The Saturday night Orioles game thread: at Rays, 6:10

The phrase that comes to mind for today's Orioles lineup is, "Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic." Maybe at least there will be some string players willing to stick around and play until the ship goes down. I mean, really. David Lough is batting leadoff? Chris Davis is ahead of Manny Machado just because?

We know it's a struggle for the Orioles lineup right now. We don't really know why. I mean, we do for some of it. J.J. Hardy aged a decade in the offseason. Matt Wieters never was the player we dreamed he might be, but now he's not even looking like the player we'd mostly settled on accepting. Ryan Flaherty is playing first base. Travis Snider is... whatever, I don't even know about that guy. The Orioles corner outfield situation has been a continual failure throughout the season and they haven't found the answer yet.

That's a lot of spots in the lineup occupied by players who have mostly sucked this year, and barring some unexpected change, may continue to perform in a disappointing way. What can you do about that? Probably not a heck of a lot, if you're the manager, and if you're the GM, well... do you really buy for THIS team? Is one real outfielder who is capable of hitting well the solution to everything that ails them? Maybe it is, but it's gonna cost ya.

If they lose again, the answer will be that much more clear. If they win, well, it's going to be that much of a tougher choice to make. They're about to enter a stretch of playing some bad teams. Maybe that's what they need to turn it around? Maybe it is, but it's getting harder to believe it with each passing loss in this critical stretch of the season.The