Camden Chat

Today in Orioles history!

Baltimo — Sun, 11 May 2008 22:03:37 -0000

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!

Chris Britton - all aboard the Scranton Shuttle

sluggo 2.0 — Sat, 10 May 2008 16:34:10 -0000

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.

minor leagues

joet — Sat, 10 May 2008 04:52:51 -0000

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.

I'm Just sayin'

BENNY BIRDMAN — Sat, 10 May 2008 04:46:55 -0000

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"?

On Trax Keeping His Job

pipkin — Fri, 09 May 2008 18:10:53 -0000

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.

Offensive Offenses

yurizanow — Thu, 08 May 2008 21:28:11 -0000

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.

What would Cabrera bring in July?

drj — Thu, 08 May 2008 20:53:34 -0000

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?

Little Fires Burn

PWubbs — Thu, 08 May 2008 17:16:57 -0000

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.

Diamond Dave does NOT get it...

KenDixonFanClub — Thu, 08 May 2008 02:52:18 -0000

...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.

Earl Weaver on the Orioles

dkdc — Thu, 08 May 2008 02:51:48 -0000

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.

Where should I watch the O's in NYC?

joet — Wed, 07 May 2008 23:07:30 -0000

I'll be in NYC tomorrow night (Thursday) for business and I want to find a place to watch the game. I'm staying at the Empire Hotel - 44 West 63rd St. so I'd like to find something sort of close. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

And apparently this post isn't long enough so I'd also like to point out that Millar, Mora, Ramon, and Luis are a disgrace. I like our pitching staff though.

on the farm, briefly...

j.q. higgins — Mon, 05 May 2008 13:00:51 -0000

the travails of nolan reimold (aka streaky mcstreakerson) have been well-documented in these pages the last few weeks, so i have to admit, i was surprised when i took a gander at his bowie stats. dude's been on a tear. he's brought his numbers up to .266/.349/.440 and hit 3 doubles and 2 triples in the last week.

fwiw, wieters, who'd gone a little cold, rallied over the weekend with two 3 hit efforts sandwiching a 1 hit game.

Angels 6, O's 5: Trachsel

PWubbs — Sun, 04 May 2008 23:23:22 -0000

If he is not DFA'd and replaced in the rotation by someone more deserving (Albers, Johnson, Liz), then I refuse to watch any game he's pitching in. I already know the outcome because the Orioles are going to lose. Everytime he runs out onto the field it is an embarassment to this franchise. He did a great job for us last year, but he isn't even able to be traded pitching like this. Also, he is not worth any kind of bullpen spot because what good is a long reliever that would just get hammered and not eat innings. Trachsel's sole job on this team is to eat innings and not put so much strain on the bullpen. Instead, 3 of his last 4 starts have yet to go for more than 3 innings. He has allowed 20 runs in 21 innings since his first start. He only has 21 innings since his first start! On top of that, he's allowed an exhuberant amount of hits and walked nearly a batter an inning.

Get this embarassment off my team MacPhail before the fans and I take it upon ourselves to end his season.

[Note by SC, 05/05/08 6:07 AM EDT ]: PWubbs is granted Official Recapper Status for today because he's absolutely correct. And by the way, during the Community Projection for this season, I said, "Every possible sign there points to this being a final, disastrous season in the sun for the 37-year old crafty righty." This is similar to how I compare Sammy Sosa to Mickey Mantle in same-age seasons when Sosa came to Baltimore. Mantle retired the season after the two I compared, and Sosa was then out of baseball after his Oriole experience. I'm like the harbinger of death over here.

Amazing story!

Y Not — Sat, 03 May 2008 12:52:44 -0000

HOUSTON (AP)—When Miguel Tejada met 8-year-old Jacob Scott on Friday, he was so touched by the little boy with muscular dystrophy he promised him a home run.

And he actually delivered ... I have no lost feelings over Tejada, but that is a hell of an accomplishment.

I wonder if it will receive a lot of press. ESPN casually brought it up this morning.

Or is calling a home run only special if done by a member of the most storied franchise in the history of the world?

Kiss Cam is NOT Birdland

33 — Fri, 02 May 2008 20:11:43 -0000

Before I start complaining, let me admit my own bit of the problem. I'm slipping on attendance. 04 & 05 I started the season with Spring Training visits. 06 I didn't get out until the Nats/O's exhibition two days before Opening Day, and I felt late. Then last year, I didn't get to the park until 3rd week of April. This year, I didn't make it until yesterday -- IN MAY. Birdland won't be it's true self until all the folks who feel hardcore inside are outside -- taking the air in the stands at OPACY.

That said, I was admiring the new scoreboards yesterday. You can, like, read what they say -- even in daylight at a bad angle (looking up from Eutaw Street Reserves). A big step forward, I think and then ... Kiss Cam. I can't believe I'm actually watching this nonsense at my home park. Let 'em do that crap in DC, I've believed in years past, but not HERE. At first I'm encouraged by the lack of response. We want sports trivia between innings, or least cartoon hot dogs running the bases -- something remotely baseball. Right? Then, some fools actually smooch. The cheer is louder than when Adam Jones' shot cleared the left field wall. Ugh. That cheer is real crowd noise too.

I know pumped in crowd noise has been around since the 90s, but the park management needs to do something about it now. Blended into real crowd noise, you don't notice so much. In the quiet, empty place right now, the sudden bursts of shrill screaming are just plain disconcerting. So obvious. So WEAK. It's enough to inspire your offense to only get three hits. Create excitement on the field, don't try to manufacture it in the PA. Do laugh tracks make bland sitcoms funny? C'mon.

In good news, the Orioles Hall of Fade is again a Hall of Fame -- brand new plaques behind the scoreboard. You can actually read Al Bumbry's inscription again. That's the deal. That's Birdland. Honor the tradition and do the hard, smart organizational work to recreate it between the lines. Whoever in the Warehouse approves tarting up Birdland with the other stuff can kiss somethin' you can't show on the Jumbotron.

lance cormier, come on down...

j.q. higgins — Fri, 02 May 2008 19:52:43 -0000

randor to the dl, cormier to the show, the offense into the shitter.

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/sports/roch/blog/2008/05/roster_move_15.html

i mean, did alex cintron piss in andy macphail's cornflakes? the bench situation is intolerable. no on here is a fan of luis, eider torres has quickly distinguished himself as a nonfactor and overall offensive production has tanked. what on earth does it take? jesus...even the quas-annual resurrection of luis terrero would be a welcome change.

The "Orioles drop below .500" pool

zknower — Fri, 02 May 2008 14:51:12 -0000

Below .500. So .500 isn't it. It's the game whose loss puts their record at one game under.

I call May 8 at Kansas City.

Your FanPost must be at least 75 words long. Right now it's only 27 words long. Your FanPost must be at least 75 words long. Right now it's only 27 words long. Your FanPost must be at least 75 words long. Right now it's only 27 words long

OT: Field of Dreams

SC — Fri, 02 May 2008 09:19:33 -0000

A while back we had a thread about worst baseball movie, which if I recall was won by the one and only dreadful disgrace to Nick Hornby, baseball, the Boston Red Sox, their dramatic World Series victory, Arsenal, soccer ("foot ball"), and perhaps even life itself, Fever Pitch. It certainly made Americans look stupid, I know that.

Anyway, someone brought up Field of Dreams as being a piece of crap and I agreed but noted I hadn't seen it in years. zknower of Sopranos fame recommended I watch it again, since I was 16 and probably a pissy douche of a teenager (Rudy has made me well up a little every time I've ever watched it, but FoD just never worked for me), and I figured that was fairly probable since 16-year olds don't know f-all about nothin'.

It is onDemand with Encore right now and I had time to kill on Tuesday (or was it Wednesday?), so I watched it.

Ten things I think about Field of Dreams:

Ray Liotta's Shoeless Joe was a little... well. Come on.
Kevin Costner's character is a fucking crazy person.
The wife is an annoying hippy idiot. Could that school meeting thing have been more overacted?
James Earl Jones is really cool, though that "Base Ball, Ray!" speech is a little... well. Come on.
Timothy Busfield is a better first baseman for the Twins than he is a brother-in-law who's making every bit of sense in the world while lunatic Costner rambles on about corn field baseball players.
At no point do I truly CARE what's happening.
I liked the opening bit.
The ending is a minor tear-jerker, I admit.
I liked it more than I did when I was 16, but I still probably wouldn't put it among my ten favorite baseball movies.
Talk about fantasy baseball!

You know what else I watched? A League of their Own. Has not aged well.

Thanks for a great month, O's!

Stacey — Thu, 01 May 2008 20:59:18 -0000

I fear that when the Orioles return to Camden Yards on May 13th, they'll look like a different team. Maybe I'm feeling an impending sense of doom from today's ugly loss, but more likely I'm just facing reality. With 7 games against the two teams at the top of the AL West (even if one of them is Oakland, who was supposed to suck this year) and 4 games against what I think is an exciting Kansas City team, the Orioles should consider themselves lucky to return to Baltimore with a .500 record.

I know none of us expected the Orioles to play to their current record and position in the standings before the season started. And I know none of us think they're going to keep it up throughout the year. But it was hard not to get excited watching the O's play this month, no matter what common sense tells us.

That being said, my gut is telling me that this is where it ends. This is the point in the season where the Orioles show us who they are. And that's not a bad thing. We came into this season knowing it was a wash. Knowing that calling the year a success depends more on the development of Adam Jones and other young players, not on the win-loss record. If the team can spend the rest of the season giving encouraging signs in that department while still managing to win a few games, that's as much as I can ask for.

Still, it was a fun month, wasn't it? Those few weeks when Luke Scott was a doubles machine? Having the most awesome bullpen in baseball? Winning 6 out of 7 from the Mariners, and having Erik Bedard wimp out on facing his old teammates? Taking 2 out of 3 from the Yankees? Daniel Cabrera being sort of awesome?

I think no matter what happens from here on out, I'll be happy if the boys keep playing their hearts out and if Adam Jones and our young pitchers give us reason to believe in the future. The rest is up to Andy MacPhail to make sure we keep going down our current path to respectability.

TEX to Trade/Release Botts

BPinOK — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 14:47:07 -0000

Jason Botts has asked for his trade or release from the Texas Rangers. I have to admit, I have a small man crush on him. I think, given a fair shake to hit, he could put up some decent numbers. He's 27 and the Rangers have called him up and sent him down 4 different times. Sign him up and let him hit DH for this club!!! It's not like it would be a stretch for the Rangers to actually miss on someone.