pitchers pinch running are BIRDLAND!

Getting thrown out by a mile, to take away a ‘Man on 3rd w/ 1 out’ situation, with everything right in front of him…just inexcusable. Not an “Aw shucks that wasnt smart, Ty” but rather an absolutely unacceptable mistake that we can just add to the list of shitty baserunning we’ve provided all year.

Zaun’s play was bad too—a major leaguer, esp one here for his defense, should make that play—but at least it wasn’t a mental error. Love to see the guy who supposedly has defensive issues make such a sweet throw.

Nice fight showed tonight, but this game was winnable. We as fans—or the team—shouldn’t be satisfied merely because we were on a winning streak coming in here. These are the kinds of games good teams win.

I thought this was an encouraging game even though it ended in a loss. The Os I think will respond from their disappointment tonight. We as fans have to decide what we want out of these Baltimore Orioles. If we want playoffs this year we need to be realistic. The division is just too tough and all the teams have too much talent to overcome in all likelihood. But if we want hope for a future and a better team that won’t give up I think games like this are important.

Instead of getting their butts kicked like they did during their losing streak they fought like hell with several players in non-traditional roles.
Koji, Johnson and Chris Ray all pitched very well.
It was an exciting game with twists and turns.

And as for Wigginton and the other sub players yes they have some of the blame but I’m sort of sick of hearing them maligned all the time. I mean with wigginton what exactly do you want out of the guy? You can tell he’s trying the best he can, He should have never been put in that situation, he’s a big oaf that was stuck at the freaking SS position probably no one even took him seriously but he held his own. And yes obviously the out cost the Os but that doesn’t negate the fact that he’s hitting the ball very well and recently better than players considered much better hitters. Adam Jones contributed to the loss and was about as bad as you can get and Huff and Markakis were cold too.

several players and plays caused the Orioles to lose: Andino, Baez, Wigginton, Zaun all of them had those “duh” plays but despite that they fought back and there are alot of positive to come out of the game at least I thought so.

I didn’t watch the entire game, and I didn’t see the final until this morning on Sportscenter. At first, I was dumbfounded as Zaun’s lack of control when putting the tag on Bonifacio. He was dead to rights, but the ball got away.

As disappointing as that was, these efforts by the young guys (Andino, Salazar, Markickass and Wieters) are what really matter. They battled back, down 5 late in the game, and took the Marlins into extras on the road.

It’s that sort of play that I mean when I talk about getting anything out of this season. The tough, come from behind play of 2009, I feel, will become the great, potentially AL East leading play of the future. A bit overly optimistic perhaps, but it’s tough not to be when the team is full of young talent who can battle back.

Additionally, I loved Koji working out of the bases loaded jam with the 1-2-3 DP. Another ND, though. Poor guy.

Glad to hear Chris Ray looked good last night. I’m definitely not one of the folks who believe in him long term, but I am very much hoping to be proven wrong.

As my roommate is a die-hard Marlins fan. I’m not going to complain too much though, because the 9th inning rally was great to watch, even if it didn’t pay off in the end.

I was in Norfolk last night to catch Tillman on the bump, but I was in a suite so once he came out of the game I spent a fair bit of time inside watching the O’s on the tube – and couldn’t be peeled away during the rally.

In semi-related news, Tillman looked really impressive for 5 innings last night. He was knocked around pretty good in the 3rd inning, but pitched a very good game other than that. 6 IP, 2 ER, 7 H, 0 BB, 3 SO.

Luckily one of them was Wieters HR. Since I missed his first one I was pleased to catch this. Did anyone else think it was just a pop fly? I did not even get up to cheer because I thought it was going to fall short of the wall.

dishonorable mention to danys “lets groooooove one!” baez and gregg “defense is my specialty” zaun

possibly even melmo for teaching wiggy the ins and outs of good baserunning

Wiggy, please cancel your enrollment in The Melvin Mora School of Baserunning…. and burn that bitch to the ground!

Remember how we were the last team to get a hit in pinch situations this year? Here’s Salazar on this interleague road trip:

Friday: ninth-inning two-out pinch single, scored on Markakis’ double to make it 7-2
Sat: ninth-inning two-out pinch single, scored on Roberts’ HR to make it 6-5 O’s
Sun: eighth-inning groundout to move Andino to 3rd with one out. Andino scored the eventual winning run on the next play, a Roberts single.

Then last night, he had a pinch single in the eighth to move Andino to third, allowing him to score our third run on Roberts’ GIDP. Salazar stayed in as the LF, and of course had the game-tying two-out single in the ninth before being replaced by Luke in LF in the tenth.

That’s 3-for-4 in PH situations, an extra clutch hit thrown in for good measure last night. Remember a few years ago when our bench consisted of Alberto Castillo, Chris Gomez, and Freddie Bynum? I hope we can find a spot for this dude when Cesar comes back. How badly do we really need to keep Hendo in the bullpen?

Tuesday is a working day for me, and I took my break very late into the day, the top of the 8th inning. As I do for most of my breaks, I grabbed some food and some cigarettes and relaxed in my car with Joe Angel. The first thing I heard was Wieters saying good-bye to that ball.

I had to go back, so I missed the top of the 9th.

It’s all good. You can’t win all of them.

is so awesome that his homeruns START rallies.

Don’t forget that Adam Jones grounded into a DP just after Markakis led off the inning (10th or 11th I forget) with a walk on 5 pitches. Instead of waiting for the guy to throw a strike, Adam swings at the FIRST PITCH and gifts the Marlins two instant outs. Then, with 2 outs, Huff comes up and HE walks. You can’t say that it cost the Birds the game, but why do hitters like to just give outs away? In late innings, if a pitcher wants to get himself in trouble, let him. Young player, lesson learned.

Why did Trembley pinch run for Wieters? Are you telling me that Guthrie is that much more of an upgrade over Wieters on the bases? You take away his bat and defense, leave yourself with only one catcher, and risk injuring your #1 starter (ask Chien Ming Wang about that.) Anyway, Dave pulled out all the stops in the 9th to tie the game and it worked.

the guy comes in and gets two clutch hits – one of which ties the game. He deserves it…

as for Wieters – I can’t wait till he starts pulling the ball. Because those home runs will actually be hits out of the stadium.

Wieters get and honorble mention. How clutch is what Salazar did last night? You are called up and you are swinging the bat very well. You get called on to pinch hit and you deliver off the bench. Then on your next at bat you deliver the biggest hit of your career and give this team a chance to pull out an amazing win. That is Birdland. Sure Wieters is great and will be great for many years to come. But it does not qualify in this instance. And for christ sake people voted for a pinch runner because it was a pitcher? Come on we can do better than that.

Zaun not getting the ball sucked, but it was a really nice slide from Bonifacio that went right in between his glove and right hand, kicking the ball to his back.

That said, I hope we win tonight.