Over on our right sidebar, just under Cabrera Bowl '08 (where Z and Big Danny have lost some momentum, sadly), is Numbers Watch with Amber Theoharis. You may recall that Amber smiled really big and typed up some fantastical tall tales of scouts agreeing that it would not be weird for Ramon Hernandez to hit 25 home runs for the first time in his life, or for Kevin Millar to get back to that plateau at this stage of his career, or for Jeremy Guthrie to win 15 games on a team that struggles to score any freaking runs. It was Amber being Amber.

But so far, she and her fictional scouts aren't looking so bad.

The 25-homer club included Aubrey Huff, Nick Markakis, Ramon, Millar, and Luuuuuuke.

Huff paces the team with 17, Scott is at 14, Markickass is at 13, Kevbo has 11, and Ramon comes in with a paltry seven.

Huff would need an injury or a God awful slump to miss 25 homers at this point, and he's a career second half hitter, anyway. He might reach 25 and beyond in someone else's uniform, but them's the breaks.

I'm thinking Luuuuuke will get there, too. Markakis should be right around that neighborhood. I do not think Millar is going to make it even to 20, and Ramon never did it before and had no business doing it this year.

But still, that's looking like a probable 3-for-5.

The "15-20 dingers" patrol had Melvin Mora, Adam Jones and Brian Roberts.

They all have a shot. Mora is already at 11, and I'd go deeper into how 15-20 homers for Mora this year is still going to amount to a terrible season, and then I'd go on a rant that it was moronic to give him that extension in 2006, but we've been there, done that, and all understand it.

Jones would need 11 more to get to 15. It seems like a lot right now, being that it's July and he's only got four, but a second half power surge is hardly out of the question. He's gotten his average up -- never expect big OBP numbers out of Jones, because it's not his game. Never has been, and that's a really difficult thing to teach. But given that he looks like he has the makings of being an elite defensive center fielder and could be a guy that hits .300 consistently with power, he still looks good.

Roberts' home run totals are not really a concern of mine, but his doubles stroke is back in full effect and he's having a hell of a year.

And then comes the 15 wins for Guthrie. It's not happening.

Then comes the 10 wins for Cabrera. It could happen. It should happen. 10 wins for Cabrera doesn't really mean a whole lot. He's done it before. But again, I suppose that's going deeper than Amber intended.

10 wins for Loewen? Oh ho ho! He's closer to 10 injuries. He's closer to the lost and found box, for that matter. But this one was the real stretch because it misunderstands how wins really happen, and it places emphasis on wins to begin with.

For what it's worth, Baseball Prospectus currently has the O's projected at finishing around 77-85. I know that might seem pessimistic, but think of how far this team would have come to reach 77 wins this season. Nobody gave them a shot at doing much better than 70, and a lot of folks had them losing 100 or more. And they had every reason to think that. It was a pretty good bet.

More to the point -- and more in the spirit of Amber -- this team is damn fun to watch and instill a sense of pride in all of us that has been missing for so many years. Even the games they lose, they have a tendency to battle. There is real character on this team, guys worth rooting for.

And like any collection of fans, we have our favorites (Nick, St. Guts, Dr. Jones, Brian Bob, etc.) and the guys we don't care for a lot of the time (all shortstops in Oriole orange this year). But even the Faheys of the world have a day. Even Luis Hernandez hits a walk-off single in a dramatic comeback. Even Freddie Bynum fills in for a sick Roberts and drives in three runs.

Every dog has had their day. And Orioles Magic means something again. So as it stands right now, projections being what they are, I say Amber and her optimism are winning the day. That's a good thing.

Don't you ever be sad,
Lean on me when times are bad.
When the day comes and you're down,
In a river of trouble and about to drown

Just hold on, I'm comin',
Hold on, I'm comin'.

Following two straight devastatingly crappy losses, George Sherrill nailed down the ninth inning tonight as the Birds held on to down the Royals, 7-5.

We have a comfy 7-3 lead before Ol' Sar-farty came in there and started walking the field, but George knew what to do. Though he gave up a bleeder single that drove in two runs off the bat of Mark Grudzielanek, he then struck out Alex Gordon to FINISH IT! with aplomb.

Gordon had previously hit a monster home run in the first inning off of Radhames Liz that apparently one-hopped the Warehouse. Good great mamma jamma was that a shot.

Five interesting points of the game:

1. Second inning, Fahey hits a line drive double to left field that Jose Guillen bobbles on the pickup, allowing Adam Jones to score. Next batter is Roberts, who skies one into left center. Guillen, like the jerk he is, stands still and leaves Joey Gathright to fend for himself. Lucky for KC (and Guillen), Gathright makes the catch.
2. Bottom seven, game seeming to get a little too close for comfort. BRIAN ROBERTS SMASH
3. Adam Loewen makes a relief appearance, throwing two scoreless innings with a bit of mystery to them. Season ERA falls to 7.08.
4. Mora finally gets dropped in the order, falling to sixth, and goes 0-for-3 with a walk.
5. Jimmy Gobble makes duck feel better about his own last name.

Per Yahoo Sports , upon his return from the DL Adam Loewen will pitch in the bullpen for the rest of the season.  Reason cited? Because of his injury history, it'll be easier to monitor him from the bullpen. Whatever the reason, I say bravo.

Adam has never consistently shown that he belongs in the big leagues, and yet here he is his thanks to the ridiculous major league contract he signed. By placing him in the bullpen, the O's have given Adam a great opportunity to prove himself. Because, let's face it, he never has. He's been over-hyped and under-proven for years now. Best case scenario, he gets his act together for the rest of the season and starts in 2009 with confidence and with a few successful innings under his belt. Mid-case scenario, he proves effective in a relief role. Worst case...well, we know the worst case.

An added benefit of Loewen going to the 'pen is that this marks the inevitable release of one Steve "The Trashman" Trachsel. I see no way around it. And that, my friends, can only be considered good news.

So that leaves us with a rotation of Guthrie, Cabrera, Olson, Burres, and Liz, with a contingency plan of Albers swapping places with any of the last three should the need arise. I've heard rumblings that Jim Johnson might get moved to the rotation, but given his great success as a reliever I hope that doesn't happen.

Given the overall talent of our team, the pitching so far this year has been a real bright spot. Hopefully Adam will excel in his new role and give us even more hope for the future.

I came into tonight's game late, and it was 5-0 Mariners. First thing I saw was Jay Payton go deep. The Orioles went on to win 8-7, after I immediately proclaimed that we would win tonight. Just had a feelin', ya know? The first thing I see is a Jay Payton home run. We're winning this thing.

I missed another fabulous start from Adam Loewen, who went two and two-thirds (60 pitches, 33 strikes) with three walks, a strikeout, four hits, five earned runs, and a homer allowed to Adrian Beltre. His ERA is now 7.85. Does anyone really think this dude deserves a rotation spot instead of Matt Albers? Really? I know the team is invested in Loewen, but at what point do you have to STOP THE INSANITY?

The guy can't pitch. Trembley is on record as saying we're foolishly carrying thirteen pitchers (and thus, a bench consisting of Brandon Fahey, Guillermo Quiroz and Jay Payton) because Loewen can't go deep into games.

He's not getting any better about it! You can stick him in the bullpen (since optioning him isn't really an, um, option), but that'll spell disaster, most likely. A couple of years ago, one of the Baseball Prospectus guys said that Loewen might be better off there. The way he simply can't keep the ball over the plate, I have my doubts. Sure he could pump his fastball, but he can't control that thing any better than the rest of his junk.

So what do you do with him? He's taking up a valuable spot on the 25-man roster.

After he was gone, it went a lot better. Matt Albers and Jamie Walker gave up an earned run each (both on Ichiro's two-run bomb off of Walker, but we've already discussed the stupidity of matching Ichiro by the book, as he kills lefties and had healthy numbers against Walker career), but RAN-DOOOOOR! pitched two scoreless right after Loewen, Bradford went one and a third, and Sherrill shut the door after some drunks ran onto the field. I had the dreadful Mariners TV broadcast, but apparently Gary Thorne said they were "not taking it lightly" on the knuckleheads (that one credit to the Seattle booth) that got out there.

That gives Shutdown eight saves on the year, five against the Mariners. And that skirt-wearing weiner Erik Bedard is still too afeared of the mighty, mighty O's. As well he should be!

You know who I hate? Yuniesky Betancourt. 3-for-4. That guy kills us. Get him out of here.

Markakis was 2-for-3 with two walks, Millar managed a sac fly, Huff was 1-for-5 with an RBI, Roberts homered in the eighth to put us up for good, and Adam Jones (Player of the Year, 2010 Seattle Mariners) was 3-for-4 with a two-run, go-ahead double in the seventh.

Much fun all around! Now we have a bunch of games in Chicago against the White Sox, so that wraps up our season series against them, too. Let's do it to it!

Another series won. Can't argue with that.

via d.yimg.com 

"Loewen was pitching against a good line-up and it says a lot about him and the improvements he has made by shutting them down after the first inning."

--Dave Trembley

It's a nice thing to say. It doesn't necessarily make it something that you should put in your pocket and keep close to your heart.

Yes, Loewen was better after the first inning last night. But it would have been hard for him not to be, even given the low expectations he should carry for everyone at this point. He started off the game by giving up a hit to Nick Swisher, walking Orlando Cabrera, and then serving up a three-run tater tot to Jim Thome.

Now, giving up homers to Jim Thome is not something one should be all that ashamed of, of course. Even though Big Jim is aging, Loewen is just one of hundreds of pitchers who have been treated to the Thome big fly meal.

He got through six innings and his line awards him with a somewhat generous Quality Start. Loewen's three starts this season: 

Loewen turned 24 years old on April 9. He is, simply put, ill-suited for a Major League rotation, even one that is fronting a team that is hell-bent on rebuilding and looking toward the future.

The Orioles, though, as many of you are aware, have little choice but to give Loewen this chance. Not only was he drafted fourth overall out of high school, but he got a foolish contract from a foolish front office, which essentially made him a must-have on the roster at this point.

He's in the rotation not because he's ever earned it, but because the team had precious few chances to tell him no. Had Loewen been a phenom, we'd all be on the gravy train right now. That has never, ever been the case.

All through his minor league career, he's struggled with his command, with the highest mark there being that he was "effectively wild" -- while he walked 5.22 per nine innings in the minors (all but 70 innings spent in the Carolina League and below), he did have a respectable 3.72 ERA.

But did he ever dominate? Save for about 20 innings at Ottawa, no, he did not. Not even close. His K-rate was a damn solid 9.08 per nine, but he was always hit a little harder than you'd want a strikeouts-and-walks guy to be, too.

In short, Adam Loewen has had real problems at every single level of his professional career. He's also had more than a couple of scrapes with the injury report.

In Baltimore, he has failed to pitch deep into games frequently, and even in giving us six innings last night, it took him 109 pitches. Does that really instill confidence in him? Be honest.

He was drafted to become a front line starting pitcher. Though he's still quite young, the problems he has are not the type that go away easily. He is a left-handed Daniel Cabrera in many respects. Pitching coaches are always going to get excited to "fix" the kid, but it's probably a quite futile effort. In the majority of cases, you either have it or you don't. The best Loewen might ever be able to offer is being a back-end starter on teams that just don't have enough guys and aren't going to compete.

Here's a list of pitchers taken after Loewen in the 2002 draft: Zach Greinke, Jeff Francis, Joe Saunders, Scott Kazmir, Cole Hamels, Jeremy Guthrie, Joe Blanton, Matt Cain... let's stop at the first round.

If you want to believe in fairy tales and happy endings and miraculous turnarounds and magical pitching coaches, then by all means, believe that Adam Loewen is going to turn this thing around and become a reliable, quality Major League starter. Like always in these scenarios, I hope you're right. But I find it painful to watch the O's more or less forced to spend time on Loewen when I think it's so clear that he does not have it. If it weren't for his contract, he probably wouldn't be here. He is no more advanced or ready for this than Olson, Liz or Penn are, and they're stuck in Norfolk.

Here's a very scientific graph from user Y Not:

I believe that explains the game pretty well.

Adam Loewen gave up a hit to Swisher, walked Orlando Cabrera, and then Thome hit a three-run jack to start the game, and that was all the White Sox needed, since we predictably made Jose Contreras look like Roy Halladay.

Loewen did OK after the first three batters -- well, OK for Loewen. He walked five and struck out three, and threw 109 pitches in six innings, but hey. Six innings! A Christmas miracle! He still stunk, fundamentally.

Jim Johnson would be preferable to Greg Aquino, if you ask me.

Once a year or so, it's good to update these. Players come and players go, much like the asinine nicknames that generally spring out of the game threads. So here's a quick primer for anyone who's new and might not know what in God's name we're talking about during certain points of a game.

Albers, Matt

• Fat Albers

This is not in any way intended to be mean. Honest. I know the dude's a little pudgy, maybe still carrying some baby fat, or maybe he's just like most of the rest of us and likes to reward himself for a fine day's work of breathing air and being a cool dude by wolfing down a Baconator or six. I'm not here to judge Matt Albers. It's just something that happened in my head and then I put it on a blog. Hey, hey, hey!

You gotta do it right though. Listen for yourself, if you're unfamiliar. It starts loud, so be prepared. That site is long faded as far as being funny goes, but whatever. RAN-DOOOOOR!

Bradford, Chad

• ChadBrad
• Chadwick
• Chadstache

Ain't found a way to kill me yet

Eyes burn with stingin' sweat

Seems every path leads me to nowhere

Wife and kids, household pet

Army green was no safe bet

The bullets scream to me from somewhere

Yeah, they come to snuff The Rooster

Yeah, here come The Rooster

You know he ain't gonna die

Walkin' tall, machine gun man

They spit on me in my homeland

Mora, Melvin 

• MelMo
• Melly Mel
• Melvin Moron
• Playoff Hero Melvin Mora

Did Babe Ruth ever slap at someone's glove while they tried to tag him? Did Mickey Mantle? Did Hank Aaron? Did Cal Ripken? Did Dane Iorg? Did Kiko Garcia? Seriously. He's a player to admire, but a total weiner.

That's why I prefer "Brian Bob."

Sarfate, Dennis

• Dennis the Menace

via d.yimg.com

via d.yimg.com

We're 7-5. It's true. But let's really take a look at this 7-5 record of ours, and see if this is a team legitimately outperforming expectations, or a team just sort of, you know, 7-5 because that's just sort of how it is.

Coming into today's loss to the Rays, the O's were hitting .253/.331/.423 as a team. Who's performing?

Luke Scott is performing. Brian Roberts is performing. Nick Markakis is performing, even though it took him 12 games to get his first homer. Nick's walking like crazy because teams are willing to pitch around him to get to Millar in many cases.

And then there's Aubrey Huff, who has a couple of big games and has been abysmal otherwise. For those not really keeping an eye on it, "Mr. Clutch" is now hitting .244.

After those two, the hitting falls off a cliff. Luis Hernandez is "surprising" people, but really take a look at those numbers -- he's still sporting a sub-.650 OPS. Brandon Fahey is 1-for-11 on the season, and we all know he can't hit. So you're looking at a two-headed monster at shortstop that simply cannot hit enough to help. Alex Cintron is no prize, but he'd be markedly better than either of them.

Mora has hit a couple of homers, but overall he stinks, too. Millar has looked terrible. Ramon Hernandez is struggling mightily.

It's way too early to have anything at all to really say about the pitching, past the fact that this rotation is going to just kill us. It's one thing to understand that they're bad; it's another to watch it happen. Loewen and Cabrera and Burres are going to be extremely frustrating to watch game-to-game. The bullpen, a strong point early, is showing serious chinks in the armor. Sound familiar? Same scenario as last season, featuring "Lights Out" John Parrish.

We're 2-3 against Tampa Bay, 1-2 against Texas, and 4-0 against Seattle, whose bullpen imploded on them and allowed that sweep. Is this team really playing above expectations?

I have my doubts. And that's not me trying to be negative, it's just what I'm thinking about at the moment.

I am proud to say that Brian Roberts has more hops than Akinori Iwamura.

via d.yimg.com (© LM Otero / AP)

I didn't see the first game, but I do know that getting three base hits is not exactly good. Rangers won 3-1. Stupid every-third-year Kevin Millwood.

In the second game, Adam Loewen struggled badly with his control -- again -- and left a couple too many pitches up -- again. Count me as decidedly not on the train with Loewen or Cabrera. I mean, I'll be psyched when they have good games now and again, but these bad ones are torture. I don't watch summer re-runs; I don't want to watch them on live TV, either.

Jay Payton homered and Markakis and Melvin had two hits apiece in the second game, too. Randor Bierd looked good in relief. The Rangers chipped away at Chad Bradford to score what turned out to be the winning run in the bottom of the eighth, following the Orioles tying it in the top of the inning on a sac RBI from Millar.

Brandon Fahey and Luis Hernandez combined to go 0-for-6 over two games. I know Luis had that one big game-winner, but don't stop expecting to see Alex Cintron sometime soon.

Luke Scott's hot streak hit a roadblock with an 0-for-3 opener (three strikeouts and a walk) and then crapped out in a pinch-hit appearance in game two. Ramon Hernandez had a 1-for-5 day to raise his average to .143.

So I get bored sometimes, which leads me to think of music, the Orioles, and the combination of the two.

Since we've got a few hours until the double header at Texas, part of which I'll have to miss, I decided to kill some time by coming up with theme songs for all of the O's in their current states.

DISCLAIMER: Not all of these songs are safe for work or for your kids' ears. Play with discretion.

The team gets four songs on this playlist: "Orioles Magic," of course; Saliva's "Click Click Boom" because that is, somewhat sadly, what they come out onto the field with these days; "Thank God I'm a Country Boy," of course; and "Right Back to Where We Started From" by Maxine Nightingale. In addition to having some parallels to Major League, the team is also sort of Slap Shot-y, which is a natural since Major League is just a baseball version of Slap Shot in many ways. Whenever I think of improbable, goofy winning streaks for bad teams, I think of Maxine Nightingale and the Charlestown Chiefs bus.

Luis Hernandez kicks off the player set with the timeless "Theme From Greatest American Hero (Believe it or Not)" by the beloved Joey Scarbury. Believe it or not, he's starting at short. I never thought he would ever be-he-he. (It should've been somebody else.)

Up next is Luke Scott's at-bat music, "I Wanna Be Your Dog" by The Stooges. What Luke says goes right now. The man is slugging .800 and getting a hit every other at-bat.

We dip into the somewhat melancholy for Brian Roberts. The title of this Dylan track says it all: "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go." Odds are, Brian's still going to get dealt this season. This is one of those guys who is definably our player. Remember when he was a slap-hitting little guy? Now he drives the ball with authority to the gaps, steals bags, has become one of the team's leaders, and man, THAT'S OUR BOY. This ain't free agent Tejada or too-frequently-hurt Bedard. This is Brian Roberts. OUR player.

Brenda Lee's "I'm Sorry" could only represent one man: Aubrey Huff. God bless the guy, he's trying really hard to do and say all the right things, including pounding the crap out of the ball. He has won a couple of games for us already, and went 4-for-4 the other night in Texas. He made a mistake. He's sorry. He's playing his ass off. He's part of the team. He's sorry. So sorry. Please accept. His apology.

Ain't no joke, whenever I think of Bocephus' "A Country Boy Can Survive," the first thing that pops into my mind is Jamie Walker. His entire career is proof that a country boy can survive, really. He throws slop, gets people out, and does his damn job, damn it. Jamie Walker rules just as hard as Hank, Jr. I think he might take that as a fine compliment, and I mean it as such.

Razor Ramon gets "I Feel Good" by James Brown. The only nice thing we've heard about Hernandez lately is he's in good shape. He's certainly not hitting. Maybe, like the song, Ramon will start kicking ass quickly.

Bruuuuuuuce! Melvin Mora's "Glory Days" may be behind him, but it's not all bad. He can still play a little bit, still can have a good time, still can remember hitting .340 or the wink of a young girl's eye.

Daniel Cabrera gets two songs. Good Daniel Cabrera gets the classic Maurice Williams & The Zodiacs hit "Stay," which is a song I frequently sing when I get bad drunk, because I remember being a kid, reading a Lewis Grizzard book, and he said he did that. It's just something that pops in my head. And yes, I was reading Lewis Grizzard books when I was a kid. I was a weird kid.

Bad Daniel Cabrera gets Ray Charles' "Hit the Road, Jack." Because seriously.

In the late 1980s, Public Enemy was awesome and I bet Jay Payton was a hell of a high school ballplayer. In the 1990s and beyond, Public Enemy had moments of greatness among their overall mediocrity and inconsistency, and that's pretty much Jay Payton as a pro player at his peak. Last year, Public Enemy released another album, and it had only one great song -- actually, it had only one good song, which also happened to be great. "Harder Than You Think" is the sound of a group that was phenomenal 20 years ago throwing all their eggs into one basket. Jay Payton also stinks now, but he's making the best of his chances so far this season.

Scott Moore is willing to play "Whenever, Wherever." That is also a song by Shakira. Also, it's lucky that Moore's breasts are small and humble, so we don't confuse them with mountains.

I didn't want to leave Frederick Keys catcher Matt Wieters out of the party, so he gets "Get Ready" by The Temptations, which was quite excellently sampled by Fergie, too. Sorry, Fergie's great. It's the law.

Another future star, Adam Jones, is already starting in Baltimore's center field, but man, "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet." Ha! I love this shit. I feel like Tom Verducci or Roch or Jeff Passan. But it's true. Jones might hack away a little in the earlygoing, but so did another current Orioles outfielder before he found his groove. I'm not worried about Dr. Jones.

Blue Öyster Cult's most awesome song is, in fact, "Godzilla," about the movie monster that has a habit of destroying cities and scaring the piss out of everyone in Japan. Greg Aquino thus far has a habit of scaring the piss out of me when he trots in from the bullpen.

This one isn't a real song, at least not in the traditional sense. But comedian Jon Lajoie struck gold with "Everyday Normal Guy," a hit on Funny or Die. Steve Trachsel is just a regular, everday, normal guy. If ya got a pet cat, put your hands up. (I'm not saying the things in this song are true of Steve Trachsel -- not all of them, anyway. He surely has more than $600 in the bank, for instance.)

Kevin Millar has always been really big on "Faith," plus he wore very George Michael-ish jeans when he threw out that controversial first pitch. Sometimes I hear the Limp Bizkit cover of "Faith" and hate it, and sometimes I see Red Sox Millar and hate him. But then I hear George sing the song, and it rules. And I watch Kevin be Kevin as an Oriole, and I forget all that B.S. and remember that I love the guy. Faith-a-faith-a-faith-ah! Baaaaaaa-beh!

New closer George Sherrill gets Semisonic's "Closing Time," which I admit is hardly creative. I don't believe in "guilty pleasures," because you either like something or you don't and you should own the fact either way, but this song would be a "guilty pleasure" for me if I did believe in the concept. I especially enjoy the "ba-chicka-chick-BOW BOW" guitar that is just so absolutely 1990s. We miss you, Everclear, but never come back.

Every time I think of Randor Bierd, I think of that story of him going out and buying a new suit to get on the plane before he even got official word that he'd made the team out of spring training. And every time I listen to Dean Martin, I want to put on a suit, myself, and have a Dewar's on the rocks or fifteen. So Randor gets "Ain't That a Kick in the Head," arguably the swinginest of all Dino's truly swingin' numbers.

Matt Albers and Brian Burres get to share a song, the Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard version of Townes Van Zandt's "Pancho & Lefty," one of my absolute favorite songs. Long story short, Lefty caps Pancho. He only did what he had to do.

I know Brandon Fahey really has no business in the Major Leagues, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't get kind of a happy feeling every time I see him in the field or on the bench, in his uniform that still looks too big for him and his NASCAR sunglasses. At the plate is a different story. I try not to focus on him batting. Brandon always looks so hopeful and happy in the field. "Here Comes the Sun" is for him.

Nick Markakis gets Dire Straits' "Walk of Life." Something about the song just makes me happy. I don't know what it is. It can turn a frown upside down. Make grey skies blue-ah. And oh yeah, the boy can play.

As hard as I tried, I couldn't think of anything too appropriate for Jeremy Guthrie, the staff ace. "Ace of Spades"? Too aggressive, doesn't fit his nature. Nelly's "Number One"? Too braggadocios. So he dedicates a song to Markakis.

Queen's "You're My Best Friend."

Guillermo Quiroz gets Wu-Tang Clan's "Wolves." That's just a good song. You think of a song for Guillermo Quiroz, genius.

Cracker's "Low" represents Adam Loewen, partly because that's part of his last name, and partly because that's where he should try to keep the damn ball, for the love of God. Cracker was a really good band lost in the shuffle thanks to bands like Seven Mary Three and Toadies. That has nothing to do with Adam Loewen.

I hate The Vines, but the manic and sloppy energy of "Outtathaway!" fits Dennis Sarfate's pitching style. He seems like a guy who would be uncomfortable to bat against with that mid-90s heat that comes in like a rocket, and the Vines are rather uncomfortable to listen to.

The skipper, Dave Trembley, gets his own tune, too. He's a native New Yorker. He's also an outsider in the managerial ranks, as he's the only manager in the bigs that never played pro ball. "Outsider" was a good Ramones song, but doesn't fit Diamond Dave's personality. Joey Ramone's cover of "What a Wonderful World" does, though -- Dave is genuinely optimistic all the time, always looking for the best thing to say. And he seems like he actually means it. He doesn't sugarcoat garbage like Perlozzo, Mazzilli and even Leo Mazzone used to. No stuff about "puttin' it all together" in a bullpen session. Just pure hope. He's just happy to be here, and doing his best.