There was not much to say about the Orioles game on Sunday, as the Minnesota Twins soundly defeated the Baltimore Orioles, 2-0. Amazingly, Minnesota had a no hitter going until the ninth inning when our golden boy — Matt Wieters — broke it with with a single. Folks, Matt is batting well over .400 and seemingly is locked in at the plate; furthermore, I don’t see anyone fooling him so far at the plate. Aside from Wieters’ hit, the Orioles were quieted at the plate.
The other story on Sunday involves Danys Baez — who is on the comeback trail after injury and missing the 2008 season — actually looked very good. Baez pitched four innings and definitely left a great impression as he’s trying to make it as a starter. He struck out two and walked four.
His counterpart on the mound, Francisco Liriano — who himself has made a incredible comeback from injury — put on a pitching clinic as he threw four no-hit innings and struck out five batter.
I still think Baez winds up in the bullpen; however, he may have just have been trying to get some work in during his past few starts, and now may be feeling very comfortable on the mound.
Hayden Penn took the loss as he gave up the only runs in the ball game — a two run homer to Carlos Gomez — in the fifth inning. He’s another one who I’ll be watching closely, as he is now out of major league options and if does not make the roster out of Spring Training, Penn’s future with the Orioles is in serious question. The hurler has had a lot of bad luck and some issues about his maturity level; however, it looks like he’s gotten himself on the right track.
- Jeremy Guthrie and the Orioles agreed to a one-year contract that actually saw his salary go down. Guthrie took a $120,000 pay cut, going from $770,000 to $650,000, as his deal is commensurate with someone with his service time and general experience should make (as he is still under control of the Orioles, and not eligible for arbitration). One would think that most athletes would complain if their salary went down — especially in only their third year — however, I guess it says a lot about Guthrie if he even agreed to do the deal. More or less, our ace wants his work on the field to do the talking.
- It looks like Brad Hennessey and John Parrish are out as potential members of the starting rotation. The competition has been real fierce so far with many excellent standouts that it wouls be silly at this point in the game to give either Parrish or Hennessey the right to compete for a spot. One has to also watch Rich Hill; however, I think the team will give him a lot more leeway due to his talent alone.
