It's all I want as a fan; the little things to be executed and done right.  I'm an admitted optimist for my O's, but I am not ignorant to our many shortcomings either.  Going into the season, the offense was a huge question mark for production, and it came out on fire with many come from behind wins and solid production up and down the line-up.  Unfortunately, the first 2 weeks ended and the real Orioles started to show.  Markakis and Roberts faltered, Millar caved under the pressure, Razor proved he has only gotten worse, and our many shortstops proved their inability to have any kind of offense.

This does not anger me.

Lack of production for solid pitching outtings by our guys is nothing to be mad about.  We should be happy that our staff is finally giving our team a chance to compete unlike past years.  Of course, the offense hasn't stepped up recently to win any of these games.  The reason for this is simple execution.

Getting picked off.  Caught stealing.  Doubled up.  GIDP's.  Not moving the runners to scoring position.  Not driving runners in with less than outs in scoring position.  Turning double plays.  Fielding routine grounders.  Covering bases. 

There is more but that is a lot already.  These things are not big things, but they have become common to our team.  Yes, we are young team, but when the veterans are the ones who are doing the majority of the mistakes you have to question whether they are helping or hurting the team.  Ramon Hernandez tries a pick-off at first with 2 outs and throws it into right field.  Melvin Mora can't field a routine grounder.  Luis Hernandez hangs Brian Roberts out to dry on a routine double play.  We keep losing games because of this bush league play.

Our pitching has been good.  Our bullpen has been solid.  Our offense is terrible, but it is not for lack of opportunities.  A runner on 3rd with 1 out is a simple ground ball from scoring.  Give yourself up to score that run because we need any run we can get as a team.  Instead, we get a veteran swinging for the fence to be a hero and popping the ball up, or we get someone who decides to swing at the first pitch and pop out in foul territory.

As a player and a pitcher, I have been on the end of zero support, and it killed me everytime an opportunity was squandered.  My pitching coach in college was a former Oriole by the name of Dan Morogiello.  He played for the 1983 Orioles in his only major league season while playing 10 seasons professionally.  He told us a story about how in the minors, after receiving zero support for a few games from his hitters, he took all the bats, poured lighter fluid on them, and lit them on fire after the game.  He said he was fined big time for it, but the team responded in his next start by giving him a huge lead in the first inning.  I know it is purely lore, but will it take St. Guts lighting the team bats on fire to spark some sense into these hitters to be team players and execute the fundamentals?

That old school passion is needed on this team.