If there’s one theme that we as fans have seen with the Baltimore Orioles since last season, it is this: manager Buck Showalter will find a way for everyone on his team to contribute.
It seems that there is a different player contributing on a daily basis for the Orioles to another postseason berth; however, so far, in the first month of the 2013 campaign, one player has stood out to me.
Well, it is not Adam Jones, Manny Machado, Chris Davis, nor Matt Wieters – it’s Nate McLouth.
He is not a flashy player, or household name, but a grinder.
To be quite honest, I like many fans and those in the media were a bit perplexed that the Baltimore front office did not bring in any marquee players during the winter.
Then again, the organization did not seem to acquire anyone of note; however, their biggest deal of the off-season was reacquiring McLouth. He signed a one-year, $2 million dollar contract with incentives
I wondered if he could repeat what he did last year for Baltimore, especially his work down the stretch of the 2012 season.
McLouth, as we all know, played an integral role in the Orioles’ first playoff berth in fifteen years.
It looked as if McLouth was a star on the rise in baseball during the 2008 season. He hit 26 home runs and drove in 94 runs for the Pirates that year and made the All-Star team; however, his career soon went into the wilderness and McLouth looked like another potential player who would flame out.
