For this edition of "Today in Orioles history®," we will recall a game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park on Mother’s Day, 2007.  The Orioles lost a close, competitive game at Fenway late in the ninth inning.  O’s fans were disappointed, but glad that their team put forth their best effort against a solid Boston club.  Jeremy Guthrie had a mediocre outing, allowing 0 runs over 8 innings leading to Orioles manager Sam Perlozzo to pull him and bring in fan favorite, Danys.  Baez struggled a bit but he tried his hardest and could not be blamed for this loss.  To close out the game, Sammy Perlozzo, who by the way is best friends with Leo Mazzone if you were not aware, brought in Chris Ray who proceeded to drop the ball and give up the winning run to the Sox.  Each player felt a tinge of sadness as they just let this one get away but the clubhouse stayed positive as all the players had supreme confidence in their manager. 

Go O's!  

Back in the late 80s when the Yankees sucked (next on Yankeeograhpy, the Greg Cadaret story) - and even in the mid 80s when Mattingly, Winfield & Henderson would carry them through August before their pitching died - there was a penomenon known as The Columbus Shuttle, whereby one young player, usually a pitcher, would end up making multiple trips from the AAA Columbus Clippers & the Yankees & back again.

Sadly, the Clippers are no longer NY's AAA affiliate. The new team is in Scranton. But fear not! Fredo Steinbrenner has revived one of King George's old traditions in the person of Chris Britton, winner of the 2006 "Terry Forster Fat Tub of Goo" Award.

As of May 9, he has already been called up 3 times from Scranton. Here's wishing him luck in breaking the record which is 8 and if memory serves me right, is held by Steve Balboni & Ray Fontenot.

so, everybody already knows about wieters. he's nasty and he needs to be in bowie soon. 3 for 4 with two home runs tonight, tied for the league lead in homers, lots to like there. but that's not who i'm excited about tonight.

i'm excited about chris tillman. the kid is 20 years old. tonight, he threw six innings of 1 hit ball. he's walking too many people, but i repeat, he's 20 years old. and he's tearing it up in AA to the tune of 3-0 record, 2.87 e.r.a., 1.18 whip, and 29 Ks in 31 innings. i know i'm laying down a huge jinx on this kid right now and he's young and could get hurt or never pull it together after facing some adversity or whatever... but there's a decent chance that we look back and say "tillman for bedard straight up would have been better for us than them." jones is going to be a nice piece for the outfield for a long time, but tillman is going to make that trade the heist of the decade for us.

Look, I'm drunk. we won. but I'm worried. I know what I'm about to imply may be

sacrilege to some people but.....Adam Jones.................Corey Patterson.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/p/patteco01.shtml

check out 2002. We could very well be in for this.

This ain't long enough so I'll also throw out there that tonight i ejoyed a tastey beverage known as Dogfish IPA 60 and it is pretty damn good. What's your favorite "microbrew"?

Steve Trachsel pitches against the Royals tonight. This is very, vary bad. According to theorioles.com Trax has "the manager's vote of confidence."  Still, he seems to need to pitch well in order to keep his job.

Pitching well against the Royals is really, really easy. They have an inept, historically bad offense. In many ways they're like the Orioles, in that their pitching staff is actually pretty decent and their offense stinks. Trax will probably go out there and pitch a quality start with 4 walks, 2 Ks, 7 hits, and a decent amount of luck. This will fool Diamond Dave into thinking he's worth keeping around for a while longer, that he still has something left in the tank.

I almost would prefer to see him get shelled by this terrible group of hitters in order to get rid of him. Nothing against him personally, of course, but I just don't want him on the team any more. He's not good.

An evil wind has blown into Orioleland.

25 years removed from their last championship I'm seeing signs that there are O's fans who have forgotten or never knew how the Orioles won so much in the past and are enchanted by that awful product of the National League - "Small Ball".

Before I bitch about this, I want everyone to click on this link and listen to what Earl Weaver thinks about small ball.  I know everybody has heard this before, but listen to what he actually says

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YKxf3OkpJc'

"Get them big cocksuckers that can hit the fucking ball out of the ball park the and you can't make any goddamn mistake."  Truer words were never spoken.

Baseball is a pretty simple game compared to football or basketball.  You get guys on base, knock them in, and try to prevent the other team from doing the same. It's been the way it's been since 1920, but a significant part of the baseball world is in total denial about it.  You ever wonder why the Yankees won so many World Series?  Ever wonder why the National League isn't so good at the whole World Series thing?  That's pretty much why.  The rules of baseball allow lots of  other ways to try and score runs, but there isn't a whole lot of evidence those other ways win many games on a consistent basis.

Earl Weaver understood how baseball offenses work probably better than any manager in history.  He knew that wasting time worrying about the "little things" was pointless because they literally were little things and don't contribute very much to winning games.  Look at the really successful teams,  they usually were near the top in runs scored and runs allowed and they usually scored runs by getting on base and hitting for power.  There are exceptions, but those exceptions tend to be confined to specific eras and rarely repeat.  The Yankees won World Series like clockwork.  The 2003 Marlins finished 4 games above 500 the next year.

Currently, the American League East has three teams that are in the top six in both runs scored and home runs.  The idea that the Orioles will compete with them with  single-run strategies is absurd.  The Yankees, Red Sox, and Devil Rays have the ability to completely change a game with one swing of the bat.  Dave Trembley is hoping to squeak out victories with a high-risk, low-return offense.  If he worked on Wall Street he'd be out of a job in a week.

I know a lot of apologists for him say things like "well, the O's don't have any big hitters, we need to score runs another way."  I don't think that holds a lot of water.  Those teams that are successful with "small ball" have high percentage base stealers and guys who can bunt their way on base.  The Orioles don't have that.  They score so infrequently that they should be adopting a high-percentage, low-risk strategy and hope for the best.  By giving away outs they're decreasing their already slim chances of scoring a run.

For reasons that elude me, a lot of people think small ball is "old school"  and "the right way to play the game".  It isn't.  The right way to play the game is whatever way wins and in the American League East small ball doesn't.  Old school for the Orioles is what Earl Weaver is talking about in that clip above.  It's what Moneyball is all about.  I'd like to see the Orioles to return to that.

AKA: zknowers Lament

The Sun has an article quoting Stark to say Cabrera was dangled last year, and will be on the block again.

Everyone is fair game. I still expect Roberts to go. It's tough to guess what another team would offer for Danny. We know the O's must trade some pitching to continue restocking. Johnson seems to have found a role, Liz will hopefully come up. Arrieta is supposedly on the fast track up. Spoone is in the picture. Is it time to sell high with Cabrera?

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.

...B-Rob sorta does, T-Bone Shelby doesn't even know what shape "it" is.

Link here , at everyone's favorite paper's website.

The relevant material:

"Trembley said that he has had no problems with the Orioles' aggressive base running.

"That's part of it," Trembley said. "You can't think negative. You have to think positive. You take the extra base. You go first to third when they allow you to do it. I don't think you play defensive. You play defensive now, you're looking to make mistakes. I don't like that."

Gee Dave. Know what I don't like? MAKING AN ENTIRE INNING'S WORTH OF OUTS ON THE BASEPATHS IN ONE GAME. Being aggressive is, for this team, apparently being stupid and running into outs in the name of "trying to create runs." Gotta have men on base to create runs, Dave.

Shelby weighs in: "I got guys taking bigger leads than they'd normally get," Shelby said. "It's not about getting picked off at first. They have more bang-bang plays at second and it's because they don't go take that extra step."

Actually John, what seems to happen is, they get picked off and we lose runners in crucial innings. Like the 9th.

B-Rob: "Being aggressive doesn't mean you give away easy outs. We need all 27 outs, and we need to use them all wisely."

Yes, true. So stop being aggressive. Geez.

Everyone's favorite interview with Earl Weaver, taken out of context.

Camden Chat:  Luis Hernandez was picked off to end the 10th inning of today's game, and that's just the latest in a long string of baserunning gaffes for the Orioles. How do you feel about Trembley's aggressive strategy on the basepaths?

Earl Weaver:  For Christ's sake. You get fucking god dammed little fleas on the fucking bases, getting picked off trying to steal, getting thrown out, taking runs away from you.

You get them big cock suckers that can hit the fucking ball out of the ball park, and you can't make any god damned mistakes.

Camden Chat:  The Orioles have struggled to score runs lately, and have lost 5 in a row despite some very good starting pitching performances. How much of this blame should fall on hitting coach Terry Crowley?

Earl Weaver:  Well, Terry, Terry Crowley's lucky he's in fucking baseball for Christ sake. So if this cocksucker would mind his own business and let me manage the fucking team we'd be a lot better off.

I couldn't have said it better myself.