Rangers 6, Orioles 4: Can we get a new Mentor?
by Eat More Esskay on Aug 22, 2010 5:08 PM EDT
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PrintKevin Millwood continued his season-long trend of giving up early runs, and lots of runs. Accordingly, the Orioles were down 3-0 before an out was even recorded in the game and ultimately found themselves in a 6-1 deficit that was too much to surmount. I'm really kind of tired of seeing Millwood out there. Even his starts where the stat line looks good, it always seems like he's pitching crappier than that and getting lucky. In my game thread post, I noted that Millwood got hammered in his career by Vladimir Guerrero, and sure enough, Vlad added a sixth homer to his totals against the Mentor in the 5th inning, getting the second 3-run homer of the game for Texas. Vlad and Josh Hamilton (who hit the homer in the first inning) are good hitters, to be sure, but I've had enough first inning duds.
On the MASN telecast, either Hunter or Flanagan noted that the only two wins he's notched on the year have been against National League teams, and while we all know wins as a stat for pitchers are garbage, I feel like that's interesting information. The Mentor should probably join the parade of ex-Orioles who are prolonging or even resurrecting their careers in the NL West this year. In that division he might even compete for the Cy Young.
A six-man rotation has been mooted for September once rosters expand. Chris Tillman is getting called up at that time and will probably be that sixth man. It's a bit of an unconventional arrangement, but will probably be good to help limit the innings of the O's young pitchers. For my part I'll just be glad that means less games we have to see Millwood.
Home runs by Luke Scott and Ty Wigginton eventually cut the deficit to the 6-4 final. Wiggy gets extra credit for leading off the bottom of the 9th with his homer, which meant if anyone behind him could have gotten on base the tying run would have come to the plate. Unfortunately, Scott struck out, and then Corey Patterson and Felix Pie struck out swinging at junk, and that was the ballgame.
The O's managed a series split with the Rangers for an overall 3-4 mark on this homestand. Tomorrow is an off day for travel and they will be in Chicago to face the White Sox starting Tuesday. Jeremy Guthrie is scheduled to start against Maryland's own Gavin Floyd.
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Even with the 6 man rotation coming
Millwood has a legitimate shot at a 20 loss season
"Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man." ~ The Dude
I believe he has seven starts left and he would have to get losses in six of them.
Even for as bad as he sucks, that’s probably asking a lot to get to 20 losses. OTOH we are pretty much all AL East all the time in September, so who knows.
It's as if every eccentric in the South decided to move north, ran out of gas in Baltimore, and decided to stay. - John Waters
by Eat More Esskay on Aug 22, 2010 6:18 PM EDT up reply actions
Feliz hit 100 on the final pitch
That’s the first time I’ve seen a hundo in person.
Buck Showalter clearly isn't interested in having Anthony Rendon as a member of the Orioles.
by BaltimoreSportsFan on Aug 22, 2010 6:12 PM EDT reply actions
The National Punk League, aka The League that Kevin Millwood Owns
So the good news is, we can trade his big behind to some douchey NPL team. ‘Course, the bad news is we get an NPL player back for him. And since it won’t be Albert Pujols, whoever it is will suck. But then, he’ll fit right in, won’t he?
What a crappy game. Makes you root for the Pac 10 kick-off, don’t it. What? Oh yeah, Pac 12. Or Pac 34, whatever it is…
"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." Churchill,1942-- a rebuilding year.
Pac-10's gonna be wiiiide open
No one will win 11 or more games. I see three or four teams being 9-3.
Buck Showalter clearly isn't interested in having Anthony Rendon as a member of the Orioles.
by BaltimoreSportsFan on Aug 23, 2010 9:31 AM EDT up reply actions
Next Loss...
Guarantees us a 13th consecutive losing season.
Sigh….
When will it end? With Millwood in the mound, it seems like never.
Next year our young players will finally get their feet on the ground and AJ, SHJ, Felix etc. will finally show their potential (note how I said nothing about the young arms).
A learning experience is one of those things that say, "You know that thing you just did? Don't do that."- Douglas Adams
Millwood being in the mound sounds like a step in the right direction
"things like locig and prrofreading are actually valued here" - zknower
About all you can say good for Millwood is he gives us 6 innings a start.
They might be a shitty six innings, but that’s his average on the season. And we’ve seen in past years that trash heap starters (which is probably what we would have seen in the rotation instead) can blow up a lot worse than that. We’ve seen the Steve Trachsels and the Russ Ortizes of the world come through Baltimore and look even worse than Millwood. Yet another rushed rookie starter – same thing.
That’s really hunting for silver lining though. $9 million in salary for a 5.63 ERA of that is shit.
It's as if every eccentric in the South decided to move north, ran out of gas in Baltimore, and decided to stay. - John Waters
by Eat More Esskay on Aug 23, 2010 1:33 PM EDT up reply actions
I'm half kidding about wanting Chris Ray back
I mostly don’t care because it’s not like Chris Ray is any good. But if given a choice, sure, I’ll take Ray over the Mentor.
About all you can say good for Millwood is he gives us 6 innings a start. They might be a shitty six innings,
The funny thing is that I said the same thing about Livan Hernandez during the off season when there was a strong sentiment to bring in a vet to anchor the rotation. But it’s late August and Livan has an ERA+ 133. Not that I’m trying to pat myself on back. I had no clue that Livan would turn in this flukey season.
Don't mess with the bull, young man. You'll get the horns.
If it was a choice between Chris Ray and Kevin Millwood straight up, I probably still take Millwood
The difference is what we would have potentially done with the 15 million ( I think? did Texas send over any cash too?) instead. If theres somewhere that money would have been directly invested elsewhere in the team rather than just sitting in some team bank account (or worse, Angelos’ account), then not doing the trade may have been preferable.
The Mentor is making $12 million and I believe Texas is paying $3 million of that.
So we’re on the hook for $9 million for Millwood.
Let’s say we would have had to spend, I don’t know, $1.5 million on a flier for somebody. If we use birdman’s example of Livan Hernandez, the Nats are actually only paying him $900k. I doubt there’s $7.5 million we could have spent to really make the team better this year – but that’s money gone that might have paid off next year or something.
With Millwood we’re basically stuck asking the same question we did with Atkins. If you’re just rolling the dice hoping a guy will turn something around, why pay that much money?
It's as if every eccentric in the South decided to move north, ran out of gas in Baltimore, and decided to stay. - John Waters
by Eat More Esskay on Aug 23, 2010 2:13 PM EDT up reply actions
even controlling for money
I’ll take Ray. Millwood has zero future value to us and zippo value to us this past year (75 ERA+, -.3 WAR). Ray could still have some use value to a team in future before he hits free agency.
Don't mess with the bull, young man. You'll get the horns.
I must say I do enjoy my Livan love on 12/22/09.
Don't mess with the bull, young man. You'll get the horns.
Well now, don't get too excited.
I also see you in there saying maybe we should have traded Pie, D. Hernandez and Ray for Javier Vasquez. :)
BTW, just busting your chops here, I’m sure I’ve said my share of dumb stuff. I bet Livan’s 3.06 ERA wouldn’t be quite so good in the AL East but I doubt it would be in 5.63 territory either. And that would be $8 million in savings.
I guess the question is, how does a front office evaluate whether a player is more likely to pull a 2010 Millwood or pull a 2010 L. Hernandez? If I knew a better answer to that question, I guess I would have a job.
It's as if every eccentric in the South decided to move north, ran out of gas in Baltimore, and decided to stay. - John Waters
by Eat More Esskay on Aug 23, 2010 2:39 PM EDT up reply actions
I also see you in there saying maybe we should have traded Pie, D. Hernandez and Ray for Javier Vasquez. :)
Hehe, I also laid out this gem.
And I don’t have a problem with the Atkins signings for example.
I guess the question is, how does a front office evaluate whether a player is more likely to pull a 2010 Millwood or pull a 2010 L. Hernandez?
At the time, I would have thought Millwood would be slightly better. I certainly did not see Livan being this good, but Millwood sucking isn’t that surprising especially considering how flukey his 2009 season was.
Don't mess with the bull, young man. You'll get the horns.
Yeah, I'd never really looked at Millwood's career stats before.
2007 and 2008 both saw his ERA at 5+ and in 2006 he had a 4.50 ERA. You would think that would have been seen as being more likely to be the default Millwood, rather than some outlier season like 2009.
Of course, it’s easy for me to say that here in August now that I already know his 2010 stats will suck. But still, given that recent history it looked a lot more likely that he would suck than not suck.
It's as if every eccentric in the South decided to move north, ran out of gas in Baltimore, and decided to stay. - John Waters
by Eat More Esskay on Aug 23, 2010 2:58 PM EDT up reply actions
Turn him loose...
Maybe we don’t need a mentor to begin with,you lead by example.Our supposed number one starter is really a 4 or 5 or a maybe.I don’t see a “crafty veteran”,I see one going thur the motions,collecting a check and loving the scenery at the Yard.I do believe that next year is going to be different,which I hope every year,but since Buck got here,they have played inspired ball and have been fun to watch for a change.I would bring up Tillman and thank Millwood,call him a cab and keep looking for next year…what have we got to lose?
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