Once again, the Orioles lost to the Yankees, 7-5, and were swept in the Bronx. Again, the Orioles suffered from a lack of clutch hitting, poor defense and a crappy pitching by young David Hernandez.
At 7-21, the Orioles are by far the worst team in baseball and record-wise even worse than they were last year.
The Yankees sent Hernandez to the dugout early as he barely lasted over three innings and gave up six runs in his outing. He’d take the loss.
Meanwhile, Andy Pettitte continued his dominance over Baltimore, as he gave up only a run in five innings of work. However, he left the game early due to injury.
Down 6-1 in the ninth inning and on their way to yet another loss, the Oriole bats rallied, but could not complete the comeback. Ty Wigginton hit a two run homer in the eighth, and both Matt Wieters plus Nolan Reimold had back-to-back solo homers in the ninth.
At this point in the 2010 season, I don’t know what to say anymore.
It’s clearly evident that the problems with the Orioles can be mostly attributed to the severe lack of offense. For the most part, the starting pitching has done its job in the past few weeks and the bullpen has been a lot better.
When you’ve got Adam Jones, Luke Scott, Nolan Reimold, Lou Montanez, Julio Lugo all hitting below .230, you’ve got issues aside from Roberts and Pie on the shelf with injuries.
Yesterday before the game, Andy MacPhail in a subtle, but obvious way noted that that hitters have to do better, or he’ll have to start making alternate plans.
MacPhail didn’t mention anyone by name, but anyone who has been watching the Orioles knows who he’s pointing at…
“I would say there isn’t a great deal of time left before they have to start doing more than what they’re doing now. I’m not staying with them forever. It’s not a suicide pact. They either have to start performing or they’ll go to Norfolk.”
I’m quite glad MacPhail put his team on notice; however, this season may already be a lost cause when it comes to wins and losses. It’s looking like the promises made in the offseason about improvement are not coming to fruition.
This team – as constructed – isn’t good enough to counter against the powers of the AL East – the Rays and Yankees (at the moment).
I do think the organization has improved greatly and the team has some viable young talent – to an extent. Based on what I have seen, the Orioles will only improve when the talent steps up and show greater consistency in their play.
Looking back now, perhaps MacPhail and the front office should have made a bigger push for a marquee power bat.
For the most part, Tejada has been all right; however, Atkins, despite his average as of late has shown no power and has hurt the team with runners in scoring position.
Really, the problem with the entire offense is that they cannot produce in key run-scoring and clutch situations.
Until the hitters can do that, the starting pitchers may have to be pressured to pitch a shut-out to win.
That’s not good.
