Daily Archives: June 1, 2010

This was supposed to be the year that the rebuilding Orioles began their long climb back up the AL East standings. They weren’t supposed to win, but they were definitely supposed to improve thanks to the young bats in the heart of their lineup and the first of a strong supply of pitching prospects breaking into their rotation. Mix in some solid veteran stop-gaps such as Miguel Tejada and Kevin Millwood and the Orioles were supposed to be, well, not terrible. That they started the season by going 1-11 and 2-16 was supposed to be a fluke, but in their last 15 games coming into this week’s three-game set in the Bronx the O’s have gone just 3-12. It’s just not happening. The Orioles not only aren’t better than last year’s last-place team, they have the worst record in baseball and a winning percentage below .300.

What happened? Well, to begin with, no one is hitting. Adam Jones, an All-Star in 2009, is hitting .251/.274/.382. Matt Wieters, the organization’s can’t-miss catching prospect is hitting .250/.323/.351 as a sophomore. Nolan Reimold a solid-hitting rookie left-fielder last year, hit just .205/.302/.337 and lost both his job and his roster spot to Corey Patterson of all people. Nick Markakis, the one established star in the Orioles’ youth movement, is hitting .307 with a solid .405 on-base percentage, but is slugging a mere .434 with just three home runs after slugging .476 and averaging more than 20 homers a year over the last three seasons. Tejada is slugging just .365.

Garrett Atkins, signed to be a stop-gap at first base, has been a total bust, hitting .214/.261/.294. Atkins first lost his starts against right-handed pitchers to rookie Rhyne Hughes, but once Hughes stopped hitting, the Orioles were forced to move Ty Wigginton to first base. Wigginton has been the lone bright spot in the Baltimore lineup, putting up MVP-quality numbers, but he only got to play because Brian Roberts has been out all season with a back injury and isn’t close to returning. So with Wigginton at first, the Orioles have turned to Julio Lugo at the keystone. Lugo is hitting .234 in 81 plate appearances with three walks and no extra-base hits.

That just leaves shortstop Cesar Izturis, who wasn’t supposed to hit and isn’t (.227/.295/.250) and Luke Scott, who is doing his modest best as the DH and occasional fill in at first base and in left field. The result isn’t the worst offense in baseball (thanks Pirates and Astros!), but it’s darn close. The Orioles are scoring just 3.43 runs per game. Apparently they heard about Ubaldo Jimenez and thought it was 1968.

As for the rotation, heralded rookie lefty Brian Matusz, who faces Javy Vazquez tonight, got off to a solid start, but perhaps frustrated by a lack of run support (he lost consecutive starts to the Yankees despite turning in quality starts both times because the O’s scored a total of one run in those two games), he’s been struggling of late, turning in disaster starts in three of his last four outings. The young pitcher who was supposed to join him in the rotation this year, 22-year-old righty Chris Tillman, only just got there, making his first major league start of the year on Saturday.

Millwood, who faces CC Sabathia on Thursday, has pitched well, but is 0-5 on the season thanks to a mere 2.75 runs of support on average. In Millwood’s 11 starts, the O’s have scored more than three runs just thrice. The O’s have won four of Millwoods starts, with the veteran righty taking a no-decision all four times, by a combined margin of five runs. One of those came against the Yankees. It was the only time in six games the O’s have beaten the Yankees this season and was a game I, among others, blamed on the Yankees having something of a hangover from a busy off-day in Washington, DC the day before.

Phil Hughes faces Brad Bergesen in the middle game of the series. Bergesen has a 5.96 ERA and has walked three more men than he has struck out, a stat that has more to do with Bergesen’s inability to strike anyone out (just 2.4 K/9) than anything else.

So, yeah, the Orioles are a terrible team right now. They still have the potential to suddenly click and have a solid second-half, but even with a pair of fair pitching matchups (the talented lefty Matusz against the struggling Vazquez tonight and the solid vet Millwood against a struggling Sabathia on Thursday), the Yankees should be embarrassed by anything less than a sweep this week.

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Ocean Park #83, By Richard Diebenkorn (1975)

Cliff checks in on the MVP races over at SI.com. Leading the AL? That man Morneau:

Last year, Joe Mauer led the American League in all three slash-stat categories (batting average/on-base percentage/slugging), led the majors in the first two and was a nearly unanimous selection for AL MVP. On Sunday morning, Mauer’s teammate Morneau was leading the AL in all three slash stats and the majors in the first two (Miguel Cabrera passed Morneau in slugging on Sunday). Morneau plays a position with a much higher average level of production and isn’t as highly regarded defensively as Mauer even there, but the slash-stat triple crown should be enough to guarantee a hitter the MVP award. To put the accomplishment in context: Mauer was the first American Leaguer to accomplish the feat since George Brett in 1980; only four NL hitters have pulled it off since Stan Musial did it in 1948, the most recent being Barry Bonds in 2004. I’d be surprised to see Morneau regain and maintain the lead in all three categories, but given how close he is to that accomplishment at this point in the season, he has to be the favorite for AL MVP.

I’m with a guy who thinks Wyoming is a country. You think you got problems?

John Cazale (left) apparently ad-libbed that line in Dog Day Afternoon. Cazale was in five movies: Godfather I, Godfather II, The Conversation, Dog Day Afternoon and The Deer Hunter. Pound-for-pound perhaps the greatest movie career in history. And he was terrific in all of them.

Cazale, who died of bone cancer before The Deer Hunter was released, is the subject of a documentary tonight on HBO.

I’m so there.

The Silver Moon Bakery on 105th street and Broadway is: expensive, friendly, just a little bit pretentious, but most certainly delicious. I had an apricot brioche the other day. Cost me three bucks and it was so worth it. Worth waiting on line for and worth going back for that alone.

Ya heard?

[Photo Credit: The Wandering Eater]

This’ll put a pep in yer step:

Wayne Coffey had a piece about the struggling Jesus Montero yesterday in the News:

“In a lot of ways it’s good for young players to hit these speed bumps, because this business is full of them, and life is full of them,” says Mark Newman, the Yankees’ senior VP of baseball operations. “He’s one of the better young hitters we’ve had in our system since I’ve been here (22 years). I am confident that he will hit. Our baseball field personnel – the coaches and coordinators – think he’s going to hit. You can’t find anyone in our organization who doesn’t think he’s going to be a really good player.”

…”If he tastes a little failure here, learning how to grind it out can help him get to the big leagues,” [Triple-A hitting coach, Butch] Wynegar says.

Newman said Jeter “is the strongest athlete mentally that I’ve ever been around.” Jeter had to deal with his onslaught of errors. Montero has to deal with his paltry home run total and his .234 average. The Yankees are not worried.