Great move by Ozzie Newsome the other night to acquire cornerback Josh Wilson from Seattle. I don’t know how he managed to get a starting-caliber player at the team’s biggest position of need for basically a handshake and a smile, but he did. The man is a wizard.

One more piece of the puzzle heading into tonight’s (meaningless) final preseason game in St. Louis. From there it’s on to Week One and the march to…well, to where?

I think it’s safe to say most fans will answer “the Super Bowl,” and with good reason. This year’s Ravens appear a sure bet for the playoffs with enough talent to make a legitimate run. I don’t have any cold water to throw on that because I basically agree, but I do have a few items for consideration:

1. Joe Flacco The kid has looked great so far, no doubt about it. Any young quarterback who can win on the road in the playoffs has done something special. So don’t misunderstand me here: Flacco’s legit.

What I wonder, though, is how he’s going to respond to what I assume will be a heavier workload. He stands atop the best Ravens offense since the days of Michael “Thriller” Jackson and he’s probably going to have to win some games with his arm. “No problem,” you say? Probably not, but until he steps up to that level we don’t really know for sure.

2. The Defensive Secondary Things look a lot better with Wilson in the fold but this unit is still a weakness. There’s no telling what they’ll get out of Webb or Ed Reed this year and I’ve personally never been much of a Landry fan. Teams are going to score through the air unless the front seven can generate significant pressure.

3. Come To Think Of It, the Whole Defense Odd as it feels, the Ravens are no longer “defense first.” At least I don’t think so. Much remains to be seen but it wouldn’t surprise me if they fell from their usual perch in the top five to somewhere closer to 10-12. Plenty good enough to get the job done but strangely un-Ravenlike.

None of these are huge problems that can’t be overcome. They might not even be problems at all. But I think if issues do arise, there’s a good chance they arise in one of those three areas.

Thoughts on the upcoming season and your guesses for where the Ravens might have a weak spot?

At press time tonight, Brian Matusz has held the Red Sox to two runs through six innings, both of them coming on a homer. And amazingly, even though Josh “hemp necklace” Beckett has been their Darth Vader, the O’s have backed Matusz with three runs of their own.

Win or lose tonight, consider this: we’re about to experience meaningful September baseball for the first time in years.

Not the kind of “meaningful” we’d like, of course. No playoffs in sight. But the team is playing for next year in a way we haven’t seen before. In past Lost and/or losing seasons “next year” was always a mystery. When MacPhail hired Showalter at the beginning of August he essentially started 2011 two months early. 2010 ended with the Juan Samuel era and these games represent a head start on what we hope will be next year’s progress.

They’re not playing out the string because they ran out of string when Buck arrived. There’s no “we’ll get ‘em next year” because this is next year.

Kind of a strange circumstance but I have to say: I dig it.

So the Orioles — the disappointing, disheartening, discouraging bunch that began this season with epic futility and forced us to question our notions of progress — now stand at 16-10 since Buck Showalter took the reins. They just swept the Angels on the road, a feat made even more impressive by the fact that it also represented a season sweep. Six games against Anaheim, six wins.

26 games isn’t a large sample size by any means but it isn’t a small one, either. It’s roughly 15% of the season and that’s enough to notice. I could be wrong but I don’t believe (going off of memory) that they’ve had another 26-game stretch this year where they played six games above .500. These are good times, well-earned.

I’d love to think that they could keep up the pace but they probably won’t. Beating up on the Angels is only just what it is. Not the same as running through the AL East. The September schedule is fairly terrifying.

Still, good things have happened to make for a 16-10 run. Stepped-up starting pitching. Improved hustle all around. Many of the same guys who failed earlier are succeeding now. Josh Bell appears to have settled in, and Brian Matusz looks good. Jeremy Guthrie looks like he could next year be the guy we thought Kevin Millwood would be this year. Brian Roberts appears to be strong. Brad Bergesen seems solid. Etc.

I wonder what Buck and Andy see in all of it. The month just passed and the month to come are all about evaluation and figuring out which current players deserve a spot next year. How much weight do they — and we — give this run vs. the rest of the season, and how much weight do we give the final month in light of it all?

Things might be a lot easier if they’d just continued to lose in spite of Buck. That they’ve stepped up a bit speaks to the notion that they underachieved for 2/3 of the season. Which counts more?

Or, to put it another way, who are these guys?

(photo via)

Friday and Saturday against the Angels are the last of the late starts for this season. No more 10 pm (or 9 pm) first pitches. The unique pleasure (at least for me) of tuning in and drifting off to sleep while the middle innings play out will be gone until next year. Kind of a bummer.

Jim Johnson returns from the DL in place of Armando Gabino, who barely registered. Here’s hoping JJ rediscovers his form and cements himself as a building block for 2011.

Bergesen, Millwood, and Guthrie to carry us through the weekend. Here’s to some good baseball, some good times, and some (relatively) chilly nights.

Rough news out of Washington today as the Nationals announced that phenom Stephen Strasburg will probably need Tommy John surgery. That means roughly a year away from competitive pitching. That means the Nationals’ chances of significant improvement in 2011 just took a serious, possibly debilitating, hit.

I think all of us knew this was a possibility, back in a dark corner of our baseball-loving minds, the moment Strasburg grimaced in pain last Saturday in Philly. Sure, it could have been a strain. Sure, he might just need rest. But really…we kind of knew. Suspected at the least.

Nationals fan or not, this is a loss for baseball. It’s also, in the words of Joe Posnanski, “all too familiar.”. History is littered with pitchers who couldn’t manage to keep their health in check (Posnanski’s piece does an outstanding job telling the story). Our bodies aren’t made to do what these guys do.

A fact which highlights just how difficult the road ahead is for our beloved black & orange. The hard truth of baseball is that pitching prospects rarely turn out. A lot of them never do anything, many of them do less than expected. A small handful meet or exceed expectations. Injury is one of the big reasons but another is that playing baseball at the big league level is very hard. It takes a fairly special guy to do it at all, an exceptional guy to do it well.

We’ve got guys who, in theory, have what it takes. They’re at various stages of proving themselves and the results are, so far, mixed. I’d love to believe that, two years down the road, Bergesen, Matusz, Tillman, Arrieta, and Britton are all established major league starters. While we’re at it, David Hernandez is a dominant reliever.

But that’s not going to happen.

Someone’s going to get hurt. Someone’s not going to pan out. We’ll be lucky if one guy emerges as a true #1, happy if we get a solid bunch of 2s and 3s out of the deal.

Tempering expectations isn’t fun. I hate the idea that one of these kids will probably end up a total bust. But we have to keep such things in mind as fans. Just as we have to keep in mind that Andy MacPhail‘s deep focus on acquiring organizational pitching depth is now, always, and forever the right strategy.

For their part, the Ravens have already clinched a winning August. Nothing that happens on Saturday against the Giants (7:30 pm, M&T) can change that.

More surprising, and certainly more impressive, is the fact that the Orioles are within striking distance of a winning August of their own. All they have to do to get there is win three of their next six games.

Dan Connolly at the Sun ran the numbers and they’re something to see. Take a look and try to comprehend the scope. In the past 10 years the O’s are 218-352 in the final two months of the season. I knew it was bad but, honestly, didn’t know it was that bad.

Winning seasons are built in pieces. Win the game. Win the series. Play above .500 for the week, then the month, then the half-season. The O’s haven’t had much of any of that lately, so I’ll savor a winning month if it happens. September isn’t likely to turn out as well given the schedule.

It has me thinking about which of the current Orioles look like solid pieces who deserve to be around next year as the team seeks to end their 13-year stretch of futility. As feel-good as things are now, deep flaws remain and changes are certainly coming.

Based on the current 25-man roster, these are the guys I think come back without question. The obvious choices, if you will: Roberts, Wieters, Markakis, Jones among the position players and Matusz, Arrieta and Bergesen among the pitchers.

Scott and Guthrie figure to return, but they both could be potential trade chips. I’d be in favor of re-signing Wigginton, as well, but that’s not at all a sure thing.

That leaves potential holes at 1B, SS, 3B, LF (although Pie and Reimold could hold it down) and the pitching staff (including, potentially, three starters).

A lot of the bullpen guys will likely be back and maybe Josh Bell. Regardless, there are a lot of gaps. A frightening prospect made more so given that the 2011 free agent list isn’t exactly mind-blowing. Carl Crawford jumps off the page but after that it gets iffy.

What this says to me is that for the Orioles to improve substantially in 2011 they’ll need to make at least one big trade. Long-term, it remains the same old story about drafting and development. They’re better at it now than they were but they have a lot of work to do.

Hiring Buck Showalter was a huge step in the right direction and I feel a hell of a lot better today than I did at the end of July. I still, though, stand by my oft-repeated position that the upcoming offseason is the biggest one yet.

It figures to be a hell of a ride, no?

Last night my wife and I (that’ll never stop sounding odd) headed up to Red Brick Station for some dinner and drinks and conversation. I had a pint of their Daily Crisis IPA, as I always do, and also had their blueberry seasonal (which is surprisingly good). The Ravens-Redskins game was on and the bar was packed with people actively watching it, paying attention as if it made any difference at all. A strange circumstance that speaks to the strengthening hold the NFL has over American sports fandom.

Now today I’m sitting on the couch watching Roger Federer look as good as he has for quite some time in an impressive win against American Mardy Fish. It’s the final of a tournament called the Western & Southern Masters 2010. Held annually in Cincinnati, it’s a well-regarded final tuneup for the US Open in eight days.

And let’s not forget yesterday’s performance from the Orioles and in particular Josh Bell. So good to see that kid start to look comfortable. The W was nice, too. The winning record under Buck persists and, with it, the chance to avoid a patented Epic Late-Season Collapse.

Preseason football. The US Open (the real one, not the golf one). Talk of an Orioles collapse. All of it means that summer really is ending and fall will be here in no time at all.

As you may know, I’ve got a thing for fall. I love the colors, the sounds, the smells. I love the stirring of lost souls and the way water looks different in nature. I love the “wear a sweater but you don’t yet need a coat” temperatures and, this year, I’m planning to love chopping wood and sitting around a fire pit with a bourbon or a beer (or both).

All of this and yet Kevin Millwood still gives up early runs. Not all things change.

It’s true what I said about these Orioles losses feeling different now than they did earlier this season. All the good things we’ve had to say about the team’s renewed attitude/energy/sense of purpose so far in the Buck Showalter era? Also true.

Most of us, however, were careful to remind ourselves (and others) that the losses would return in due time. And now they have. After going 8-1 to start the Showalter era the Birds have since lost five of seven. They won their first three series but lost their next two. They are now, in terms of overall record, returning to normal.

No matter. Any winning Showalter has done or will do in 2010 is a bonus and I stand by my assertion that the renewed sense of purpose is a huge and important development. The only thing I’m really watching for from here until the end of the season is whether or not that attitude stays in place. If it does that will likely mean the avoidance of an epic late-season collapse.

What happens if they once again become unmoored and an epic collapse still goes down, even with Buck in the dugout?

Other than it perhaps hastening the departure of a player or two, not much. This is still largely the same team that sputtered so heinously out of the gates. I believe Buck has made them better and will continue to do so, but nobody can make them something they aren’t.

I’ve also been thinking on that age-old late-season ponderable, the potential identity of the Most Valuable Oriole. I have a few ideas in mind but I wonder what everyone is thinking. Seems like a hell of a year to try to figure something like that out.

Finally, the Rangers are in town tonight. Remember them? We swept them on the road. This year. With Juan Samuel as manager.