It’s Mother’s Day in Baltimore
Hard to believe but it’s been almost a year since the Mother’s Day Massacre — the game that cost Sam Perlozzo his job.
Now that we’ve had some time to reflect, though, it was also the game that indirectly kickstarted our much-needed rebuilding process, ushering in the Andy MacPhail era and giving birth to the Lost Season. Had the Orioles not blown that five-run, ninth inning lead then who knows where we’d be? Maybe Sam keeps his job, maybe 30-3 never happens, maybe MacPhail never mounts his white horse.
So…maybe that game was a good thing. Maybe, one year on, that game was the best thing that could have happened to the Baltimore Orioles. It works that way sometimes.
Let’s just hope it never, ever happens again.
Meanwhile, the O’s go for the four game sweep of the Royals today, with Brian Burres taking the hill against Brian Bannister. Should the Birds pull it out, they’ll have gone 5-5 on the second leg of their mammoth road trip and will sit at 20-18. Even a loss means 19-19, which is .500 at the conclusion of the epic run.
Not bad, eh? I don’t care if the record is padded by the likes of the Royals and M’s. We all said .500 after this road trip would be just fine by us and, damn it, it is.
A win today? That much better.
I like to think that Free the Birds had a lot to do with the decision to hire MacPhail…I doubt it’s true, but I like to think that for all the anger Angelos had over the event, he also finally saw a little light and realized that the fanbase wasn’t buying it.
Mother’s Day Massacre was really…let’s just not talk about it.
Interestingly, two years ago on Mother’s Day we rallied for 4 runs in the ninth to sweep the Royals during a 3 game set. The ninth inning is just always exciting on Mother’s Day for the Orioles, I guess.
Anyway, I think it’s important that we sweep – Bannister’s not that great (as I know from having him on my fantasy team) and we need as much momentum as possible with the off day followed by Josh Beckett.
Go O’s!
How the heck is Brian Burres only at 2 runs through 6? The way he’s pitching it should by all rights be like 10-0. Good for him to work out of trouble all day. Bad for him to get into trouble every. single. damn. inning.
The hitting fell asleep again. Damn. Should’ve sat Burres and played Bannister on the fantasy team instead of the other way around. Figures.
Alright, so 4-6 on the roadtrip and we’re .500. We’ll take it. And we’ll see if this team can really avoid a meltdown around 60 games. Last year the last time they were .500 was 27-27 before they tanked. (I think – feel free to correct me on that one).
I like Bynum at short – he looks fluid out there. Luis Hernandez looks much better at 2nd than short. But now we also have Cintron, probably mostly due to B-Rob’s foot bruise. So what happens when B-Rob’s back? 2 middle infielders on the bench? I like that Cintron can play third as well, but that leaves Luis a little left out and he’s out of options. I’d like to see Salazar up here, who can spell Mora and Millar and provide power off the bench.
What’s up with Jamie Walker?
FYI – there is a poster on camdenchat.com that posts condensed O’s games if, like me, you missed a couple games. I believe it’s under the tab “Fan Posts”. That monsoon game was freaking weird, huh? Good to see the O’s come out on top of one of those games for once.
Bring on the Sawx, dood.
Also, how about this from Roch:
“Jake Renshaw picked up his fifth win, tops in the league. Renshaw, 21, was acquired from the Cubs in the Steve Trachsel deal. He was a late addition to the package that also included Scott Moore and Rocky Cherry. Nobody seems to be talking about the former 10th-round draft pick out of Ventura College, but he won 12 games last year at the Single-A level and shows a lot of promise.”
Well, well, well, Andy MacPhail. Just when you thought Moore and Cherry was plenty for Trachsel, we got ourselves a young gun as well.
That makes 13 heads for 3 in Andy’s 3 trades. Wow. You could include Parrish for Sebastian Boucher (and someone else? Not sure..) if you wanted.
dan, I like Cintron coming up because it shows Trembs is showing no mercy for Luis.
“You lost the SS job to Freddie, but don’t think you’re automatically our back-up IF/2B, we’ll make you compete for that job too once Roberts is back.”
And dang, I had no idea AndyMac got 3 guys for the Garbageman! Shoot…I’d love to see a drunk AndyMac just go nuts on Craigslist! LOL
I think we all agreed before this trip that .500 after Boston would be pretty impressive. So, all we gotta do now is get the split. No small task, for sure, but doable. Very doable.
@Andrew: I see where you’re coming from, but Free the Birds had nothing to do with MacPhail coming in. Drew would probably argue that FTB actually pushed change further away on account of Angelos’ stubbornness. I doubt that’s true, either, but I’m sure he didn’t look at it and say “Maybe they’ve got a point…”
Oh, I doubt it severely myself, but that’s what I like to think.
And Dan, let’s be allencompassing, shall we? MacPhail has traded away 5 guys of note (Tejada, Trachsel, Bedard, Parrish, Gomez) and gotten 14 back, but only really 5 guys of note as of right now(Albers, Jones, Tillman, Sherrill, Scott)….which I guess is pretty good(?). Hey, we’re all really impressed with Andy – even moreso when he opens his mouth – but fair is fair, he literally gave away Chris Gomez and we could really use him right about now.
Good point about Gomez. He’d come in mighty handy about now.
I just looked at the rest of May’s schedule. I don’t advice it, it’s really, very depressing.
In the 20 days left in May, we have 4 off days, 3 against the Nats, 4 against Boston, 3 against the Rays, and 6 against the Yankees.
Um. Doomed.
I can maybe see us being at .500 when June 1 rolls around…but I have to squint real hard to imagine it. A win against Beckett would allieviate an awful lot though. We really need the bats to wake up very quickly.
The Rays just swept the Angels. 5 games above .500 for the first time in franchise history.
The same Yankees that we’ve taken 11 out of the past 21 against? I don’t fear the Yankees like I used to. Hell, they’ve got the same record we do. The Rays and Sox you can maybe panic about, and the Nats… well they aren’t that great. I wouldn’t be all doom and gloom about this May stretch. I would still realistically envision us at .500 by the end of it.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have a problem with our eventual losing record at all, and I’m not upset that the early season success is slowly getting away from us, but a brutal stretch is a brutal stretch, and you really have to hope the team can still hold its head up in June.
The Rays and Sox are what I’m not excited to see, and I can envision a slight winning record against the Nats and Yanks (think 5-4 perhaps)…but 7 games against the two best teams in the division is just rough, especially without a offense that’s clicking just yet.
Ah well – I’m sure we’ll be okay. .500? I doubt it, but we’ll be fine.
@Greg, I agree. We have had the Yanks number recently, and with the exception if pettite and moose, their pitching isnt that great. We can easily take 4 of 6 from new york. Factor in 2 out 3 against the Nats, 2 of 4 from Bahston(I hope)m and face it, the Rays kill us, 1 of 3 from them, thats 28-26 after may. If we fumble a game in there we shouldnt, then were still .500, which is the goal.
I do belive that the next red sux series ends in may, and continues into june. I hope our boys our studying josh beckett all that they can on their off day.
The offday should help us against Beckett, as Boston is playing tonight in Minnesota, but I see DCab vs. Lester as the game to steal
Season Recap (By Series):
1-1 vs. TB
4-0 vs SEA
1-2 @ TX
1-2 @ TB
1-1 vs. TOR
1-1 vs. CHI
2-1 vs. NY
2-1 @ SEA
1-2 @ CHI
1-2 vs. TB
1-2 @ LA
0-3 @ OAK
3-1 @ KC
-every series that we’ve lost has been on the road (with the exception of TB series @ camden)
I’m ok with that. We were on a bit of a slide headed into KC and we took advantage. I like that.
Let’s see if we can maintain focus with a stadium full of pink hats.
As for DT’s post-game comments (a very imporant barometer, IMO) he gave a healthy mix of positive and negative statements re:Burres –
“Burres was walking a tightrope,” Orioles manager Dave Trembley said. “Late in the game he walked the No. 9 guy [Joey Gathright]. That’s a no-no, but he kept us in the game. We just didn’t get anything off Bannister. He pitched a better game.”
completly off topic, but does anyone know if there has been any word about a certain uniform change to the road uni’s. i’m not sure but isnt the end of may the deadline to come up with changes for the following year?
At this point, no – Drewski will tell you though that they’ll release some press that they had internal discussions but want to maintain the club as a “regional franchise” so that the people in York and Lancaster don’t feel like outsiders. I made some comments that teams without their names on road uniforms tend to have worst attendance – but the more I thought about it, the less certain I felt. It’s really an impossible statement to make ignoring history and performance. Plus, the team with the worst case of regionality (the Angels) just won an ESPN survey for best team to root for (based on history, performance, prices, stadium, location, fan knowledge, etc.) for the fifth straight year.
Anyway, it’s kind of a non-story right now, but I expect some anger from basically everyone on June 1 when no change is made again – including myself.
gotcha. seeing how angelos is a money grubbing whore, on his end, how could he not want to make that change, knowing that in doing so souvenier, and novelty sales, and anything else with baltimore on would im sure go up drastically. Im really suprised that he has decided not to slap a corporate name on the stadium after this long.
Gebco stadium at camden yards
How much of a fan base do we actully draw from york PA. I have 2 friends in york, and 1 in hanover. the 2 from york are diehard Pirates/Steelers/Penguins fans. The one from hanover pulls for philly all the way. makes the 2 1/2 to 3 hour drive to see a philles game about twice a month. I’m sure we dont draw much from VA anymore with the Nats here now.
When not in Rochester, I currently reside in York County, and once you get out of the southern most parts, it’s mostly pirates or phillies fans…except in Hanover, where I’ve only ever met Oriole fans (and Yankee fans)…but the York Revolution is basically an Oriole independent team (led by Chris Hoiles, Ryan Minor, Al Bumbry, Brooks Robinson…and last year featured Tike Redman and the son of Ken Singleton). I guess I get the idea of regionality, but I don’t buy that any fan of the team in York County would suddenly say “You know what, I’ve put up with losing for 10 years and shitty decisions and everything else. You put Baltimore on the road jerseys? Fuck you forever, I’m gonna root for the Phillies…they don’t have stupid Philadelphia on their road jerseys!”.
And I don’t think you could rename Oriole Park anymore…because everyone just calls it Camden Yards anyway, it would at worst be Cutco Park at Camden Yards….which we’d just call Camden Yards anyway.