The Loss Column — Baltimore Sports Blog and Community

Or at least that’s what we have to keep telling ourselves.

But here’s something to consider: while the ups and downs have been painful, the team is (as Dan the Man pointed out) still just one game out of .500. I would have taken that at the beginning of the season. Still…two out of three from the Tigers wouldn’t hurt.

The matchups are as follows:

Cabrera vs. Jeremy Bonderman tonight
Loewen vs. Chad Durbin tomorrow
Trachsel vs. Nate Robertson on Wednesday (1:05 pm start)

Time to take a much-needed break from the woes of the O’s and actually address the biggest sports news of the weekend: the NFL Draft.

You can get plenty of draft analysis from every newspaper and sports website in the country, so I’ll leave the obvious stuff to the “experts.” I’m more interested in ranking by the intangibles, the things that don’t show up in a box score. More often than not that’s how you really know.

So here’s a completely fresh take on the hometown division — who did what, how they did, and why it either rules or doesn’t.

In order from best to worst:

1. Cleveland Browns
Taking a lineman in the first round is a boring move. Big fat guys, and especially big fat white guys, just don’t often excite. Sensing this, Phil Savage and company made it go down a little easier by selecting a lineman who eschewed New York pageantry in favor of a fishing trip, ESPN cameras in tow. Nice.

Then they traded up late in the first round to get Brady Quinn, who is going to be a beast in this league. How do I know that? He’s (a) handsome, (b) played at Notre Dame (which is due to place another star quarterback in the league), and (c) has “Brady” in his name. The Browns not only win, they win big.

2. Pittsburgh Steelers
There’s a huge dropoff after the Browns, and so really in a sense the other teams all tied for fourth. But if one team stands out among them, it’s the Steelers. Why? Because they traded up in the fourth round to draft a punter. A left-footed punter. And a punter with a bit of a streak, too. Even though the Steelers still have veteran Chris Gardocki on the roster, this is what the kid had to say about whether or not he’d be starting in year one:

“I think the fourth round sends a pretty strong message. I also recognize that if you don’t get the job done, you won’t be the guy.”

They also got a fellow named Ryan McBean, and in doing so removed all doubt that the number two spot is theirs.

3. Baltimore Ravens
For the most part, the Ravens did what the Ravens do: bored the shit out of their fans and everybody else with a bunch of boring picks, half of whom will eventually end up being productive NFL players. But there was a bit of intrigue.

Having tried and failed to pull off a trade for the chance to draft Quinn, they made the single most head-scratching move of the draft: Troy Smith in the fifth round.

Smith is a marginal NFL prospect at best, a guy whose only chance at success would be to go to a team and a system with a history of great quarterback development. Instead he ends up with the Ravens, an organization that goes out of their way to crush the soul of every young quarterback they can find. In other words, a Worst Case Scenario.

The only winner here is Drew Olson. He’s surely going to be the odd man out, which means that he’ll be leaving Baltimore before Billick’s reverse Midas touch can permanently take hold.

4. Cincinnatti Bengals
I actually had to go to the Cincinnatti Enquirer to confirm that the Bengals did, in fact, participate in this year’s draft. Not only did they participate, they completely let us down. Out of a college class surely teeming with questionable characters the Bengals went and got Leon Hall, a guy who by all accounts is a fine citizen. Frankly I expected better.

They did end up with a guy named Chinedum Ndukwe in the seventh round, but that’s not enough to salvage an otherwise underwhelming performance.

Given that draft classes tend to only make sense two or three years down the road, look for the above rankings to also be the finishing order for the 2009 season. And remember you heard it here first.

My two out of three prediction might yet come true if the Orioles can manage to overcome Fausto the Great. A tall order, to be sure, but I’ve got my fingers crossed.

Epic weirdness aside, everything that had been going wrong went right again last night. The 20-game sprint is off to a good start.

Some draft thoughts and whatnot to come later — it’s really not all baseball, all the time.

While we’re at it, say a prayer (or do whatever you do) for the Cardinals, who lost pitcher Josh Hancock today. Sad stuff.

For the past two months or so I’ve been cultivating a station over at Pandora called Loss Column Reddio. Here’s the link:

Loss Column Reddio

For those of you who don’t know, Pandora is a kind of custom internet radio station. You set up an account, tell it what you like, and then it plays songs with similar characteristics. I need to point out in no uncertain terms that not everything on this station accurately reflects what I like — I’ve heard some things that were straight out of what-the-fuck territory. But for the most part I’ve pruned it into something decent.

Maybe some music will help salve the Orioles wounds. Can’t hurt.

It’s time to take a good, hard look. Tonight’s loss at Jacobs Field was classic Orioles: adequate starting pitching, bullpen foibles, an offense that can’t quite get it done, and lots of walks (eight, to be exact).

I trust I’m not alone in thinking it would have been better to just get blown out?

Here’s one take: good teams don’t lose five in a row.

Here’s another: the Yankees lost to the Red Sox tonight, marking their seventh loss in a row. Make of it what you will.

Regardless, this is the thing: the O’s don’t yet know how to handle success. You can pin it on the walks, the lack of clutch hitting, and probably five or ten other factors, but winning itself is the underlying issue. They got on a major high with that home sweep of Toronto and just couldn’t maintain the momentum.

That’s not the mark of a bad team, necessarily. It’s more the mark of a team in transition. Success creates its own kind of pressure, no less intense than that created by losing. This team clearly can’t handle it. Essentially, they can’t see the big picture.

Whenever a team finds itself in that position (as, for example, the Steelers did last year) the solution is to go back to basics. It’s to take extra infield and BP. It’s for pitchers to spend a few extra minutes in their side sessions working on things like repeating their arm angle and throwing the fastball down and away. It’s to calm down and remember what you were doing right, then work to do the small things that will bring it back.

This all falls on the shoulders of Sam Perlozzo. 23 games in is no longer exactly “early”. This team is facing a pretty big tipping point, and at times like that it’s the manager’s job to cut the bullshit and put his team back on the right track.

The next 20 games are the season. It doesn’t matter who they’re playing or where, because by the time you hit the 40-45 game mark you can’t be in a hole.

So forget tonight’s game and the four losses that came before it. The season for the O’s is now a 20 game sprint. And if they finish that sprint more than a game or two below .500 then the season is lost and it’s time to reconsider Sam Perlozzo’s capacity for leadership.

Here’s an interesting tidbit: despite Chris Ray’s apparent love of the grand slam, O’s pitchers have still allowed the second fewest home runs in the league so far (13). Last year they allowed the second most.

They’re also currently tied with the Twins for most strikeouts in the league at 165…but have given up the most walks at 97. And in that you can pretty much see why they’re only .500.

Oh, and overall the Orioles have played terribly at Jacobs Field, losing 22 of their past 27 there.

With all that said, here’s who they’re facing in this series: Jake Westbrook, Jeremy Sowers, and some dude named Fausto Carmona. I’m fairly confident we can take two of three.

It’s a new day, friends.

Thanks to everybody who’s been chiming in with comments lately — things are coming along swimmingly. August 11th is going to kick seven different kinds of ass.

Here’s a thread for tonight’s Loewen — Beckett matchup. God damn do they need to win this game.

click here