Melvin Mora: Playoff hero and world class bunter. (Image courtesy of Associated Press)

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Jeremy Guthrie finishes what he started six months ago as he pitches the final game of the season for the Orioles. Today we say goodbye to Brian Bob and Nicky and the Switch Hitting Jesus for six months, and we say goodbye to Memlo forever.

One year, maybe soon, I won't look forward to the season ending. I can't really imagine it though. The only emotion I can remember feeling at the end of the baseball season is relief, although that relief usually only lasts a short time and then I'm ready for the season to start again and have to wait about 5 months.

Being a baseball fan, especially of a losing team, is hard work. Sticking with a team for 162 games played over a span of 180 days can be brutal if the team is say, losing 13 in a row. For a lot of us it's a way of life where most evenings we get home from work, have something to eat, watch the game, go to bed, get up and go to work, and then do it all over again. When things are going poorly we don't have a week between games to decompress and analyze and forget about it.

I'll have a lot to say about the Orioles 2009 season and the future soon enough, but for now I just want to thank you all for making this website and community what it is. This group is intelligent, funny, and passionate, and getting through an Orioles season would be next to impossible without you. I hope you'll all stick around for the off season as we see what moves the O's make in their quest to return to respectability.

One thing I've learned from television is that when a season is finished, it's really appropriate to have a season ending montage set to music. Sadly I have no such montage of the Orioles, so instead enjoy this one from season one of The Wire. (warning there are two curses within the first 10 seconds, but after that you're good to go)

Let's Go O's! We want the SWEEEEEEP!

Melvn does his thing.

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Hendo's last stand!

You know, if you told me in April that on October 3rd I wouldn't hate Mark Hendrickson, I'd probably laugh at you. But once he got out of the rotation and into the bullpen, Hendo hasn't been half bad. And as much as I dreaded his return to the rotation after the shut down of Brian Matusz, he's been a pleasant surprise. Let's hope he has one more decent outing in him.

I'll be at the game tonight with various Camden Chat VIPs, and we want a win! I'm 10-1 at O's games this year, so I fancy myself a good luck charm (that one loss was against the Red Sox, for which I can't be blamed. My luck only goes so far).

Let's Go O's!

Wooo! That's what Melvin is saying.

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The boys return to Camden Yards tonight for three more before the season comes to a close and I'm looking for a sweep. Why? Why the hell not? Although God forbid the Orioles sweep and end up one game better than Pittsburgh who drafts some dude who turns out to be really good and then I have to hear people saying, "If only they hadn't added three useless wins five years ago we could have had him!"

Screw that. You know who doesn't lament over draft picks of the past? Good teams, that's who. If the Orioles are still so crappy in five years that the fans are clinging to stuff like that then I don't even know how I'll feel. So the games won't mean anything in the standings, they won't get the Orioles to the postseason, but they are still wins and I want them. And it's not like Toronto is that good (she says after checking the probables and seeing that Halladay won't make an appearance).

I want Brian Roberts to go on a tear and hit 6 doubles in three days. I want Nick Markakis to hit a HR or two. I want Luke to park one on Eutaw Street for old times sake (I know, he has a sore foot, but I'm on a roll). I want Jeremy Guthrie to go out and pitch the season finale looking like the Guthrie that I love. And more than anything I want Melvin Mora to have his best three games of the season.

Let's close the season in style, friends.

Let's go O's!

DEAL WITH IT (Photo by Keith Allison)

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So....Chris Waters. Maybe he'll re-enact his first career start. That'd be nice.

Does it get any cooler than Matt Wieters? I don't think that it does.

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Will our boys make it a baker's dozen?

Let's Go O's!

-Stacey

He's funny. Stanford funny. But can he pitch? (Picture courtesy of the Baltimore Sun)

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A recent Fan Post marks Nick Markakis as the biggest disappointment of the 2009 season, but for me that honor goes to Jeremy Guthrie. Going into the season there was one person in the rotation that I wasn't worried about, and that person was Guthrie. I never thought he was an ace, but for two years he'd been a reliable, above average starting pitcher.

I don't know what happened. I know that people who know advanced stats better than I do say he pitched above his head in 2007 and 2008, but I don't know. I don't think anyone saw this coming. I was just looking at the projections that were made for him prior to the season and while PECOTA, Bill James, CHONE, Marcel, and ZiPS all projected him to be worse than he was in 07 and 08, it was nothing like this.

I like Jeremy Guthrie a lot and while I sort of imagined he might be pushed out of the rotation in the future, I didn't imagine that we'd go into 2010 with him as a question mark. And yet here we are.

Jeremy will make two more starts this season, tonight and the last game against Toronto on Sunday. While he's looked better lately, he hasn't looked good. Really he's just given up a few less HR. My best case scenario for Guthrie is that the WBC jacked him up and he couldn't recover (although it's been six months!). My worst case is he's Rodrigo Lopez.

Nick and I are going to weather the stormy season together.

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Mark Hendrickson has made two starts for the O's since replacing Brian Matusz in the rotation. We all dread seeing him out there but he's actually done a decent job so far. Good for him. I don't know what else to say about the game. I hope they win.

So this past Saturday I was hanging out with a few friends, two of whom were down from New Jersey for the weekend. Every now and then when we're hanging out we try and convince each other to move so that we can hang out all the time. Julia and Anthony try to get me to move to New Jersey and I try to get them to move to Maryland. It never works, obviously.

Saturday was one of the nights when we had that conversation, and this time it was partially fueled by beer. The bartender chimed in a few reasons that Baltimore is a cool place to live, one of which is Camden Yards. Julia says, "Camden Yards is nice," and Anthony  gets this pained look on his face like he doesn't want to say what he's thinking and finally says, "But....the Orioles never win." And Julia says, "But they have Nick Markakis. He's so good looking." I add, "He's also good at baseball." Anthony says, "But he never wins. Maybe the solution is that you move to New Jersey and Nick Markakis comes and plays for the Yankees, then we all win." (please note that Anthony, born in 1985, doesn't actually remember the Orioles  ever winning.)

After I stopped myself from vomiting over the idea of Nick Markakis being a Yankee, I said something I never would have said if I hadn't been drinking. I said, "Yeah, Nick Markakis has never won, but he will. In a few years it'll be the Orioles in the playoffs and the Yankees will be sitting at home." And so Anthony and Julia did something they wouldn't have done if they hadn't been drinking: they laughed hysterically. I mean, they laughed for WAY too long, especially considering it wasn't funny.

I don't know if the Orioles will be good in a few  years, let alone if they'll be good enough to be in the playoffs. But I have hope that they will, and it's hope based on facts, not blind optimism. Even with this awful ending to the season, I still feel that way.

I know that story has nothing to do with tonight's game, but it seems more worthwhile than trying to think up something interesting to say about this meaningless game.

-Stacey

I hope Chris Tillman can have some fun today. 

Let's Go O's!

-Stacey

Our boys in happier times

Game 154 of 162.

Jason Berken vs. Jeremy Sowers

Let's Go O's!

-Stacey

by Rob Carr - AP

You're doing it wrong!. (AP Photo/Rob Carr)

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With just over a week left in the season in a year when most of the playoff races are pretty dull, there aren't many games that have meaning at the moment. While only the Yankees have clinched a playoff spot, there is really just one race where the outcome isn't pretty much determined (AL Central), and that's only because the Tigers and Twins play each other next week. It's dull, man. I like races going to the last day and one game playoffs and all that jazz.

I'll tell you what would perk up the last week and a half of the season would be if the Braves could some how come back to take the Wild Card. It would be ridiculous but also so awesome. They're currently 3.5 games back of the Rockies (3 in the loss column) and red hot.  Add to that the fact that 6 of their final 10 games are against the Nationals and it's hard not to give them a fighting chance. The Rockies, who have been sputtering, play their final three series against the Cardinals, Brewers, and Dodgers.

And not to be the arrogant Orioles fan, because I know the Rockies were just in the World Series a few years ago, but sometimes I have a hard time believing they're a real baseball team. Now the Braves, there's a baseball team. And with Bobby Cox announcing he's retiring from managing next year, I suddenly think they should just do it.

Anyway, I'm forgetting what sort of blog this is. The Orioles. Right. So, not many games mean anything right now, but meaning even less than all of the other meaningless games is tonight's game between the Cleveland Indians and the Baltimore Orioles. They're the teams with the worst two records in the entire American League. The Orioles have lost 7 in a row; the Indians 11. David Hernandez, who gives up approximately 14 HR per game vs Fausto Carmona who walks a bajillion guys. IT'S GONNA BE A BARN BURNER.

Seriously though, the Indians fans feel our pain. They may not feel the DEPTH of our pain, given that they've had some awesome years in the past decade, but they get it. They were so close to the  World Series in 2007, went into 2008 with high hopes and were quite mediocre, and have flat out stunk this year. Wait a minute...that sounds sort of familiar. I guess the Indians just need to tack on 10 more years of awfulness and they'll be the Orioles.

Let's Go Tribe, the SB Nation blog for the Cleveland Indians, is dealing with the pain of their season by writing a 12 part series titled, "Fire Everyone!" They're in their 8th installment, titled "Fire Everyone! - The Farm System," but my favorite was in part seven when they suggested firing the racing hot dogs and railed against their mezzanine being named after Travis Hafner (which...it is? Seriously???)

FIRE PRONKVILLE

Precisely how sad does the career of Travis Hafner have to become before we stop mocking him with this now totally inappropriately named mezzanine section? Ever heard of "Huffland"? "AlexeiRamirezCove"? "OverbayBay"? No, because they don't exist. A 15 HR hitter doesn't get a deck named after him.

Imagine an amusement park named Huffland? And the sorts of "rides" that would be involved?

Anyway, if you've got a strong stomach, a robust supply of alcohol, and nothing better to do tonight, enjoy what is sure to be a hell of a game. Hey, SOMEONE has to win, right??

Let's go O's!

-Stacey