After everything that has gone on with Mike Gonzalez from Spring Training until now, is anyone surprised at the news that came out this afternoon.
I’ve watched enough National League baseball and remember Mike Gonzalez pitching in relief as an Atlanta Brave to know something was wrong when I saw him last week.
From the Orioles.com: The team announced that Gonzalez is suffering from a strained left shoulder, and the move is retroactive to Saturday. The club said it would announce another roster move later on.
Baltimore manager Dave Trembley said before the game that Gonzalez had warmed up during Tuesday’s 8-6 extra-innings loss to the Rays but said he couldn’t pitch.
Gonzalez had problems in his first three games. He lost ninth-inning leads twice and barely escaped when he did get a save.
Let’s hope Gonzalez’s injury isn’t more than just a strain.
***
By the way, the start of this season is miserable.
Ok, it’s not 1988 bad – yet, but this is painful enough.
The Orioles are down 9-1 to the Rays in the 7th inning. Watching some of the game at the gym, the Orioles are just plain terrible right now.
Starting pitcher Brad Bergesen got lit up badly, giving eight runs (five earned) in three innings, but the galling thing is that the Orioles are just playing bad baseball and killing themselves with stupid mistakes. Miguel Tejada and Cesar Izturis allowed a ball to drop in the field due to mis-communication, and minutes later, Carlos Pena took the Orioles deep for his second home run in as many days.
B.J. Upton would follow with a three-run homer in the third inning, and the Rays would score twice more in the second inning.
Tejada hit his second homer of the year – a solo shot – in the fourth, but not that it mattered. Tampa’s Upton struck again with his second homer of the game in the seventh to make the game, 9-1.
The game was well over at that point.
These games have been tough to watch in the past week and half. It’s a long season, but right now with the injuries, lack of offense, poor decisions on the basepath and on the defensive end, it’s not looking good for Baltimore. We as fans are miserable, but the players must feel a lot worse. The Orioles can’t be this bad — let’s hope this is a bad spell; however, this team is finding tragic and pathetic ways of losing.
If things continue as they are, Dave Trembley will not be manager of the Orioles for much longer.
