The Showalter era has gotten off to a great start, with last night’s win the Orioles swept the Angels out of Baltimore. I honestly didn’t recognize the team that played last night. Was that the Angels? I mean I know they wore Angels’ uniforms but they played terribly this series moreover they weren’t playing smart “Angel Baseball” that I know I have grown very accustomed to seeing over the better part of the last decade. The Orioles caught the Angels in free-fall and I will take it.
Showalter has the Orioles playing very good ball right now – but how much of it is really Showalter? I am sure Buck would be the first person to say that he has done little to bring about these wins. I am sure he would say that it is all the players. And it has been the players:
The starting pitching has been wonderful this series Guthrie, Matusz and Arrieta combined to pitch 20.2 innings giving up six (SIX!) runs and only allowing two (TWO!) walks. Guthrie and Matusz both got wins. Arrieta had a remarkable start ruined by an eighth inning Torii Hunter 3-run homerun off of Jason Berken. Speaking of which, as great as the starters have been the last two games have seen the pen struggle. Matt Albers got lit up on Thursday night making a laugher a lot closer than it needed to be, David Hernandez struggled in the same game before spraining his ankle and ending up on the DL. Gonzalez has been reliable but he gave up an RBI last night while facing his only batter, but even with the struggles the Orioles have found ways to win the last few games.
The team is heating up all over. Matt Wieters, since coming back from the DL, is batting an even .300 with an OPS of .999. Here are some slash lines over the last 14 days:
Adam Jones: .310/.383/.429/.812
Felix Pie: .317/.341/.415/.756
Luke Scott: .277/.321/.681/1.002
Nick Markakis has struggled a bit over that period, but he has come up with some key hits over the last series, including a homerun that was absolutely crushed last night. Sitting in my seat near the right field foul pole you could almost feel the shock wave from the extra-loud crack that sounded when ball met bat. Fantastic.
Jones and Pie have become quite the one-two punch in the second half of the lineup. Over the last two games it seems that Jones will get on base and Felix brings him right on in. Adam doubles, Felix singles; Adam singles, Felix triples. They seem to be feeding off one another right now and it is a lot of fun to watch.
Orioles, fun to watch? God I have missed typing that.
This weekend will be a real test though, the White Sox are 13-8 since the All-Star Break and sit atop a very competitive AL Central. The last five series the White Sox have played have been against struggling teams; two each against Oakland and Seattle and a four game series against the Detroit Tigers who are in the middle of their seemingly annual nosedive. Of course the pale hose are looking at the Orioles and seeing another easy series in a soft spot of their schedule. If the Orioles are truly on an upswing this weekend will bring it out.
Getting back to the original question – how much of this IS Showalter? Conventional wisdom says that your average MLB manager, through his decisions, account for the result of about five wins a year. That is to say, at the end of the day, the manager just pushes buttons and the players need to play. But even knowing that it is hard to deny that the Orioles seem to have been playing much better ball over the last three games. I don’t think anyone can deny that Showalter brings a sense of true stability and credibility to the dugout and Showalter’s record with struggling teams surely gives the players the hope that the fans are feeling right now.
All that is great but the real test of Showalter’s karmic impact will come when the team hits it’s first speedbump. Showalter pulls the levers and pushes the buttons, but sooner or later these decisions will back fire the same way it happens to all managers. How this team responds to the inevitable lost series or three-four game losing streak or heart breaking loss will show us how much a difference Showalter is making. Right now the team is very high, but it could all come crashing down back into a pit of lethargy, or swamp of sadness and that is where the great managers separate themselves from the pack.
