Holy crap. Who could have seen this coming? Who could have possibly thought that Jaret Wright would get hurt?
Does anyone want to revisit their positive thoughts on the Wright-for-Britton deal now? I hated getting Wright the second it happened and I haven't stopped. He's a fragile and flat-out bad pitcher. There was no reason to make that deal when we could have gotten Byung-Hyun Kim instead.
And guess what? The Kim rumors are back. The deal would probably involve Todd Williams since the Orioles think $2.5 million is an outrageous salary.
Kim is no prize, but he's as good as Jaret Wright. And he would not have cost us a 24-year old reliever that was successful last season and has a very low salary. Of course, Kim never worked with Leo Mazzone, whose influence on pitching acquisitions is now a big fat 0-for-3, and 0-for-4 if you count Kris Benson, which may or may not have been a Mazzone-tinted pickup.
Jim Brower: 12 1/3 IP, 13.86 ERA
Russ Ortiz: 40 1/3 IP, 8.48 ERA
Jaret Wright: 7 1/3 IP, 6.14 ERA
Kris Benson: 183 IP, 4.82 ERA, re-signed, out for season
If you think Jaret Wright is going to come back and be effective for this team with his "only hurts when he throws, haw haw" shoulder problem, you're nuts.
I assume Jeremy Guthrie will start on Sunday and take Wright's spot in the rotation for now. I'm not crazy about it since he's 28 years old, still qualifies as a rookie, and has never pitched well for any amount of time, but he does beat Kurt Birkins, who has as much business facing right-handed major league batters as any of us do. I hope for the best with Guthrie, I really do. But I'd almost rather they just get Kim, who will at least "eat innings," or whatever positive spin you put on a guy like Kim. I love The Todd, but paying him $775,000 to pitch in Norfolk is a waste of time. Then again, Scott Williamson is about due to be out for the season. Then again, we're already carrying 13 pitchers, which remains the stupidest freaking thing I can think of with this team.
Perlozzo and Mazzone are out of control. They're turning into an on-the-field version of Syd Thrift, where apparently Angelos trusts their judgment so much that he doesn't realize what's happening to his franchise.
Someone stop this madness. Jesus, what is Davey Johnson's cell number? What's Ray Miller's? Can Trebelhorn manage for a while? At least it keeps his arm off the field. Maybe Juan Samuel is ready to manage. Maybe Rick Dempsey doesn't like the booth. Maybe we might as well just pull a Tigers, blow this team up, and put popular ex-players from when this team was good in charge of everything, then wait for some of the young players to start blossoming, fire everyone, and hire Jack McKeon or Big Dust or somebody.
I'M LOSIN' IT.