Orioles Embark on Final ’08 Road Trip
Where did Radhames Liz come from yesterday? As most of us were busy watching an insane day of NFL football, the Orioles quietly put together a hell of an effort against the Twins.
If you missed it, Liz went eight scoreless innings in front of five Orioles homers, including two by both Markakis and Salazar. Good stuff.
Which leads us to tomorrow, when the O’s will be in Toronto to begin their final road trip of the season.
I’ll be honest here: I’m less interested than I was in July. I won’t lie about that. But the thing to take away from that statement is that I am still interested, and I think it’s a shame that in that respect I’m one of, what, a few thousand? Me, all of you, and precious few others.
That said, this has been a season of great progress in a lot of areas both on and off the field. The team still has a ton of work to do to get competitive, but there has been real progress. To deny that is a choice, and I alternate between laughing at and feeling sorry for the folks who make it.
There’s still more than enough room to criticize. If they don’t make some strong offseason moves there will be even more. But right now, as things wind down, the situation is looking up for ’09. I realize that’s hard to see when they no longer have a single MLB-quality starter, but it’s there.
Speaking of which, Jeremy Guthrie has gone on the DL with a “right shoulder impingement,” retroactive to September 6. Technically he could come back to pitch before the season’s over, but that would seem kind of pointless. I love the fact that he wants to come back, but he’s worth a hell of a lot more in April ’09 than he is in September ’08.
Finally, I want to mention my latest Examiner post, about a golf tournament next week to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I learned about this event through the marketing/PR work I do in my other life, and I wanted to pass it along for anyone who might be interested. Looks like a cool event for a good cause.
Nice to hear that MASN is going HD nearly fulltime starting next season. I don’t want to judge something too hasty, but I can’t imagine what the year delay was that it couldn’t be done sooner – but hey, it’s another thing off the table. Hooray HD (Although I would never, never, ever watch sports in HD. That shit is disgusting).
For all the complaining about the MASN HD thing… when it boils down to it, you can say, “For the first couple of years in its existence, MASN only had a few HD games, but then in the third year, they had them all in HD.” Does that really sound all that bad? It sounds reasonable to me.
Anyway.
I haven’t said much about the O’s recently.. just kind of watching them from a distance and enjoying it when they do well. There’s no denying the progress made this year on and off the field. It’s been a positive year, without question. The most negative thing you can take out of the season is the astounding amount of pitching injuries. We can add Spoone and Guthrie to an incredibly long list of pitchers that went down this year, many of them with career-threatening or at least season-ending injuries. Can anyone really be blamed for this, or is it just plain bad luck? We can only wait and see, but it sure does make waiting around for Arrieta, Tillman, and Matusz a little more uncomfortable. The O’s have had “good, young pitchers” for years now, and virtually none of them have panned out. But I’m not sure the O’s have ever had such a crop of “real deal” pitching prospects like they do now. It’s going to be exciting. Especially if we have a couple more guys like Montanez come out of nowhere and give the whole minor league system more depth instantly.
My understanding is that they’re increasing the number of HD games next year, but that there still won’t be blanket HD coverage for both the O’s and the Nats. The news release says they’ll air “up to 200″ MLB games in HD, meaning at most 100 per team. So while this is definitely good news, it’s not quite all the way there.
I’m puzzled by why they can’t just go all-HD, all the time for both teams. It seems kind of silly to me, but this is still great news.
I’ve played in the L/L Society golf outing for the last 10 years. The guy running it for L/L is my former PR Director in the soccer business.
It’s the best charity golf outing of the year, bar none.
I run an event every May and donate the proceeds to a local charity and Steve DeCastro’s tournament (the one Neal wrote about) is the benchmark that I strive to reach someday.
Maybe we should put DeCastro and his crew in charge of the baseball team…
It’s kind of a shame events like this don’t get more publicity. I don’t know that I would or could mention all of them, but I’m happy to help out to the extent that I can. Maybe I’ll see you at the Little Havana after-party.
Meanwhile, Chris Waters has two outs in the ninth and a 2-0 lead, which is insane beyond belief. I hope some of you are listening/watching, because this is great stuff.
Wait for it…wait for it…Deep Waters!
Complete game shutout for the kid. You have to put him in the mix for a spot now — he’s officially better than the DC Cab, Burres, Olson, etc. Unbelievable. I mean, literally, unbelievable.
Holy Waters. Complete game shutout. Back-to-back great outings.
Exciting baseball in September. Who knew? It would at least be a nice feeling to end the season strong and respectable. Hey, we were never making the playoffs.
Here’s a thought: is it possible that Chris Waters, who is so unheralded that even the label “prospect” seems like a stretch, might be in an advantageous situation?
Let me elaborate.
I don’t think Chris Waters is going to somehow blossom into a top-rotation guy. But I do think that perhaps he has just enough in his arsenal to be teachable. Maybe, because he carries no expectations, he’s well-suited to listen to good advice and go out and execute to the best of his abilities. If that’s the case, he could end up being an option at #5 or as a long man.
I might be stretching, but the bottom line is that he has now authored two of the team’s best starting performances this year.
Also, @Brendan, nice point about exciting baseball in September.
Remember when DCab strung together 8 games of great baseball? You guys don’t talk about him much anymore.
It’s one game. Chris Waters is not the second coming.
I second Greg’s comment. You can’t put Chris Waters into the rotation because he threw the Orioles only complete game shutout of 2008. Will he be in the mix? Sure. But if there’s going to be a decent team next year, he won’t really be in the mix at all. In the meantime, what a performance. I mean I was just totally in awe of this performance.
Seriously, Brad Pitt’s performance in Burn After Reading was hysterical, even when he was just standing around. Wonderful.
Oh, and good job Chris Waters. Really, it’s nice to hear that the Orioles aren’t lying down and will stand up and take this like a man. That’s actually, really encouraging.
as many of you know i could give a shit about baseball but on the way home tonight i’m pretty sure i heard on the radio that the yankees are done?
how is that not major news here?
fuck the yankees forever and ever and ever amen
@Greg, Andrew: Stand down the missiles, fellas. All I was saying is that Waters could be considered “in the mix” as “an option at #5 or as a long man.” I have no illusions about what he might become, but as of right now I’ve seen more out of him this year than I have out of Burres, and arguably the DC Cab and Olson as well. I don’t think it’s crazy to suggest that he might be a decent spare part next year.
@BBM: until they’re officially eliminated I’m not publicly celebrating. Privately, though, I’m taking great glee in their downfall.
Waters has an 8-inning shutout and a 9-inning shutout under his belt, which, without looking it up, has to be at least equal to Cabrera’s best performances this season. Waters seems crafty and durable. He seems calm (unlike Olson). He’s a better Brian Burres. Hell, right now, he’s a better Garrett Olson. He’s definitely got to be in the mix for next season’s rotation or bullpen because it’s clear he can get major league hitters out.
No missiles here, I just noticed your comments “officially better than burres, olson, dcab, etc”… and I think it may be a tad premature to label him as that. I personally don’t see him as anything other than a fifth starter on Norfolk next year. He may be better than that, but we already know that as it stands next year, it’s going to be Guthrie and Cabrera/FA, followed by Liz and Olson, and then Penn has to figure in the mix somehow, and Waters may have to challenge Burres for a swingman spot.
The only thing that I personally think Waters has going for him: He’s left handed.
Fair enough. I basically meant, when I said he was better than those guys, that he’s had better performances this year. I probably should have said that more clearly, because you’re right that it’s way too early to declare him actually a better pitcher.
Let’s do this the fair and balanced way…with numbers!
Name ERA+ K BB IP WHIP
Cabrera 84 95 90 180 1.61
Waters 93 25 23 53 1.47
Olson 65 78 56 121 1.77
Burres 70 60 49 121 1.72
Liz 64 51 45 73 1.79
So, obviously, yes, Chris Waters has been easily our best pitcher besides Jeremy Guthrie this year. And yea, that means you probably do have to consider him for next year’s staff, certainly over Brian Burres…but don’t mistake Chris Waters for a good pitcher, or a guy who can develop into anything. He’s not a prospect. It doesn’t mean he can’t be serviceable as a fifth starter on a competitive team, it just means that that’s kind of unlikely.
And with that, you’ve defined just how much of a disaster this year has been pitching-wise. Our second-best starting pitcher is “not a prospect” and could, with luck, become a fifth starter. I agree with you totally, but wow.
If we are wise, Cabrera and Burres should not even be considerations for the rotation next year. I excuse Liz and Olson only because they’re younger, but Olson better conquer his defeated demeanor out there, or he’s through.
Indeed. I didn’t even like throwing Burres out there this year. But, options were and are very limited. You sure do hope that Radhames Liz can build off his last outing and Olson can show us something, because if we can go into the winter saying, “Ok, we’ve got these three guys and these other possibilities (Patton, Albers, Waters, Penn) that we don’t know if they’re hurt or any good…let’s fill in the other 2 spots – which would be 2 and 3 in the rotation – via trades or free agency”.
It’d be nice to hear that the warehouse has a gameplan that doesn’t revolve around a couple guys we don’t have much hope for.
Oh, and final game ever at Yankee Stadium is Waters-Pettitte? Sweet Lord that could go any number of different ways.
Pettite is God against the O’s… they should make short work of us.
“Dandy Andy” (I swear to Christ the “People I Want to Kill” list starts with Jeff Maier and John Sterling) has been Terrible since the ASG. Really, really bad. Most think he didn’t get a solid offseason of prep in with the steroid stuff he went through, or he’s off the juice and not effective anymore, or he’s hurt, or he’s just old and on the verge of retirement like Mussina was last year. So yes, what happens when a rock meets a hard place? Pettitte has been God against us, but he’s been UnGod against everybody.