game from a bar last night, as I mentioned, but I could have watched the game with a blindfold on and been able to tell you how bad Garrett Olson was. He couldn’t locate any of his pitches, and that has been a disturbing trend since the All-Star Break for Orioles starters. O’s pitchers have walked 24 batters, and struck out 24. That’s a terrible ratio. Especially considering they’ve done that in just under 33 innings. Olson only had 3 walks last night, but he couldn’t hit the glove, and this was especially disappointing because I was very encouraged after his last start. The box score tells you 5 ER, but he was one pitch away from being through 6 having given up only 3 (Brandon Inge homered on a 3-2 pitch with a man on). To me, one of the biggest disappointments of the season so far has been the non-development of Olson and Liz.

Continue reading "Blue Jays 10, Orioles 8"

With the game technically still going, it would be tough for me to do a game wrap. Since there was a rain delay, I went out and checked out The Dark Knight tonight. (OK, maybe I really was going to see the new Batman movie all along. I had a chance to see it at an IMAX theatre, you think I’m passing that up???) Anyways, the rain has helped me out and now I can catch the last 3 and a half innings tomorrow. Oh, and all the hype about the movie? Legit. One of the best movies, all-around, I’ve ever seen. Having a lot of the city scenes actually filmed on IMAX cameras made it so intense, and I thought the whole movie flowed perfectly. Heath Ledger was flawless as The Joker. Incredible. He should win an Oscar hands down, regardless of his death. He made the movie.

But as it concerns to the actual game, tough break that the Orioles couldn’t get through the Top of the 6th. Although Guthrie had given up a run and had a man at third, he had 2 outs in the inning. When the game resumes tomorrow (at 12:05, by the way), he obviously won’t be able to pitch. Unfortuante that we didn’t get to see the most we could of our best pitcher. It is good that A.J. Burnett won’t be back out there either though, as the Orioles couldn’t do much off him either.

Continue reading "Game Postponed"

Sometimes an entire series can change on one play. Unfortunately for the Orioles yesterday, that play was a throwing error by Kevin Millar that ultimately led to 3 Toronto runs in the 8th inning of the completion of Wednesday nights game.

The situation: Bases loaded, 1 out, Adam Lind at the plate, Randor Bierd on the mound. Lind hit a ball that Millar backhanded and came up firing to the plate. He rushed the throw quite a bit, and the ball was nowhere close to catcher Ramon Hernandez. The worst part? The runner at third was Lyle Overbay, who has no speed and wasn’t even close to scoring. Any sort of decent throw gets the out, and the fly ball that McDonald hit would have ended the inning. Ugh. However, it got away, allowing two runs to score. Toronto tacked on another on McDonald’s fly out to make it 5-1, a deficit far too large for the Orioles to overcome. Joe Angel summed the play up perfectly “It’s a good thing I didn’t eat breakfast, because that sort of play will make you sick.”

Continue reading ""Good Thing I Didn't Eat Breakfast""

With their losses the past two nights, 6-5 and 11-6, the Orioles have now dropped 5 straight games, all at home. They'll go into today's game looking to snap not only that 5 game losing streak, but a 15 game Sunday-losing streak that ties a major league record.

 And unfortunately, all this late July losing feels very familiar. It seems like the Orioles always play worse in the second half of the season, and so far, 2008 has been no different. The Orioles are 3-7 since the break, and take into consideration that this is all during the teams season-long 11 game homestand. They'll face another All-Star today in Ervin Santana, and Garrett Olson goes for the Birds. 

While the starting pitching has been dreadful lately (minus Jeremy Guthrie), it is nice to see the offense hasn't completely fallen off the table. Aubrey Huff hit his 20th homer last night, which leads the team. Huff is a name that should be talked about a lot in these last 4 days before the deadline. Ramon Hernandez has played much better in June and July, and it should be interesting to see if teams have interest in him as well. Also look for lots of rumors on Kevin Millar, Jay Payton, and Chad Bradford.

Continue reading "This Feels All Too Familiar"

A win on a Sunday!!! For the first time since April 6th, the Orioles are in the WIN column on a Sunday!

On the pitching side, this was an exact script of what you want to do to win ballgames, something the club hasn't been able to do at all recently. Garrett Olson was very solid through 6+ innings, although it was clear he ran out of gas in the 7th. However, with a lead, they turned to their 1-2-3 bullpen punch of Chad Bradford, Jim Johnson, and George Sherrill to get them to victory lane.

How exciting was this win? Manager Dave Trembley lit up a victory cigar at the press conference, and revealed it was his first cigar EVER! How about that? Really good to not set an all-time record in one-day futility, the less that happens, the better (that's an understatement).

Who would have thought that the key to a Sunday victory would be 5 hits combined between Guillermo Quiroz and Brandon Fahey?

Continue reading "Cue the Band!!!!"

Sid Sherrill is 34 years old and a Licensed Customs Broker for an international freight and logistics company in Texas. Sid’s younger brother also happens to be the Orioles closer and lone All-Star representative George Sherrill. I talked to Sid about what it’s like to have a brother in the majors, how he deals with all the trade rumors, and if he has the same sense of humor his brother shows in his interviews.


Mick: First off Sid, this past year has been a tumultuous one for your brother. What was the off-season like, with George getting traded from Seattle to Baltimore? 

Sid: It was definitely a little strange, especially going from one side of the country to the other.  His name has been mentioned in trades, but really to be mentioned in a trade of that magnitude, I think, was really an honor.  The worst part of it all was that he had just gotten to Arizona, got a place, was getting ready for ST (workouts and pre-ST things), then had to fly to Baltimore for the medical stuff.  We were told right after he got the call, but we couldn't tell anyone. Now it is much better being able to watch a game at 6 Central Time instead of 9 Central Time for the Seattle games.  It was brutal going to bed after midnight every night.

Continue reading "Interview with Flat Breezy's Brother"

Talk about two different ways to win a baseball game. Monday night, the Orioles pounded the Yankees, using Adam Jones’ first career Grand Slam to open up a 11-0 lead, eventually winning 13-4. The game was never in doubt, and those types of wins have seemed few and far between for the Orioles this season. It seems that when they do get into the win column, it’s a nail-biter.

 It appeared that Tuesday night would make it back to back easy wins, after Aubrey Huff’s 3-run double in the 7th helped the Orioles push their lead to 6-1. Then, the momentum shifted on a play the Yankees had absolutely nothing to do with. With Daniel Cabrera still pitching in the 8th, Bobby Abreu hit a lead-off double. With the next pitch, Cabrera hit Alex Rodriguez up and in. Rodriguez, who has homered in his previous at-bat, clearly didn’t think anything other than “ouch.” Nobody in the ballpark (well, it was at Yankee Stadium, so I’m sure there were a few) thought it was intentional. Well, nobody except for home plate umpire Chad Fairchild, who for some reason leaped out from behind home plate and threw Cabrera out of the game. Inexcusable. That made Trembley go to Jim Johnson before he wanted to, and got the Yankees crowd fired up. Johnson was able to get out of the jam freezing Xavier Nady on a ridiculous breaking ball, but not before the Yanks had scored twice and the lead was cut to 6-3. That also forced Trembley to get George Sherrill up.

Continue reading "Brooms in the Bronx?"

Well then. That certainly takes a bit of air out of the sails. The Yankees clobbered the O's today, 13-3. Joba Chamberlain looked very good for the Yankees, and the Orioles bullpen was atrocious.

- Dennis Sarfate, in my opinion, didn't look that bad as a starter. The 3 walks killed him, but 5 strikeouts helped. His stuff looked nasty, but he has trouble controlling it. I think his future is in the bullpen, where he has been all year, but I think he earned another shot at starting. The trouble in the first stemmed from 2 walks (clearly some early nerves, as Sarfate grew up in New York), a throwing error on Nick Markakis, and a passed ball by Guillermo Quiroz. He really should have only given up one run in the first. Again, I'd look for Sarfate to get another start.

- Everyone else who pitched today was really bad. Brian Burres got knocked around, and I just don't think he is a majro league pitcher. He doesn't really get lefties out effectively, and if anything he is a mop-up guy. Fernando Cabrera has good stuff and I think can be a decent bullpen arm, but he got hit hard today. Alberto Castillo is simply AAA fodder who was up here because Jamie Walker and Adam Loewen were hurt. The next time anybody gets called up, Castillo should be gone.

Continue reading "So Much For A Sweep..."

The deadline has passed. All the deals have been made, and the Orioles that are leaving town are: Nobody!

Andy MacPhail apparently felt that no one was offering packages worth dealing for, so he stood pat at the deadline. Now, moves can still be made in August, but players must clear waivers, making it much tougher to make a big deal. Basically, the Orioles big trading chips (George Sherrill, Brian Roberts, Aubrey Huff, and probably Chad Bradford) are now with the team for the remainder of the year. Guys like Kevin Millar, Jay Payton, Jamie Walker and Ramon Hernandez may pass through waivers, allowing them to be dealt.

Hernandez is the one to watch the most closely, in my opinion. The Marlins may still look to upgrade at catcher, and Ramon may be an option for them. The fact that Matt Wieters continues to dominate the minor leagues makes trading Hernandez very easy to swallow.

Continue reading "Trade Dud-line"