Countdown From 50 (And MASN)

Without even getting in to any meaningful discussion regarding yesterday’s game, I will simply say that it was a peek at what’s been going on all year: in general, highly inconsistent pitching and a complete lack of ability to drive in RISP. The O’s lost to the Yankees 6-1 in one of their worst games all year. Let’s leave it at that.

Anyways, today I want to talk about a couple things and avoid talking about the Yankees series and the upcoming Jays series. The Yankees series was a microcosm of our season, in that all our problems over the past 112 games were squeezed in to three. And the Jays series, what with Russ Ortiz starting tonight and Daniel Cabrera starting tomorrow after being recalled from Ottawa, could prove to be one to avoid completely. What I want to discuss in today’s post is, first, what I want to see from the O’s over the course of the next two months and, second, what I think about the recent Comcast/MASN deal that, according to some, will be the panacea to the O’s losing ways.

In regards to my first topic of discussion, I think this season, at least what’s left of it, could be very valuable to our team’s future. Here’s why: we’ve got a ton of young guys who could use some time up in the big leagues to simply experience it with no strings attached. That is, no pressure to perform (although that’s easier said than done), no expectations, no game-plan, just up-and-coming prospects getting a chance to taste what’s to come. Now, by saying “no strings attached”, I don’t mean we should throw these kids to the wolves and hope for the best, not caring whether they succeed or fail miserably. Instead, I think we should take on a “sink or swim” attitude. Put these guys in pressure situations and see how they handle it. Bring up a young outfielder and see how he does manning the outfield at Camden Yards. Give ‘em 10 or 20 ABs, see how they do. Stick a prospect in the bullpen and put him in different situations, maybe he’ll take a liking to long relief or the seventh inning or spot-starting….who knows?

The whole point of this is, for starters, some guys just are not contributing anything at all. Others just seem to not be giving enough effort, even when considering there’s about one-third of a season remaining. Kevin Millar, although a consummate competitor, has been horrendous in every aspect other than working counts. Javy Lopez, now that he’s gone, will no longer take up an unnecessary roster spot that we could fill with a prospect who’d benefit from what I see as a learning experience. Russ Ortiz? Don’t even start with him; by tomorrow, we’ll all be saying that they should have just DFAd him and called up some random guy from Ottawa to spot-start. And Todd Williams will probably not even be in the team’s future plans so why keep sending him out to fail when we could send out some 23-year-old to gain valuable late-season experience? When that hypothetical player arrives in MLB for good, he’ll have “the monkey off his back” since he’s already experienced pitching in September.

Look, I know some of you may go by the book, so to speak. You may say that calling up prospects for the sake of “giving them experience” is detrimental to a their generally linear route to the big leagues. It will do more harm than good, you may say. It’s not how it’s done….right? Well when some players are dogging it and others aren’t doing anything more than filling a roster spot, it doesn’t seem too far-fetched to want to call up some young talent….talent that will possibly be what comprises our future teams. After all, they’re big kids….if they go through tough times, whether it’s in MLB or AAA, they’ll make adjustments and improve in the off-season. I mean, not everyone’s a head-case like Zack Greinke….

Now, on to the MASN deal. Comcast, as many of us Mid-Atlanticites know (sorry, it’s the best I could think of….), is the monopolistic cable and Internet provider for our area. They pretty much provide TV for everyone and their momma in the Baltimore/Washington area. But now that Verizon FIOS is arriving on the scene, things may change….Verizon’s arrival on the cable TV scene, however, is a whole other issue that you can examine on your own. Anyways, here’s the beef on MASN/Comcast:

For the past year-and-a-half, basically since the Nats moved from Montreal to D.C., Comcast and Orioles-owned MASN (Mid-Atlantic Sports Network) have been negotiating a deal to get Comcast to run the MASN channel on its cable TV network. Comcast, of course, provides Orioles games on Comcast SportsNET but, off and on, games will either be broadcast on UPN (for me, at least….others maybe not UPN) or be blacked-out. At any rate, Comcast was not very big on the idea of losing the right to broadcast Orioles games since….well….that’s pretty much the only reason to watch CSN.

Anyways, in an attempt to avoid as much legal speak and technical jargon as possible, here’s what’s happened and what it means:

Comcast will now carry MASN and this will start September 1, 2006. After a year-and-a-half of not being able to see their team’s games, Nationals fans will now be able to watch every game since MASN will broadcast both the O’s and the Nats. Peter Angelos and the Orioles are the owners of MASN and, you guessed it — this is good. Why? Ever heard of YES Network? That’s the Steinbrenner and Yankee-owned network which exclusively broadcasts Yankees games in New York. Unless the game’s on ESPN, you ain’t watching the Yanks in New York unless you’ve got YES. And that’s essentially why Steinbrenner can afford a $200 million payroll….YES rakes in several hundreds of millions of dollars annually from advertising revenue and subscription fees. Yes, Yankee fans have to pay to watch the Yanks. Luckily, other than our monthly cable fee, we won’t have to pay for MASN.

At any rate, the reason why this is good is this added revenue for the O’s will allow Angelos to dedicate much more money to the current $70 million payroll and upgrade other facets of the franchise. Imagine what the O’s could do with another $30 million to put towards top free agents and resigning players who, in the past, we’d have to let go since we couldn’t afford them (B.J. Ryan and, even earlier, Mike Mussina).

Now, even though this deal will possibly put the O’s total-worth somewhere in the ballpark of $600 million, don’t expect the O’s to be shelling out payrolls comparable to the Yankees. But a $100 million – $120 million payroll wouldn’t be out of the question. In regards to this aspect of the issue, Baltimore Sun columnist David Steele put it best:

“So know this much: the Orioles won’t be layering eight-figure contracts on top of each other until they find the combination that works. They won’t shrug off Gary Sheffield and Hideki Matsui getting hurt and simply plug in Bobby Abreu.”

Anyways, before I start getting ahead of myself due to my excitement regarding the possibility that we could have a “Blue Jays-esue” off season in the free agent market (i.e. signing F.A.’s until we pass out), I think I’ll leave it at this: if it is, in fact, the case that the Orioles now have the resources (as if they didn’t before….) to field a highly competitive team mixed with talented young players and seasoned veterans at the top of their game, the winning has got to start. We O’s fans are some of the most loyal, knowledgeable, and best fans in baseball and we’ve literally suffered for the past decade. Watching Mussina go was really tough. Seeing Cal on losing teams year after year in the twilight years of his career sucked. Realizing that Tejada’s essentially been wasting away on a bottom-of-the-barrel team the past few years has been disappointing. And all the Sosas, Bells, Bautistas, Browers, Grimsleys, Klines, Millars, Lopezes, Seguis, Cordovas, Daals, and Chens that have passed through here over the past 10 or so years have added up to one big slap in the face of Oriole Nation. You call those guys answers to our losing ways? Please, the idea that some of those names could lead any team to a winning season is laughable. The worst, though, was seeing the Yankees and Red Sox win World Series and 80-100 games a year while we wallowed with the Devil Rays in the depths of the AL East.

So here’s to a brighter and more victorious future for the Baltimore Orioles. We fans deserve nothing less than plus-.500 ball, a packed stadium, and someone other than Jeff Conine batting cleanup.

Buckle Your Seatbelts, Folks….

The temperature isn’t the only thing headed to Baltimore that’s red-hot. The New York Yankees, winners of eight of their last ten, come to town to square off with the O’s tonight. This series could be disastrous as the Birds’ three most vulnerable starters, Bruce Chen, Adam Loewen, and Rodrigo Lopez, will be taking the mound this weekend. But before we look at what’s in store for us over the course of the next three days, let’s touch on the hottest topic of the day — Javy Lopez and his almost-definite trade to the Red Sox via waivers after the (possibly) season-ending knee injury to Boston’s capitan, Jason Varitek.

Now I know some of you may be thinking this is bad news. But in reality, it’s not. For starters, Lopez will be a free agent next year so odds are he won’t stay with the Sox for 2007 and beyond, unless he happens to perform well enough to show Theo Epstein and Co. that he’s not declining (which he is) and he’s worth keeping (which, for them, he isn’t). Odds are he won’t be in the AL East next season since, for starters, all five teams have their catchers set for next season (Hernandez in Baltimore, Posada in NY, Molina in Toronto, Navarro in Tampa, and, of course, Varitek in Boston).

But not only are the team’s catchers set for next year, their DHs are too. Jason Giambi has shown he’s still one of the most talented and feared left-handed power hitters in MLB, so NY is straight. Plus, with the acquisition of Bobby Abreu, the Yanks still have Gary Sheffield as a DH/OF option. The Red Sox have David Ortiz….’Nuff said. Toronto has a two-headed monster in Troy Glaus and Lyle Overbay. And Tampa has their young, up-and-coming slugger, Jonny Gomes. What about us? We’ve got Jay Gibbons and several others, including David Newhan and even Miguel Tejada from time to time, can fill in to DH when necessary….and I think the O’s will get a younger, cheaper bat that Javy to fill the spot.

But enough of the prospective future — what’s this mean right now? For starters, the O’s are getting rid of a guy who, in my opinion, is bitter and can bring down team morale. And, aside from his $8,000,000 salary, he’s got every right to be bitter. After all, we brought in Ramon Hernandez to essentially take his job. But Javy was offered to be our everyday first baseman and/or DH….and he didn’t capitalize on the opportunity a la Nomar Garciaparra in L.A.

It’s kind of sad to see Javy go because he’s always been a player I’ve enjoyed to watch. He’s a great hitter and seems like a nice guy, but I don’t think keeping him would be fair to him or to Oriole players who shouldn’t have to deal with a log-jam at, of all positions, DH and catcher. I wish him luck wherever he goes and if it’s Boston, which it probably will be, I wish him just enough luck so that it doesn’t affect the O’s but hurts the Yanks!

Anyways, as for this weekend’s series, like I said, it could get pretty ugly. The Yanks are playing really good ball right now and are mowing through teams as they try to solidify their place at the top of the standings. I’m sure their players know this circumstances they find themselves in; the AL Central is extremely strong what with the world champion White Sox, the gutty and talented Twins, and, of course, the best team in baseball, the Tigers….so the chance of the Yankees earning a wild-card spot, in contrast with past years, is slim. After all, unlike the three Central teams, the Yankees lack a strong starting rotation and will surely be vulnerable down the stretch. If their pitchers can’t get it together, things may not work out like they’d hope.

But, once again, back to the series. I’m going to avoid analyzing this one and simply say that the O’s need to get some reliable pitching from their bullpen. This has been the biggest problem for this team as of late and, honestly, it’s killing them. Finally, Baltimore is enjoying some consistency from their bats as they’ve averaged about five runs-scored per game over their last three series. If the starters can go at least six innings each, the bullpen has to do its part to see that the team has a chance to win since it’s really unfortunate when a great game is ruined by a reliever leaving balls up in the zone, hanging for whomever happens to be at the plate to crush in to the left-field seats.

It would be great if the O’s could ruin the Yankees recent streak of solid baseball by taking two games in the three game set….but GOD, what I wouldn’t do for a sweep! The only team we’ve swept all year is the Royals and that was back in May….

Here are this weekend’s match-ups:

Randy Johnson, LHP (11-9, 5.07) vs. Bruce Chen, LHP (0-6, 7.07)

Mike Mussina, RHP (13-3, 3.40) vs. Adam Loewen, LHP (1-3, 6.44)

Jaret Wright, RHP (7-6, 4.57) vs. Rodrigo Lopez, RHP (8-11, 6.20)

More later…have a great weekend and remember the name of Javier Lopez Torres….

As If Tampa Wasn’t Enough, Here’s K.C.

When writing my preview of the Tampa series, my general sentiment was that we’d win two, but a sweep would be nice (I actually used the term “must-sweep”….). I thought we’d get to their pitchers (which we did) and put some runs on the board (which we did). But I forgot that our pitching is….how should I say this….inconsistent. And not only are they inconsistent, sometimes they’re just plain bad. At any rate, here’s what I said regarding our keys to winning that series:

“The keys to winning this series are, first and foremost, to strike Tampa’s pitchers hard and early. If the O’s put them out of the game by scoring runs or even draining them by prolonging innings and fouling-off balls, they can make them more vulnerable.”

And the Orioles did just that. In three games versus Tampa, the O’s scored 23 runs and had 65 base-runners (on 48 hits). But (sorry, back to our pitching) the D-Rays basically matched us and scored 29 runs and had 46 base-runners (on 35 hits) so our offensive onslaught was essentially a wash.

All this in the unsuspecting series with the Devil Rays….

Anyways, I don’t think it’s worth scrutinizing that series. It was an aberration for both teams; it’s so rare that both of any two clubs average, in a three-game series, 18 base-runners and 14 hits per game. And it’s rare that a starter as bad as Russ Ortiz actually starts — but that’s a whole other issue (he was demoted to the bullpen). So congrats to both teams’ hitters — all of you put on magnificent performances! But the pitching was equivalent to a Juggs machine lobbing ‘meat balls’ at 60 mph….

Okay, so what’s my point here? Well, the O’s are off today as they head to Kansas City to take on another bad team in the Royals. The difference between K.C. and Tampa? Tampa can hit. K.C. can….uh, they….well….okay, K.C. may as well be playing in the Pacific Coast League or something because they’re simply horrendous.

The Royals are the only team in the American League with no players with 10 or more homers. Their leading batter is questionable; veterans Mark Grudzelanik and Doug Mientkiewicz (believe it or not, I spelled both names right without reference!) are having solid years at the plate, yet they severely lack power numbers with their combined eight homers (four each). Reggie Sanders and promising young third baseman Mark Teahen lead the team with nine homers each. And Esteban German and David DeJesus are both showing they can hit and have great plate discipline at their young ages.

But there’s no one there who really scares opposing teams. In fact, as a team, the Royals struggle against the upcoming Orioles starters. Versus Tuesday’s starter, Kris Benson, the Royals are batting a combined .196/.235/.278 with only 19 hits and two homers in 97 ABs. Not surprisingly, no Royal has yet to face Wednesday’s starter, Adam Loewen, and the fact that the K.C. hitters have yet to see any of the young southpaw’s stuff will make matters even worse for them. Finally, Thursday’s starter, Rodrigo Lopez, has seen some success against K.C., as well. The Royals are batting .284/.333/.526 against him — not a bad line at all — unless you eliminate Mike Sweeny and Matt Stairs‘ solid numbers against him….then things get bad for the Royals.

Nonetheless, all these numbers don’t mean much at all when the teams take the field. Poor execution and lack of concentration by the pitchers will lead to runs no matter who it is. But still, the O’s pitchers need to come out and pitch some great games because this series is as easy as it’s going to get.

As far as K.C.’s pitchers go, I think we all know where they stand. Other than the D-Rays and the anemic Athletics’ offenses, the Royals are dead last in the AL in runs scored. And their 577 runs allowed is the worst in the entire league (FYI, the O’s 561 runs allowed puts them right ahead of K.C. for second-worst).

But recently, the Royals pitchers have performed well. In 10 of their last 11 games, the Royals have allowed six or less runs and just last week, they lost two amazing games to the Red Sox 1-0 on consecutive nights. “All-star” pitcher Mark Redman, who played very mediocre baseball in the first half, has done well as of late; he suffered his first loss in seven decisions against the Red Sox on Wednesday. Redman allowed one run and seven hits over eight innings. He struck out nine batters and did not walk a single batter on the day.

However, on the season, the pitching has been bad. With the exception of four pitchers with less than 16.1 innings of work, no Royals pitcher has an ERA less than 4.50. Redman leads the team in wins with six. Wednesday’s starter, Jimmy Gobble, leads the team with 50 Ks. And Scott Elarton, the team leader in innings pitched with 114.2 (Redman is a close second with 95.0), just went on the DL; that may not be too bad, though, since Elarton’s 49 Ks and 52 walks aren’t too savory a statistic.

So you can clearly see we’re dealing with a very, very bad team here. However, if we don’t show up to dominate them and sweep this series, I honestly think the rest of 2006 will be a very rough road. After all, what else do the O’s have to play for other than pride and a paycheck? Well, making the Yanks, Sox, and Jays’ playoff dreams more bleak would be a start….

Here are your match-ups for Baltimore @ Kansas City:

Tuesday: Kris Benson (9-9, 4.72) vs Mark Redman (6-5, 5.02)

Wednesday: Adam Loewen (0-2, 7.09) vs Jimmy Gobble (3-3, 4.88)

Thursday: Rodrigo Lopez (6-11, 6.73) vs Runelvys Hernandez (2-4, 6.75)

There you go! Let’s just hope our guys come out and beat this team to a pulp….because the O’s sure as hell need that kind of a picker-upper. Recap tomorrow, maybe I’ll squeeze something in around mid-afternoon….

O’s Off To Rocky Start In Half Two

It seems like whenever the O’s take the field, something is missing. If the pitching is on, the hitting is off. If the bats are-a-swingin’, the pitching … sucks. Sometimes there’s mutual productivity, but that’s somewhat rare. And sometimes, there’s complete and utter mutual failure to produce anything. And that, sadly, happens to our team all too often.

Case in point: Yesterday’s 5-1 loss to the A’s, in which the entire effort put forth by the Orioles was practically futile. Oakland starter Barry Zito was in his normal fine form — not dominating, but doing just enough to keep the Oriole hitters at bay. In 7.0 IP, Zito allowed only one run on five hits. On the surface, his two Ks look unimpressive, but that number tells another story: Zito simply went out and got guys out. Although his command was a little rocky at times — he threw 112 pitches, 69 for strikes — he still kept his team in the game. Oh yeah, and he’s a lefty so that pretty much means he, along with essentially every other southpaw pitcher, has got a 96.3945% chance to beat us.

In regards to general effectiveness, the same can’t be said about Orioles’ starter Kris Benson, who, in 6.0 IP, surrendered five runs on three homers, two of which were back-to-back solo shots by Eric Chavez and Frank Thomas, in the sixth inning. Benson allowed 10 base-runners on nine hits. On a positive note, however, he wasn’t having much trouble finding the strike zone; his 66 strikes on 98 pitches was good for over two-thirds of his total pitches counting for strikes.

Nonetheless, Benson needs to get his act together. In July, he’s lost four straight games in which he’s allowed 18 runs on 32 hits. He did have a complete game against Texas, which he lost, but the bottom line is Kris has to start pitching like he did in June. Otherwise, we’re looking at a rotation with Erik Bedard as its only bright spot (a very bright one, indeed).

As far as the Orioles’ battery goes, the general consensus is that the team is hitting well. I don’t believe yesterday’s box score fairly indicates the O’s recent team-wide success at the plate; yesterday, Sam Perlozzo put out arguably the worst lineup of the entire season to face, of all pitchers, Zito. Terrero batting leadoff, Conine and Millar filling out the 4th and 5th spots, respectively, Gomez was out there as well … it wasn’t pretty. I am glad Sam decided to finally give Brian Roberts a much-needed day off, but would it hurt too much to think for another five minutes about who you’re actually putting out there? Oh well, I guess that’s why Sam’s sitting in the dugout and I’m mashing away at a computer keyboard everyday.

At any rate, this upcoming series ought to be just what this team needs. The recent heat wave that struck the Mid-Atlantic region was not any help to the players and it’s not out of line to say that the draining temperatures and playing seven consecutive days in that heat was part of the reason the O’s seemed a bit sluggish. So now the Birds get to enjoy three games in air conditioned Tropicana Field as they head to Florida to take on Carl Crawford and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays for three games.

This series is very important for the O’s. In fact, I’ll go as far to say that this is one of the most important series of the year. Right now, the O’s sit nine games under .500 and only four games in front of the D-Rays. This series is, in my view, a must sweep because, for starters, we need to get back to .500. But more importantly, the O’s need momentum going in to the next must-sweep series in Kansas City.

Now I know it’s silly of me to say these series are “must-sweeps” because, in reality, every series is a must-sweep. However, when facing two of the worst teams in baseball and getting a day off in between both series and enjoying the presence of Bedard in both series and possibly seeing a trade go down during that time-frame that could positively shake-up the team, one can see why I feel these are must-sweeps. It’s not often a team enjoys an eight day span like this and it’s important our team capitalizes on it.

So as far as the D-Rays go, I think they’re a very talented young team with lots of good hitters and skilled fielders. Julio Lugo and Rocco Baldelli are having solid years; both are hitting over .300 and, with their speed, are a threat on the base-paths. Ty Wigginton and Jonny Gomes are both power threats as each have over 15 homers on the year. And of course, there’s Crawford, a complete player in every respect of the game at age 24.

Their pitching is another story, though. Scott Kazmir is having his breakout season. So far, he’s posting a 3.40 ERA with 129 Ks and only 45 walks, along with a 1.32 WHIP and a 10-7 record. And he’s a lefty … and you already know that for us, that’s a bad thing. But other than Kaz, there’s not much else to worry about. After trading Mark Hendrickson to the Dodgers for pitcher Jae Seo and catcher Dioner Navarro, the Rays lost a solid arm in Hendrickson. Seo has struggled in his transition to the AL and Navarro is still coming in to his own at the young age of 22. Casey Fossum (tomorrow’s starter), Seth McClung, James Sheilds, and Seo don’t necessarily strike fear in opposing teams and are all susceptible to imploding on any given night … kinda like our pitchers. To the Ray’s pitching staff’s credit, though, relievers Brian Meadows, Ruddy Lugo, and Tim Corcoran are proving to be solid bullpen arms that could (or may not) be dealt by the July 31 trade deadline.

The keys to winning this series are, first and foremost, to strike Tampa’s pitchers hard and early. If the O’s put them out of the game by scoring runs or even draining them by prolonging innings and fouling-off balls, they can make them more vulnerable. Also, it’s important the Birds keep the Rays’ speedsters off the base-paths as much as possible. It’s not easy to send guys like Crawford or Lugo back to the dugout but if the O’s can at least eliminate walking them, that alone will be a huge help to our pitching staff. Also, we must give Tampa’s young, inexperienced pitchers as hard a time as possible. Several of them have ERAs over 6.00 and don’t yet have the command to pitch around guys like Miguel Tejada and Melvin Mora. It is very important that we get men on base for our big bats to drive in. In short, we must exploit Tampa’s general inexperience.

As said earlier, the O’s (44-53) have tonight off and take the field Friday night against the D-Rays (39-56). Here are your pitching match-ups:

Friday: Erik Bedard (11-6, 4.02) vs Casey Fossum (3-3, 4.91)

Saturday: Rodrigo Lopez (6-10, 6.44) vs Tim Corcoran (4-1, 2.48)

Sunday: Adam Loewen (0-2, 6.62) vs Scott Kazmir (10-7, 3.40)

Enjoy the night off … tomorrow I’ll be back with something special. I don’t know what it’s going to be … I’m thinking something along the lines of “My Fantasy Trade Deadline Moves”, but it’s still up in the air.

Totally Pissed Right Now. Plus Baseball.

Okay, so I just pushed the “period button” to insert the commonly-used punctuation mark which would generally signify the end to an awesome series preview like the one I wrote on the upcoming Orioles (41-49) & Rangers (45-43) four-gamer. And let me tell you, that mother was awesome. Easily the best series preview I’ve ever done.

And then Firefox crashed.

So here I am with nothing to show for over an hour of typing and stat-searching and pondering on witty things to say to spice up your series preview. And now I feel like karate kicking my computer back to the stone age.

So here’s a word of advice for all you bloggers out there: Type your entries in a word processor! At least the damn thing has auto-save…

And if you must type using WordPress or Blogger or whatever it is you blog your blogs on, remember to save! Because I feel like I’ve developed health problems after witnessing my gem of a blog entry disappear in to nothingness. And I want to cry.

At any rate, since I don’t feel like typing a whole new series preview, I’ll let my fellow O’s bloggers do the work for me. My man Rob over at Random Reality Thoughts has written up a nice mid-season report for the O’s and Mike, from Orioles Think Tank, has developed a creative and unorthodox “Mid-Year Non Recap” that you oughta check out. Mike over at Oriole Magic has articulated some “Randomness” and the Seam Heads Rangers Blog will give you some perspective from the other side.

Also, if you’re not a member and/or haven’t yet checked it out, Scout.com’s Orioles community is a wonderful place to talk about the O’s with other respectful and knowledgeable fans. There’s some great discussion on the upcoming Rangers series, too.

Check those out and come back here later for more. And I promise that I will make this series’ game previews the best ones, like, ever.

Ah, yes, and your pitching match-ups:

7/13: Vicente Padilla (8-5, 4.44) vs Daniel Cabrera (4-6, 5.15)

7/14: Kevin Millwood (8-5, 4.83) vs Kris Benson (9-7, 4.79)

7/15: John Rheinecker (4-3, 3.96) vs Erik Bedard (10-6, 4.28)

7/16: John Koronka (6-5, 4.63) vs Rodrigo Lopez (5-10, 6.77)