For the second time this season, Aubrey Huff won the AL Player of the week of 25-31 August. Here are his great numbers:

The Orioles' designated hitter batted .478 (11-for-23) with four doubles, two home runs and seven RBIs from Aug. 25-31. Huff also posted a .913 slugging percentage along with a .480 on-base percentage.

The crazy revived but now injured Melvin Mora was named AL Player of the Month for August. Here are his numbers:

In 24 games last month, Mora batted .418 (41-for-98) with eight home runs and a Major League-high 32 RBI. The 36-year-old infielder posted a .765 slugging percentage and a .455 on-base percentage. The Venezuela native collected 17 extra-base hits, including eight doubles. Mora notched 13 multi-hit games in August and assembled an eight-game hitting streak from August 1st-10th. The two-time A.L. All-Star enjoyed a career day on August 17th at Detroit, going 5-for-6 with two doubles, two home runs, four runs scored and six RBI as part of Baltimore's 16-8 win. Overall, Mora had five games in August in which he collected four-or-more RBI. On the season, Mora is batting .283 with 74 runs, 27 doubles, 23 home runs and 97 RBI.

Given the production of these two and the general competence of the O's offense this season (especially the second half), it's especially disheartening to see the pitching fall apart so disgustingly. Nobody had this team pegged as contenders, but with a few more decent arms they could have shocked us.

Huff nabs Player of the Week

Mora named AL Player of the Month

Hey did you guys know there is a game going on right now? I didn't. But it is! And the O's are winning 1-0, and Lance Cormier is starting. Super!

No time for fancy stuff since I'm at work, but if you want to comment on the game, go to town!

Go O's!

	Starting Pitchers	GS	IP	ERA	WHIP	BAA	HR	BB	K	W-L
	Radhames Liz - RH	12	57.0	6.95	1.79	.288	15	38	40	5-3
	Jon Lester - LH	28	176.2	3.41	1.30	.262	13	53	124	12-5

Rad Liz hasn't been so bad since being recalled. Not great, of course. He throws too many balls and can't get far enough in the game as a result. Hopefully the O's can get to Lester and we can try and beat this Red Sox team for once. It'd be nice to help out the Rays, White Sox, and Twins anyway (not that the White Sox and Twins have been doing much to help themselves).

Ah, the sweet smell of September baseball.

Go O's!

	Today's Starting Pitchers	GS	IP	ERA	WHIP	BAA	HR	BB	K	W-L
	James Shields - RH	27	177.2	3.75	1.17	.257	20	33	139	11-8
	Brian Burres - LH	20	112	5.79	1.66	.315	17	40	54	7-8

For the third straight series, the O's go into game three looking to avoid the sweep. Words cannot begin to express how tired I am of seeing Brian Burres. It's nothing against Brian personally, he's just a symbol of our stupid effed up team.  So, uh, go O's!

Have either of you evacuated or will be evacuating? Keep us updated on your whereabouts after Gustav hits, please! I'll be thinking about you.

(this also applies to any other Camden Chatters in New Orleans/hurricane country that I don't know about!)

O's try to avoid their second straight sweep.

Rad Liz vs. John Danks. Go O's!

Gavin Floyd has proven very effective this year. Brian Burres has not. Play ball!

I was perusing the the Orioles promotion schedule for the rest of the year and discovered a few cool things. In case you haven't already determined this about me, I'm a sucker for a good promotion. The O's don't have the best ones in the MLB, but I think they're doing a pretty good job this year. Cool upcoming promotions:

Tonight: Orioles Webkinz night. If school hadn't started yesterday, I would be at this game with both of my nieces. They love the Webkinz, and it's so cute with its little Orioles bandana! I suppose maybe they waited for school to start to run this promotion to try and get the kids to the park even after school starts, but that's pretty lame. No way are a lot of kids going to be out late on a school night the first week of school. But isn't he cute?

Saturday, September 6th:  Ravens Rally. This is pretty cool and as far as I'm aware unprecedented by the O's since the Ravens came to town and stole a lot of their thunder. From the O's website:

The orange and black of Birdland will soon welcome in some purple as the Orioles host a special Ravens Rally before the team's 7:05 game vs. the A's at Oriole Park. Get to Camden Yards early to celebrate with the Ravens cheerleaders, mascots and band. Celebrate both of your favorite Baltimore Birds, and help the Orioles wish their neighbors good luck this season.

Raven's PSL holders get $7 off any regularly priced ticket and those in both O's and Raven's gear get $5 off. First 15,000 fans get this cool t-shirt:

Tuesday, September 9th: Final T-Shirt Tuesday of the year featuring Brian Roberts. I guess the promotions people finally figured it was safe to give something away about Brian as he's obviously not getting traded. Before they announced the player for the final t-shirt night my sister and I were talking about it and we figured it'd be Guthrie. To be honest, I would have liked Huff as well. But you certainly can't go wrong with a good old fashioned Brian Roberts giveaway.

Then of course there is fan appreciation weekend the last weekend of the season. I haven't heard anything about the festivities though they're usually decent. Two years ago we went and met Chris Ray, Brandon Fahey, and Nick Markakis and got my nieces picture with each of them. She wanted Brian Roberts but he and Miggi were so swamped we couldn't get near them. Maybe we'll go back this year and try and find Luke Scott and Adam Jones.