The Orioles so far have had a rough time of things on the road, and were swept by the New York Yankees in a three game series this week. Despite close games on Monday and Wednesday — which included a hard fought comeback thanks to back-to-back homers by Adam Jones and Nick Markakis, they’ve flopped. Baltimore is 1-5 on the current road trip and they’ll be heading into yet another tough place — Boston — this weekend.
Once again, the pitching has been a problem — with exception of David Hernandez’s start on Monday, Baltimore starters have had a tough time of things. Rich Hill got lit up on Tuesday, and Berken had a horrific first inning on Wednesday that culminated in two losses. Although the offense brought the Orioles back into games, the poor starts by the duo of Hill and Berken put Baltimore in a hole early, and facing a surging Yankee squad, it would be tough order to have come from behind.
Now one has to wonder about the status of both Hill and Berken who have both struggled. With the emergence of Chris Tillman in Triple-A and talk (which from what I see is pretty much a done deal) of he coming up to the majors during the Kansas City series next week, who goes?
Hill — a pitcher without options — has been a disappointment, and Berken is going through the hard knocks of the major leagues, right now I say the latter may be sent down. If I were the Orioles, I’d leave Hill and perhaps put him as a long man in the bullpen to see if he could work his issues out, while you send Berken down to gain his confidence and get some work.
Either way, the pitching has to improve.
Also, I took the day off on Wednesday to check out the New Yankee Stadium — a trip that I had been anticipating all summer. I’ll say that the New Yankee Stadium is nothing short of breaktaking and very imposing. The park has some feel of the old stadium, but everything else was done in grand style. For me, it didn’t even feel like a ballpark, I felt that I was in some museum or a grand palace.
There’s really no bad seat in the stadium, and I stayed in the lower deck concourse in the standing room area along the seating bowl all game. The only real downside of the stadium is the considerable expense it is to attend a ball game there, plus the hell it was trying to get out the area onto I-87 and into New Jersey (I drove there); however, for all the money that was spent building the park and the hoopla involved, it is quite an impressive structure.
I’ll have some pictures up from the trip sometime on Friday.
