I saw tonight's game live and in person. The same Orioles that left New York on Thursday are the same team that played at Camden Yards on Friday night. For those who thought the firing of Dave Trembley would somehow spur the team to magically improve, it didn't happen.

In fact, they looked as bad as ever.

The Orioles got whipped terribly 11-0 by the Red Sox. Chris Tillman looked awful in his outing, the bullpen could not stop the bleeding and the offense only mustered five hits against Boston pitcher Clay Buchholz.

To be perfectly honest, Juan Samuel immediately found out what Dave Trembley had to deal with seemingly night after night.

I'm sure Trembley must be sad, but at the same time somewhat relieved that the stress of managing the Orioles doesn't exist anymore.

From the looks of it, the Orioles will indeed get another manager - I figure this time with some major league experience. Juan Samuel probably shouldn't get too comfortable.

According to the Baltimore Sun, Dave Trembley has been relieved from his duties as manager of the Baltimore Orioles as of this morning...

From the Baltimore Sun: Dave Trembley, who was asked to the lead the Orioles through the early stages of a massive rebuilding project, has been fired less than two months into his third full season as the team's manager.

Orioles president of baseball operations Andy MacPhail met with Trembley Thursday. The team is saddled with a major league-worst 15-39 record and off to the worst start since the 1988 team began 0-21.

Juan Samuel will take over the club on an interim basis, while MacPhail is expected to begin the search for Trembley's long-term successor immediately. The next manager will be the club's ninth since Peter Angelos became the principal owner of the Orioles in August 1993.

James, in an earlier post, expressed how some felt about Trembley. He got to fulfill a dream; however, the reality is that Trembley did not have the talent to win at all and may have been screwed from the beginning.

Big-time sports is a result-driven league and Trembley had far more wins than losses. The perception of the Orioles not moving forward (at least on the big league level) in his three-year tenure, the bad start and the mounting losses doomed him.

I don't think Samuel will do much better, but I do wish him well. It's not that a question of his aptitude, but again an issue of the talent on his squad.

This season is lost and has been for a while. It's time for Andy MacPhail to tweak the rebuilding plain and perhaps take a deep long look at some the moves he made in the offseason (Garrett Atkins, ahem).

Now the team should look at the upcoming draft, trades, signings and using more rescources to make things better in Birdland, but it still will be a tough climb to the top of the American League East.

We as fans were warned it was potentially going to be painful and it's sure turning out to be that way. Too bad Trembley had to pay the price.

The actual announcement appears to be nothing more than academic at this point. Everyone knows that Baltimore Orioles manager Dave Trembley will be relieved of his duties before the game tonight against the Boston Red Sox. The Orioles are mired in their latest losing streak and are sitting at one of the team's worst records ever something had to be done.

The early word is that thirdbase coach Juan Samuel will take over managerial duties for the foreseeable future, no word on who takes over at thirdbase. Samuel figures to be nothing more than an interim manager and all indications are there will be a full-on search throughout the rest of the season.

Dave Trembley's tenure is over and this makes me very very sad. Even the most hardened Trembley critic looks at this team's mind-bogglingly bad numbers and can see that Dave is not really at fault for this team's performance. Yes, we can gripe about bullpen issues and management but I have a distinct belief that Dave isn't any better or worse than your average MLB manager when it comes to that.

What did Dave Trembley do well? He carried himself and his team with a sense of class and professionalism through some very tough times. The team never imploded, no player ever chirped off in the media and they never quit on Trembley. That in of itself is a bit of a miracle; let's face it, we have all seen teams come unhinged over a lot less than this team has faced. The players never blamed the manager, even implicitly. Tejada, Jones, Markakis (et al) always stated that the team's poor play was on them not the manager. Dave forged a solid working relationship of respect between himself and his players he stuck up for them when he needed to and chastised them when they deserved it.

Dave Trembley was a good man. Sometimes trouble finds good men, Dave left his porch light on.

As we all know, the Orioles lost last night 9-1 to the Yankees; however, there's growing talk in the media that today might be the last game that Dave Trembley manages with the team.

It's too bad that it has come to this, but with the team's performance, piss-poor record and fan discontentment, something has to be done. The Orioles were supposed to improve in the hardest division of all baseball - perhaps in sports - but instead seemingly have gone backward.

If Trembley is indeed fired - much of his demise belongs on the players and the team Orioles' COO Andy MacPhail has assembled. The young talent that was supposed to help prop the team has regressed (for now), the bullpen has been a mess for the most part and the most of the veterans who were brought in have underachieved.

Obviously, the rebuilding plan under MacPhail has hit a road bump and the manager has to pay for it.

I don't think Trembley's replacement will make things any better, but I wish him luck.

Finally, I don't like railing on people at all, but was Brady Anderson on MASN last night watching the same game that fans saw???

In a season that has only been miserable for fans and whoever else that watches the Orioles, watching last night's game was painful to say in the least.

The Baltimore Orioles on Tuesday lost for the 37th time in 52 games, losing to the Yankees 3-1.

As we all know, the Orioles can't score runs at all and at this point need to play a flawless game or have a shutout thrown by one of their pitchers to win at all.

With the score tied at one in the seventh inning and with two men on along with two outs, Alex Rodriguez hits a groundball - hit fairly hard - to third baseman Miguel Tejada. Well, Tejada seemingly has the ball and could easily finish the play with a strong throw to first base.

However, Tejada's throw is short to first base and Ty Wigginton can't scoop up the ball.

It gets past Wigginton and two runs come in. From there, was academic for Baltimore - they face the Yankees' Joba Chamberlain in the eighth and closer Mariano seals the deal in the ninth.

Sadly, Brian Matusz got saddled with the loss, his sixth on the season against two wins. After getting shelled in his last few outings, Matusz stepped it up at the always-intimidating-Yankee Stadium and came through for the Orioles, going 6 2/3 innings and only giving up a run. Corey Patterson hit a solo homer in the 6th for Baltimore; however, they would only muster five hits on the night.

New York's favorite whipping boy, Javier Vazquez, won his fourth game of the year for the Bronx Bombers. He went seven innings and gave up a run on four hits.

At this point, what can the Orioles do? Nothing. They'll just have to use the personnel they've got and hope for the best. The season is lost, but hopefully a few guys will start to play to their abilities and start a turn around.

However, something -- if anything -- has to be done to stop the Orioles down a road to nowhere. Sadly, whether it involves firing Trembley, the long time hitting coach Crowley, releasing under-performing guys or what not, some kinds of message has to be sent. There has to a shake-up done to let the players and staff letting them know that mediocrity can't be accepted any longer.

Every other team in American League East HAS 30 wins. The talent may not be there for Baltimore to compete right now; however to be 22 games under .500 and 17 games out of the division lead is inexcusable on June 2nd.

I cannot imagine the status-quo being in the place for another four months.

Finally, columnist Peter Schmuck penned an article for the Baltimore Sun yesterday more or less telling the Orioles that they should let Dave Trembley go and offer another position in the organization if they don't intend to let him stay throughout the year. His article is a must-read; however, I don't see Trembley just up and quitting - just that I expect he'll be released at some point.

When the season started, most of us fans were hoping for a positive, maybe a season where the Orioles inch towards .500, or even better yet, a surprise third place finish.

With June coming up, we all know that’s not happening. I’m wondering how different the Orioles will look by let’s say – June 30^th or the MLB trade deadline.

The Orioles problems were well on display this Sunday as they lost to the Blue Jays, 6-1. A positive sign for Baltimore came about in the opening frame as they used small-ball and a Nick Markakis RBI to score their first and only run of the game.

The Jays scored three runs in the first inning off pitcher Jeremy Guthrie (who took the loss to fall to 3-5). As a result, the game was over for the Orioles – already. Things got worse in the 8^th as Wil Ohman – who had a string of 25 consecutive scoreless outings – gave up back-to back solo homers to see the Orioles’ hole get larger.

After the opening inning, the Orioles looked like the team we’ve seen throughout the year. They could not do much else at the plate and they only mustered six hits on the night – all singles.

They made Toronto pitcher Ricky Romero look like Cy Young had he sailed to the easy victory, giving up only a run in nine innings of work.

With five straight losses now and a 15-36 record, the local media, blogs and websites are wondering when Dave Trembley will finally be fired. Or hitting coach Terry Crowley. Or someone else.

With the day off on Monday, the intrigue should grow over the next several hours. The fans are frustrated and from what I've read online, they really want some kind of overhaul of the team to take place.

At this point, it does matter if if there's a change – but when. This is a flawed with a lot of problems that will not be fixed overnight unless a miracle happens.

I mused before the season that the development of the young players - Matusz, Wieters, Reimold, Beregesen, Jones - would be key. Perhaps aside from Bergesen recently, you all pretty know pretty much how everyone else in the previous sentence is doing. Combine that with the under-performance of key players in the lineup (aside from maybe Wigginton and Patterson - to an extent), you see why the Orioles are in a mess that they are in.

When it comes down to it, the players are the ones who make or a break a team – not the manager.

However, someone is going to have to face the consequences of the mess are seeing with the Orioles right now.

Toronto jumped on the Baltimore bullpen in the eighth inning as they scored three times – via a Vernon Wells monster homer off Jason Berken and a Lyle Overbay two-run shot – off pitcher Albert Castillo to sail to the victory.

The Jays took an early 2-0 lead off a Overbay two-run homer in the second inning; however, the Orioles tied the game thanks to back to back RBIs from Julio Lugo and Nick Markakis.

Brett Cecil for Toronto was excellent, going eight inning and giving up two runs for his fifth victory. Jays’ closer Kevin Gregg got his 13^th save.

There’s not much else more to say about Saturday. I can’t imagine this season could possibly continue that way it’s going. Do you all think that there’s going to be change this week or so coming down the horizon? Who knows what will happen, but I think a change in personnel is coming sooner rather than later.

I don’t know how long Trembley can possibly stay as manager of the Baltimore Orioles for much longer. I can imagine there’s much else he can say after each and every loss. His team just isn’t performing at all.

Right now, the Orioles will be lucky to win match the 64-win total of ’09 unless a miracle happens. They’ve got absolutely no offense or punch whatsoever and with the upcoming schedule in the six or so weeks, it’s like the Orioles will be running through a gauntlet.

In other news, it looks like Brian Roberts is inching close to a return. I don’t think he’ll be back in Baltimore any time soon, but with rehab and extended play at the minor league level, he should be back before June is out.

The Orioles and the Jays finish up their weekend series today in Toronto. The Orioles are looking to avoid the sweep and falling 21 (!) games under .500. When looking at these two teams the improbability of their seasons is striking.

We have been talking about the strikingly improbable badness of the Orioles all year so far, but look at the Toronto Blue Jays. The Jays have scored the second-most runs in the league so far this year, just six runs behind the Yankees, they have the fourth-highest team OPS in the league while simultaneously having the third-worst team batting average and the league's WORST on-base percentage.

The Jays have hit 85 (!) homeruns this year. 85, think about that, the Jays have played 51 games this year meaning the Jays are averaging 1.6 homeruns a game. The Boston Red Sox are a distant second in the league with 67 homeruns, just over 1.3 homeruns a game. All of this while having a league average pitching staff.

All logic dictates that the Jays will not be able to keep up this level of play all year. Logic tells us that eventually the power numbers will normalize and the BA will rise a bit - but most likely not that much. But you know what, logic says a lot of things.

Logic says that: Adam Jones should be playing much better.

Logic says that: Nolan Reimold shouldn't be struggling in AAA, let alone even being in AAA

Logic says that: the Orioles bullpen should be able hold down a win once and awhile.

Logic says that: Mark Teixeria should be batting higher than .215 with seven homers

Logic says that: Alex Rodriguez should have more than six homers

Logic and reason are having a bad year. hell, Zack Greinke leads the AL in losses with SIX!

This whole season has just been stupid. The Orioles are playing like a AAA team and nothing seems to go right. They can't hold a lead when they get one and it seems every game there is a new goat. Matusz has been struggling, Markakis isn't hitting for power, Wieters just isn't hitting.

What else is there to say? The Orioles have a .300 winning percentage going into this afternoon's game. We haven't seen any team play this badly for this long in a very long time.

Last night, Kevin Millwood - much like the other times he's appeared on the mound for Baltimore - perhaps pitched well enough for a better result; however, his offense could not get anything going at all. In the end, the Orioles lost for the 34th time in 49 chances, to the Toronto Blue Jays, 5-0.

As much as everyone rails on Dave Trembley, the loss on Friday cannot be blamed on him unlike the previous night. Sadly, the Orioles do not have the players to compete right now even with the Toronto Blue Jays - a team most people picked to finish last in the American League East.

It's not good.

The Orioles had a horrific first inning defensive as Scott Moore - who was at second - seemingly could not do anything right in the opening inning made several poor plays in the field that helped the Jays score three runs. Moore was not the only Oriole who was feeble in the field, but it doesn't matter now -- they were that awful in that frame. From there, the game was decided and the Orioles dug themselves a hole they could not get out of at all.

The fundamentals were not there on Friday night.

I don't know if the team was tired, just out of it or what, but the mental mistakes in the first inning should have never been made by a professional team. Are the Orioles what they are?

Now, it seems to be the case. The pitching is fine. The Orioles can't hit, they have a lot of injuries, and closing in on a 1/3 of the season fairly soon, this team is far worse (literally) than I ever thought. Wigginton, Millwood, Bergesen/Jones (as of late), Ohman, Berken, Markakis (to an extent, but he's not driving in anyone) and Guthrie are keeping this unit afloat. The remainder of the team are going through the motions, sucking, just not good enough or just flat out not doing anything.

Shawn Marcum won his 5th game of the season, but a punch-less Orioles team managed to get eight hits. However, Baltimore could not score with runners in scoring position, and left seven on base.

The trip started on a bad note as Adam Jones got detained in a case if mistaken identity in the wee hours Friday morning and then 'tweeted' about it.

Furthermore, Cal Meredith was optioned to Norfolk after a series of lackluster relief outings.

I don't know what to say. Maybe Saturday will bring the team better luck.

If you've read some of the media reports this week, whether it be on MASN Sports, the Orioles MLB site, or the Baltimore Sun, you'll know that the team held it's second annual "Orioles Cook-Off" at the ESPN Zone restuarant in Baltimore's Inner Harbor.

Designated hitter/first baseman/outfielder Luke Scott won the event with his 'surf-and-turf' meal that won the affection of the judges. Pitcher Kevin Millwood was the runner-up and Brad Bergesen finished in third-place. Sorry for the lateness of this post, but I've had a lot of work going on this week and trying to recover from being sick.

Enjoy the pictures and there should be some brief videos coming up shortly.