Bynum Back, Liz on the Bump
As expected, Alex Cintron and his strained hamstring are headed to the DL. In their place we’ll get Freddie Bynum, who doesn’t feel like that much of a step down. It’s true that he can’t hit, but it’s not like Cintron was ever the answer in that department either.
What interests me most is: who becomes the starter? At this point it seems like a tossup between Freddie and Fahey. Which is sad…but fun.
Tonight it’s game two against the Royals, as Rad Hams leads the charge against Luke Hochevar. It’s George Sherrill t-shirt night, too.
Did you realize that last night’s loss was the first one we’ve had this year when leading after eight innings? That makes me feel a little bit better…assuming it doesn’t become a trend.
Also! It’s Tuesday which means I’ll be on with the Fighting Ungers on WNST 1570 AM. Unfortunately — and I know you’ll find this hard to believe — the internet stream appears to still be busted. Please give us a listen if you can, though.
I finally got around to actually looking at what the farm system holds in terms of shortstop and let me tell you: the cupboard is bare. There’s really not anybody down there that I’d consider truly legit.
Remember Blake Davis from spring training? He’s probably got potential but at the moment he’s hitting .245 at Bowie and has committed 15 errors. He’s a project, for sure.
The closest thing we have to a prospect is all the way down in Aberdeen and he goes by the name Jedidiah Stephen. He’s raw, for sure, but he’s an Ohio State product with a nice set of skills. At least that’s what I’ve gathered from the little I can find about him.
Plus his name’s “Jedidiah” which means I’m a fan.
So you know what the answer is, don’t you? Don’t we all? Nobody wants to hear it, but we all know what it is.
You have to try and put together a package to get someone else’s highly touted shortstop. I’m not a writer for MLBTradeRumors, so I can’t tell you where the good SS prospects are (except I like Hu in LA, Lowrie in Boston, and Triunfel – remember him? – in Seattle), but we have enough guys who could be dealt for some restocking purposes, and we know it. Roberts, Huff, Bradford, Sherrill, Luke Scott. Yeah, and there’s a bunch of pitchers we could try some pitching depth for some positional depth (I’d only consider Arrieta, Guthrie, Tillman, Matusz, Johnson, and perhaps Liz and Erbe off limits). Yeah, I know that that sucks and all, I love Luke Scott, too…but those guys are not young guys, and you gotta sell high. Scott would get the most, since he’s entering his prime and is under control for a while yet…seriously though, we need a positional prospect, because we have two: Wieters and Reimold (and he’s no 16 pounder)
It’s too bad Costanzo hasn’t panned out yet. He’s not even close to matching his AAA HR totals from last year. Still… power is power and it wasn’t a bad thing to grab the guy.
Yeah AooR I was thinking the same thing, that at least the past 2 games have re-grounded us in the reality that we have a great opportunity to sell high right now, because “team chemistry” can only take you so far.
Yeah I remember about Triunfel in Seattle, is he like 16 or 18 y.o. yet? But the Os have pretty much burned that bridge with they hoisted Bavasi & Co. on the Bedard Petard. I highly doubt them and Houston will ever deal with AndyMac again.
What does everyone think about Khalil Greene in San Diego? His offensive numbers are decent, which says a lot considering how gargantuan Petco Park is.
Khalil Green would be almost ideal. Just a solid, young player. There were talks of San Diego wanting to deal him this past offseason, so maybe it’s feasible. You would have to believe that MacPhail wouldn’t want to settle on Felipe Lopez. Then again, it takes two teams to trade.
He’s on a 2 year, $11 million contract right now after a big 27 home run year. His average stinks right now at .230, but we would love those 8 homers and 30 RBIs. Yes indeedy. Good defense, too.
But who needs him… Fahey just doubled down the third base line to drive in Jones from first. 2-1 O’s. RBI #3 for Brandon… lol
Via AP: “The players’ association filed a grievance Tuesday over the release of pitcher Shawn Chacon, saying the team’s decision to terminate his contract was without just cause.”
Seriously? This is whats wrong with baseball. This is why mega million dollar ballplayers like Manny Ramirez feel like its okay to attack their bosses. Goddamnit. If the MLBPA ran the world, we’d still be watching steroided, hopped up on cocaine supermen who could beat up fans anytime they felt like it and be cheered for it. What a sickening display of unprofessionalism, when physically throwing your boss to the ground AND being bad at your job isn’t just cause.
What the fuck, baseball?
So this has been a nice bounceback, pending the ninth of course. Liz absolutely needed to go six and he did — which was far from a sure thing.
Sarfate…struggling.
He’s struggling…sort of. He struggled yesterday, ridiculously, but the guys he got out he looked awesome on. Hittable, even.
FlatBrim time?
Um…unhittable, not hittable.
The strikeout on the breaking ball is just….note perfect.
Great win all around. Splitting this series would, I think, right the ship for the most part as long as the pitching stabilizes a bit (minimum six innings in the next two games).
So Sherrill was in when the game was 7-3? Weird. Not great that he coughed up two runs, but at least the bullpen got the lead to him in tact.
This was an absolute must win for the club. They’re going to be fine if the bullpen can keep it’s head above water. Liz is doing fine for his first real look at the bigs. He and Olson need to start going longer but they’re getting the job done and that’s encouraging.
Ramon didn’t miss his bases loaded opp. this time.
Loewen!
Oh wait, ok, those two runs were Sarfate’s.
I don’t think Houston regrets their trade side of the trade at all.
Scott was a fourth OFer for them, but we need one that was better than Payton.
Patton was hurt and we all knew it before the trade.
Albers was a decent pitcher, but now also has a labrum tear.
Costanzo never played a game for Houston, so that doesn’t matter to them.
Sarfate had and still has control problems.
Miguel is still a .300 hitting, 20+ HR power shortstop with okay defense and range. He’s exactly what he is now what he was with us, but two years older.
They got what they wanted and nothing less, and they gave us a their injured, their unwanted, their projects.
I think the O’s can very easily take the next 2 games and ride high going into the Texas series (which could be like hitting a brick wall at high speed…Texas is playing some very good baseball against the Yankees as we speak). We really kill the Royals, and should be thinking about a series win anyway, if not for one bad pitch. I don’t think KC gets so lucky in the next 2 days.
There’s a strange kind of poetry in your descriptions, Greg. Nice.
I also tend to agree about the Houston trade. Both teams seem to be OK for it, even if Houston probably expected to be better than 40-44 at this point. The real fleecing was the Bedard deal. You can rest certain that Seattle would rather have Sherrill, Tillman, and Jones right now (to say nothing of Mickolio and Butler) instead of Erik.
For fun, here’s a trip down (recent) memory lane:
“That’s the big thing. With Baltimore, it seemed like we were always going backward,” said Bedard, who had a team-record 221 strikeouts and allowed a league-low 6.97 hits per nine innings last season.
“When I first got there it was fun, because we were signing a lot of guys and were looking forward to competing with Boston and New York. It all went downhill from there,” he said.
Yes…and then again, from there.
The Astro’s problem is strictly on the mound it seems. Their lineup doesn’t have many holes; Lee mashes, Pence is like Adam Jones but further along, Berkman is destroying, Tejada is hitting well, Kaz was just short of an AS berth. You could argue that Michael Bourne is like Corey Patterson and their catching situation is worse than ours, Ty Wigginton might leave a lot to be desired… but at the end of the day… they are a solid rotation away from being contenders. I think only Luke Scott may have helped them at CF.
My question of the day:
Juan Uribe, Felipe Lopez, or in-house solution at SS?
***
Greg – i can dig your assessment of the trade and it certainly made me rethink my personal opinions, but I totally disagree here:
“They got what they wanted and nothing less, and they gave us a their injured, their unwanted, their projects.”
Miguel Tejada has helped them to achieve a mark of 40-44, ten games back and 8.5 out of the wildcard.
Unless they wanted to be dead in the water by July 1st, they didn’t get what they wanted.
Albers, Patton (even with injuries) and Constanzo are a boatload of potential.
Miguel Tejada is what he is. The Stros are lucky he’s still riding out his plateau one more season. He sure as hell isn’t going to improve his numbers.
They are VERY lucky that his “resurgance” was maintaining his career averages.
Right now I’ll call it a wash. Next year I believe the scales will tip in our favor. Miguel has been aging 2-3 years per year recently.
It’s really hard to say. A change of scenery will do wonders for any player. Tejada has to be relieved to be on a team filled with players that are as good at their positions as he is at his. He was surrounded by mediocrity here in Baltimore.
Who knows, maybe Felipe Lopez could be rejuvenanted by getting daily starts at SS in Baltimore, instead of backing up Christian Guzman.
Maybe he will find his stroke simply in the fact that the Nationals are a pretty awful organization, even when compared to the Orioles.
Maybe he will actually feel the pressure to start trying given that he would be coming into a ballclub with a winning record.
I’d rather have Flop than Uribe.
I’d rather not have either of them. None of these guys are going to be an upgrade over Cintron – have we heard how long we’re going to go without him yet? – and none of them would be more than a minimal upgrade over Brandon Bynum. Might as well not add in some schmuck who might be a sourpuss.
how come we can’t force Mora to be SS? He can at least be an adequate stop-gap there for the rest of the season, that way we can have Huff at Third, Millar at First, and have Payton/Scott switch between DH and LF to more properly showcase Payton to trade. I just think it’s awful how Salazar performs well and there’s no room at the corners for him to stay in the lineup.
You know what’s weird?
Brandon Bynum.
Freddie Fahey.
Has mora ever played SS before?
I can dig it