Jake Arrieta on Sunday could not find the magic that led him to win his first two major starts, and in the end, the Orioles lost their 50th game in 69 chances at the hands of the San Diego Padres, 9-4.
The Padres started off the game on a slippery note, allowing four un-earned runs allowing the Orioles to take a 4-0 lead in the opening frame; however, even an early head start could not help Arrieta.
At the end of the day, Arrieta – who beat the Yankees and Giants in succession – only lasted three innings and gave up six runs.
The weekend out in beautiful San Diego was yet another painful experience as the Orioles had a chance for a rare series victory, but they absolutely blew a nice cushion. By the third inning on Sunday, the Orioles were out of the game and seemingly had no chance against Jon Garland – who won his seventh game of the season, despite his team’s disastrous start.
Crazy enough, after the first inning, the Orioles looked like a completely different team, only mustering two hits the rest of game and unable to produce any offense whatsoever.
If there’s any positive news to take from Sunday for Baltimore, Matt Wieters may have started to finally show some life in June as he ripped a three-run double in the first inning. In addition, Adam Jones went 2-for-4 with an RBI.
AMAZINGLY, Baltimore has not won a road series all season.
On Saturday, Kevin Millwood won his first game as the Orioles barely won as Alfredo Simon saved in the game in an extremely shaky ninth inning. As mentioned earlier, Adam Jones – who is finally starting to come around this season – ripped a two-run homer to help out the offense.
The Orioles will return home this week for a nine-game homestand as they will face off against the Marlins, Nationals and the Athletics.
Moving on…
The Baltimore Sun this weekend reports that Buck Showalter will be in town Wednesday to interview for the managerial position and Eric Wedge will chat with the team for a second time as well.
What does this all mean? Obviously, the Orioles want someone with experience and Juan Samuel may be a short timer in Baltimore. I’d think Samuel may be the manager at least until the remainder of the All-Star break, but I’d expect the organization to move on thereafter and clean house for sure at the end of the season.
Also, it looks like the Orioles may want to make a change sooner rather than later.
Finally, despite some very embarrassing attendance totals for a few games at Camden Yards this season, people are watching the Orioles on MASN – at higher levels than ever. This weekend on his blog with ESPN Buster Olney said this when the topic of the team’s TV ratings were brought up and the fanbase:
“This is a great fan base just waiting to be inspired. So when you turn on the TV and you see the empty seats at Camden Yards, you know those seats will be filled whenever the team starts to competing again.”
So true. If you hear the chatter on sports talk radio, the blogs, websites and all – people still care and definitely follow the team, they just want a winner on the field. Then again, a lot of fans are just staying at home too.
The 2010 Orioles may be sorry, but the loyalty among the fanbase is still there…
