Sitting here in the Camden Yards pressbox, as part of the Orioles continuing attempts to give us bloggers more access to the team, I am struck by a couple things. One, There is no more beautiful sight in the world than Camden Yards on a cool Spring afternoon, or morning in this case. The sun is shining, the breeze is mild and the Orioles are beginning to take batting practice. Two, it a shocking development I only now realize that this is the first Orioles batting practice I have ever witnessed. Robert Andino just finished working on some bunts and Wieters hit some soft liners around the diamond. Slowly but surely the whole team has made their way on to the field to work on their various pregame routines. Three, I really love afternoon baseball. I understand why the games are played under the bright lights, but baseball during the day just feels right on a visceral level. After all how many of us growing up had the opportunity to regularly play the game under the lights? Watching the pregame warmups activates the “whimsy” center of my brain – its a good feeling.
The Orioles have dropped the last two games in ugly fashion. First Bruce Chen and the streaking Royals made them look silly in Kansas City, more on that in a minute. And last night the Orioles played through a driving rain to an uninspiring 6-2 loss against James Shields and the Tampa Bay Rays.
The game was actually a lot closer than the final score would make you think. Rookie pitcher Zach Britton gave up three runs in the second inning, putting the team in a hole, but then was brilliant for the rest of his start. The only problem was James Shields was more brilliant blanking the Orioles through his first three innings. He would not give up a run until Derrek Lee hit his third homerun of the season in the sixth, through the driving rain. That is something that has to be brought up last night, the weather was atrocious. I was sitting in my local watching with my fiancee and the various other patrons and we were all amazed that the game never went into a delay. That is a testament to Nichole Cherry and the Orioles’ groundscrew, but the field seemed near unplayable at times. For example, right after Lee’s homer Vlad Guerrero came up and hit a wicked grounder into the hole between third and short, it hit the now swampish infield dirt and came to almost a complete stop allowing for an easy play.
The real story of last night though was the Orioles continuing bullpen struggles. On the various Orioles message boards that populate the internet the fans are just as stumped. How can the Orioles bullpen be this ineffective seemingly every year. New players are brought in, players with track records yet year after year the Orioles’ pen struggles. The Rays scratched out a run against Jeremy Accardo last night making it a 4-1 game. But the kill shot came when normally reliable coughed up a two-run homer in the eighth to the corpse of Johnny Damon. The Orioles would get one more in the ninth off of a Luke Scott garbage-time homer but the bullpen had put the game out of realistic reach by that point.
Here are some scary numbers:
ERA 5.33
OPS against .803
HR 22
R 61, in just over 100 innings of work
WHIP 1.45
The Orioles need to find an answer in that pen. Over the last 17 games the Orioles bullpen has three losses and an ERA over six. And you only need one hand to count the amount of games the Orioles pen has NOT given up at least one run this year. Keving Gregg has been pitching more solidly and has Michael Gonzalez. Jim Johnson has had equal stretches of brilliance and terror. The same could be said for Jeremy Accardo. The normally stingy Koji Ueahara has given up a run in three of his last four appearances. Clay Rapada and Josh Rupe are simply filler right now and they are playing like it. So where are the answers? Michael Ballard is sitting in Norfolk and his name has been floated around as a potential spot-start call-up but he is not doing anything very impressive in Norfolk. Wynn Pelzer, the player that came over from San Diego in the Miguel Tejada trade, is having a strong showing in Bowie. Chorye Spoone is another farmhand that might see some tim in the Orioles pen. Alfredo Simon is currently in extended spring training and could provide some relief but honestly none of the names listed jump out at you. However, something has to be done. The Orioles were in that game last night until the bullpen put it out of reach. The pen may only have four losses credited to them – but how many games have an ineffective pen put out of reach?
Another thing that needs to change: Jake Fox. This experiment is over. He needs to go. He is not, repeat NOT, a catcher. How can I tell? Just look at the numbers:
Split G IP ER ERA R H 2B HR SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS Jake Fox 6 36.0 34 8.50 34 47 10 8 4 0 12 24 .315 .370 .544 .913
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 5/7/2011.
Fox can not throw out runners, he can’t call a game, he can’t manage the pitchers. He simply can’t. And it is not like his bat, admittedly in very limited play, has done anything to warrant him keeping a roster spot. Next week JJ Hardy should make his return to the Orioles. Rupe and Fox should be gone and a real backup catcher should be called up.
As I have been writing this entry the Orioles took batting practice and they put on a show. Mark Reynolds was launching homers to left and center. Nick Markakis had a couple nice shots into the flag court and Jones was wailing on the BP fastballs. Hopefully the Orioles can try and translate some of the practice bats into real life hits today against the Rays’ young starter Jeremy Hellickson. Hellickson has had a solid season so far not remarkable but solid. Guthrie on the other hand is coming off a string of stellar starts. Since giving up six in Cleveland the Orioles’ starter shut out Boston, gave up two runs to the Twins and surrendered four scrappy runs to the White Sox. Guthrie sits at 1-3 with a 3.00 ERA because he has gotten no run-support what-so-ever. He hasn’t recorded a win since opening day.
The groundscrew is tending to the field and we will be underway in about 40 minutes. Follow me on twitter as I will be tweeting what I see. And don’t forget to friend the Oriole Post on facebook.
