Last night, the Orioles lost to the Tigers 5-4 in the first contest of their three-game series.
Despite two home runs from J.J. Hardy, amazing defense by several players, and nice relief outing by Troy Patton – who kept his team in the game — the Orioles blew several chances to perhaps pull out a win.
A perfect example of that came in the latter portion of the game as Adam Jones was robbed of a home run by Detroit center-fielder Austin Jackson. Obviously, you can’t blame Jones at all far that, but it was that type of a game.
However, there was some news involving Brian Roberts and some off-the-field stuff on Friday. He announced that he was cancelling his annual ‘Brian’s Baseball Bash’, typically held in the summer.
Honestly, I don’t think many people even known what’s going on with him and there’s not much that I have heard from the team, media or otherwise. I can imagine whatever is going on with him isn’t good at all.
I’ll say this; several season ticket holders who I know that have attended the event multiple times were bummed, but understood Robert’s situation. However, some of the sentiment I’ve read online about the cancellation were far from charitable, and perhaps a bit over the top.
You can say what you want about him as a player, his injury history, the whole steroid thing, or whatever; however, I don’t think that Roberts wanted to hide from the world and not face the fans and media in cancelling the event.
Roberts has done so much for the University of Maryland Hospital Center in Baltimore – publicly and privately – that I don’t think he would just not hold his event without a reason.
I’m not sure if the cancellation is due to his health (the release alluded it), the lack of sponsors, getting memorabilia to sell, sluggish sales on whatever; alas, it’s just one more thing to add onto a list for Roberts where everything has gone completely awry.
Now, one has to think he will ever be an effective, healthy second baseman (again) – especially at his age?
I’m not sure how bad his concussion is and the after effects are, but Roberts must have suffered some serious head trauma.
At this point, it’s been a hard road for the second baseman and I’m sure Roberts must be far angrier by the state of his own affairs than even the most ardent O’s fan.
Considering the history of several players who have had concussions as of late – Ryan Church, Justin Morneau & Jason Bay – Roberts’ outlook may not be all that rosy.
However, for his sake and for the organization, let’s hope Roberts can somehow get back on track.
