Orioles-Indians Open Thread
Oh, my…this might be a long night.
The Orioles are in Cleveland for the opener of a four game series. They’ll be greeted on the hill by none other than Fausto the Great, who absolutely owned the Birds last year (2-0 with a 0.59). In response we offer Dennis Sarfate, who has no business in the rotation.
And, sure enough, Sarfate is melting down in inning number one. Yikes.
Also: if anyone was looking for it, I decided to give the Baltimore Sports Media Approval Ratings a break for a week or two. Last week’s poll saw Dave Johnson cruise to a 96% “yea” rating — congrats, Dave.
Ever the diplomat, Joe Angel says “this Sarfate-as-starter experiment…is failing.”
What a strange game even after 2 innings. You have that strange error on Cintron. You’ve had lots of managers arguing (sit the fuck down Wedge). Sarfate , even if he takes one for the team and throws 120 pitches might only go 4 innings. Grr.
The good news, when you looked at this series and said “The Indians? We can take 3 of 4″ you probably looked at the pitching and said “the last 3″
Climbing back into it…
I like how Buck says “Castillo’s gonna try to bail Sarfate out here”, since Dennis pitched so well except for these two batters here in the fifth. And I think everyone’s off the Sarfate train. Unfortunately, only Trembley and Kranitz’s opinions count for anything. So are they on or off?
Who could go in s’40’s place (what a wonderful palindrome):
I’m trying to think about it and I’ve got a wonderful dumb list of Liz, Burres, Bergesen, and resigning Steve Trachsel.
Penn’s hurt (natuerlich), who else is there?
I really want to see Nick jack one here, not only because of the want – the need – to see the Orioles go up, but because I badly want – need – to do this for real:
Track. Wall. See. You. Later.
Markakis. Bat. Ball. Track. Wall. See. You. At. Third.
If they don’t back up the Brinks truck for Nick in the offseason I will find my assumptions about Andy’s plan rocked to the core. That kid is gold.
And what’s this? The O’s have the lead?
Ain’t the beer cold!
I see, Neal, that you saw my Reghi and raised me a Thompson. Your game of catchphrases is about to be blown away…next time there’s a home run.
How did this game get put into the hands of some guy from Cleveland and Rocky Cherry? What a strange night in the City of Burning Waters.
Ramon Hernandez = bonehead
That was Mora staying in the way’s boner. You can’t handle the ball twice in a rundown, but of course Mora was like “whatever dude”.
Ahh…I have it on the radio and the way Joe Angel described it made it pretty clear that it was Ramon’s screwup. Either way it’s a horrible play.
Oh our sad, sad bullpen.
No catch phrases for Indian Homers.
Damn, we had this one. What the hell happened? Luckily we weren’t supposed to have this one anyway.
Remember when Jamie Walker was awesome?
Me neither.
Well that was depressing.
I was thinking of asking “where is everybody else?” but with the way the game went I think I already know the answer.
Hey Guys, Sorry I haven’t been chiming in of late, the last 10 days I’ve been in RA boot camp at WVU. The Bad News, no TV (let alone getting MASN here) in my ownership, but the Good News is despite the overwhelming number of New Jersey-ians I have only come across one Yankee fan proud enough to display their fandom via wardrobe, and even he was looking around all sheepish and paranoid like he was wearing a NAMBLA shirt. And to my surprise I have seen 4-5 Os fans here completely decked out in throwback gear (most of the time) that looks WELL worn out looking like they’re content with the world. Definitely did not see that last year!
Also…do any of yuns have links to Angel/Manfra radio online? I really don’t feel like subscribing to MLBtv and would much rather hear the Poor Man’s Jon Miller.
Unfortunately, Tomas, MLB blacks out all internet feeds of radio so you have to pay the 5 bucks for mlb.tv radio broadcasts. But its probably worth it.
What a shit game tonight. Let’s never speak of Dennis Sarfate or August 10th ever again.
MLB is pretty strict when it comes to their control of broadcasts — you can’t get any game audio from the stations that carry it over the air. But you can subscribe to Gameday Audio (I think that’s what it’s called) via mlb.com and get access to streams of every game’s home and away feed for 15 bucks a year.
I’m not here to market on behalf of MLB (believe me) but I can’t deny that it’s a great deal. There are some technical issues, of course, and the audio quality is average at best, but on the whole it’s worth getting. If you tune in 15 times a year that’s a dollar a game, which seems well worth it to me despite the technical issues.
Nice to hear that you came across some bona fide O’s fans — I think the tide might be turning, maybe?
And yes, Andrew, let’s absolutely never speak of Dennis Sarfate again. At least not in a starting role. This experiment has to end.
It’s a damn shame about Hayden Penn and his bad luck. He’d have made this start were it not for that, but at this point I don’t know if he can be trusted on any level. I say it’s time to consider Bergesen or maybe even a trade. Whatever it takes to stop forfeiting games every time this turn comes up in the rotation.
August 11th. Actually, let’s just forget about today and yesterday. Remember, we’re still okay. Split this series and call that a win (it will be)..take the Detroit series and we’ll be in good position.
I can say with certainly that if the Orioles ever make a run at the playoffs, they will never be able to do it with Sarfate in ANY capacity.
’sar fate
What were his numbers as a middle relief guy? He’s got over a K per IP. His insanely high walk numbers are pretty damning, but before the Grating Experiment he had a 3.78 ERA and at one point touched 2.78. I can’t find his game by game WHIP numbers or his inherited runners numbers, so that’s rather misleading (perhaps)…but if he can figure out how to rein it in he’d be a great 7th inning guy.
But if he starts one more time I’m going to murder myself.
Anybody else getting nervous about Matusz? I know I am. I know that basically all of the top 10 draftees haven’t signed yet, and that this is unfortunately standard business now (why don’t they just make the deadline a month ago and force the issue?)…but if Matusz doesn’t sign it will be a colossal blow to the credibility of the rebuilding effort, not to mention the quality of our expectations and farm system.
Track. Wall. Sign. Matusz.
Matusz Speaks out to the Fans
By: Tony Pente 8/12/2008
“It’s pretty common practice nowadays for the top overall selections in the amateur draft to use almost the entire signing period to negotiate their deals.
Last year, Matt Wieters didn’t sign until 10 minutes before the August 15th deadline and as of today, August 12th, the Orioles 2008 first round pick and fourth overall selection Brian Matusz is yet to sign.
The Orioles for their part have said all along that they believe they will get a deal done, but as time has gone by this summer, they have become a little more concerned due to the fact they believed through their initial conversations with Matusz and his advisor Marc Agar that the process wouldn’t take the entire summer.
One of the holdups may be that Washington draft pick Aaron Crow, who was the second college pitcher selected, is reportedly trying to set a record with his bonus and Agar and Matusz don’t want to be undersold. However, Scouting Director Joe Jordan told the Hangout that Crow’s situation had no bearing on Matusz.
During this time, fans usually don’t get an opportunity to hear from the draft pick and some start to believe that the young man is just trying to break the bank and doesn’t care about getting started.
However, Matusz has reached out to Orioles fans through the Hangout in an e-mail he sent last night.
“With a lot of public interest in my signing with the Orioles, I thought it is important that I report to the Orioles fans how things are going.
Both the Orioles and myself have been working diligently on getting a deal done. I want to sign and will do so upon receiving a fair (not record breaking) deal. While I am not at liberty to discuss any parameters or numbers of the deal, I am hopeful that a resolution can be reached.
Thank you fans for all your positive support and messages, and I will be looking forward to seeing you at the ballpark soon.”
So there you have it. Matusz wants to sign and think enough of the fans to reach out and let them know they are working and that he wants to sign.
Pesonally, I’m impressed that this young man took the time to reach out and hopefully we’ll be reporting his signing in the next few days.”
I’m sure that the “fair” side of things is really tough to nail down based on salary escalation from year to year and again on the idea that these guys have no idea where they’ll be sitting in relation to each other in a week. I remain for the most part unworried about Matusz, but damn if this whole process couldn’t be fixed. And I don’t just mean for the Orioles.
Good for Brian to make a statement. He sounds like a good guy with a strong head on his shoulders.
ok. 28 runs in 2 games. ummmmm how bout a lil pitching tonight huh. i’m sure that goes without saying.
you just gotta split here in cleveland (minimum) and then roll through detroit. That’s a big success for us. So far we’re looking better today. Get to their crappy pitcher early, not ours!
Jesus fucking Christ, guys. Stop doing this.
I love the 2 base e-1 followed by a next pitch inning ending K.
What a bipolar game so far.
god damn melvin. nice hands feet.
You can see how great Olson can be…no idea what happened in that first inning. He looked bad, and now he looks great. Go figure. How ’bout some home runs so we can Reghi this bitch up?
Sorry no open thread for this one, guys. I had an insane day and didn’t get a chance.
Maybe that’s for the best. I should probably just have Guthrie open threads, Good Danny open threads, and Everybody Else open threads where we just roll them all into one.
By the way, Melvin wants to play until he’s 50. I love that.
So, Melvin wishes he retired 3 years ago? Me, too.
No announcement yet Neal?
Coming back again. Olson was acceptable, all things considered. When he puts it together, we’ll have something. I like him, I just hate rookie him. And here we are with runners on the corners and 1 out and THE STICK up.
And I am really starting to hate Asdrubal Cabrera. A lot. I remember liking him and wishing he were better last fall when Joe the Guy was beating me up in ALCS bets. Now he’s on fire? What gives?
allrighty. tie game. lets keep at it.
just saw luke scott ofter scoring. hes got a Mr. T starter kit around his neck. jesus.
Oh yeah, the announcement. I actually just got the go-ahead on that today. I’ll probably want to repeat this info in a main page post for folks who don’t read this deep into the comments, but here you go:
I’ve been recruited by Examiner.com to be their “Baltimore Sports Examiner,” and I’ll be taking up those duties next week.
What this means is that I’ll be posting there on topics of general Baltimore sports interest — pretty much anything that crosses my mind that will be of “value” (hard to define, I know) to the Examiner.com audience. I’ll be doing a minimum of three short posts a week, more when I have the time/feel like it.
I was kind of skeptical about this at first, but here’s the deal: I will be using the Examiner posts as an extension of The Loss Column, and never as any kind of replacement for it. It’ll mean some more work and creative thinking on my part but I think I’m up for it.
More importantly, I would love to involve our community in this new venture. So in a sense I’m asking you to help me make that space an extension of this one, if you’re willing. That means leaving comments, sure, but also suggesting story ideas, giving me new angles on things, joining the conversation, etc.
Basically, it’ll be the Loss Column Annex — our sliver of “occupied territory” in the so-called mainstream media.
I’m hoping you’ll join me in having some fun over there. If nothing else, I hope you’ll read it and enjoy it. Just like The Loss Column is nothing without all of you, that place will be pretty lonely without you. Either way, though, this place won’t change much.
What do you think?
On the one hand I love the heart that goes into these repeated comebacks, but on the other…my god is it frustrating to see them tie it then give it back two nights in a row.
I’m okay with helping you in your Examiner extension. I came to this site after you were recommended to write a piece for some website about this years spring training summary for the Orioles. I think every team had one selected blogger do it.
I really enjoy coming here and helping out, posting news, chatting up some like-minded folks, and talking O’s.
I wanted to bring up the news that Matusz is looking for $5M to sign with O’s, when logic would dictate he get something a little less that $3M. There is a lot of talk that it may be time to call Matusz on his bluff, since he won’t likely go back to college, and take our chances with the supplemental round next year. Any thoughts?
Thanks, Greg. I really appreciate the good words. I’m not sure what to expect over there, I only know that The Loss Column is (to my mind) Baltimore’s best online sports talkin’ community, and any success I find from that can be traced back to the fact that all of you have helped make it. The Examiner thing will be its own animal to an extent, but I just want to be clear that The Loss Column is the backbone of that effort and will remain so no matter what.
The Matusz thing is starting to get a little frustrating, particularly since I read somewhere today that he wants a major league contract. If that’s true it’s kind of troubling (we saw how well that worked out with Loewen). My suspicion, though, is that you’re dead-on with your assessment. I think cooler heads will prevail on this eventually.
you need matusz. need.
lots of bad thoughts tonight…ill sleep on it and check in in the morning.
Bad thoughts? I hope you don’t mean about the Examiner thing…
No, just the game. Let’s start with the Examiner. Surely as long as the quality doesn’t slip around here, and you can contribute to the Examiner in a thoughtful way, I think it’ll be very cool. You’re slowly digging your fingers into the scene, with your NST appearances and now this. Anything to get more discussion going around is good in my book. I do wonder if you might get stretched a little thin, and whether it wouldn’t be a good idea to do something like turn over the site to justin (for example) for the duration of football season. But if you can do everything, do everything. And anything I can do to help, I’ll do.
I’m heading out to Bowie on Friday to see either Tillman or Hernandez take on the B-Mets, so I’ll report back on Saturday with what I see. Neal seemed to like the report last time. I don’t think I’ll catch the Tides in Rochester when I’m back there next weekend, but if I can I’ll report in on them, too.
Now, the Orioles. My god. The bullpen has turned into the nightmares of seasons past. And then there’s the defense. And the starting pitching. And, honestly, I’m concerned about the lineup. I don’t think Payton is half the player Jones is, and that’s made the bottom of the lineup very weak.
Without Albers the bullpen fell into disarray. Sherrill’s probably gassed, or just revealing that he wasn’t really that good to begin with, and now without Bradford we’ve got a bunch of scrubs (Cabrera, Walker, Cormier, Castillo, Cherry) that are all struggling mightily. That leaves you with Jim Johnson – our real long remaining bright spot, and even he couldn’t get it done last night.
But make no mistake, this shit is on the defense and the starting pitching. Melvin Mora has looked just ridiculous out there the past 2 nights. Olson was okay, all things considered, but he didn’t set a good tone and he instead looked wildly inconsistent from inning to inning.
Now we’ve put ourselves in a position where if we don’t take these next two games and then present ourselves well in Detroit, we might be starting that snowballing effect, and we can certainly kiss the notion of .500 away.
Thanks, Andrew. I don’t expect the Examiner will stretch me too thin because the posts there are designed to be short. I’ll probably also use it sometimes to talk about things that I don’t mention much here, like tennis or auto racing or curling.
I’m very, very concerned about the O’s right now. But then again…I feel like I’ve said that six or seven times this year and every time they find a way to right the ship. I think .500 is out of the question, but a strong finish is still a very real possibility.
I’m reserving judgment — for now. Let’s see how the rest of the road trip and the Boston series go. If we can avoid a meltdown through all of that I’ll feel a lot better.
Definitely give us the Bowie report when you go. I really need to get down there at some point this season.
Curling?
We could easily – easily be sitting at 4 under after Boston and I’d be okay with it. Without Adam Jones, Matt Albers, or a fourth and fifth pitcher, .500 is probably a no-go, but we’re so damn close. If we get swept in Cleveland that’s all for my optimism. On the other hand, better draft picks await…
Although none of that means a damn if we can’t even sign the draft’s top pitcher to bolster our chances in the relatively near future. Matusz should be in Baltimore for good in 2010…but he has to sign first. At this point, every hour that goes by upsets me more and more. The entire draft process is so poorly handled by baseball it makes me want to scream.
Tuesday – losscolumn gathering for everyone who loves a good time (that’s everyone except neal) and i’ll be personally offended if joe and dan don’t show.
Hasta la vista pelota!