O’s-Angels Open Thread
I do love some west coast baseball — nothing like the soothing tones of Joe Angel to lull me to sleep. The downside, though, is that it puts a damper on the discussions here. It throws the schedule completely out of whack.
Nevertheless, we soldier on with an open thread for tonight’s game as Dennis Sarfate gets his second start. He’ll be up against 14 game winner Joe Saunders and the best team in baseball, the California Anaheim Los Angeles Angels (of Anaheim).
Come to think of it, with S’forty going tonight and “TBA” going tomorrow (looking like that’ll be Chris Waters of all people) it’s probably best that these games aren’t in prime time. It could get extremely ugly.
On a side note, is anyone else bothered by the terrible interface at Roch’s new MASN blog? No direct link to him, no forward/backward links from individual posts, and no way to view more than one post at a time (no “front page”). Considering that these things are all built into virtually every major blogging system out there, would it have been so hard for them to give him his own page at, say, masnsports.com/kubatko and just create a customized and MASN-branded WordPress theme?
On another side note, I’ve got a Ravens camp update of some kind planned for this coming week, and I’ll be ramping up the football coverage as the season inches closer. It’s gonna be a fun winter around here for sure.
(carried over from the previous open thread and Andrew’s last comment…)
I had thrown out the idea of going on Thursday but nobody really said much. As it turns out now, I can’t make it at all this week. I’d still like to go before the season is out though. We could think about maybe the 15th or 16th for some fireworks perhaps?
I’d do it, if I can. I’m moving out of College Park one of those days, and it gets a little tricky to fit in everything on the same day.
Anyone else, tomorrow, B-Mets?
What I’m looking for tonight, fully acknowledging that if Jones is out for the season we stand no chance at .500, I’d like to see S’40 go 5. I don’t care about the quality outside of the fact that he has to be good enough to go 5. If the offense can keep us in the game, that’d be swell, too.
Football, like primitive drums along the unfurling snake is slowly awakening in the back of my mind, driving towards that frenzy that Marlow and Kurtz understood all too weel. Finally free of the paper mache Mephistopheles that was Billick, I’m looking proudly into the future of Harbaugh, and I’m excited for it.
http://masnsports.com/masnblogs/roch-kubatko-1/
This is the link to roch’s blog index… took me forever to find it. Very annoying its not on the main page.
Damn — thanks, Greg. Nice work.
Speaking of Roch, here’s a comment I just posted there that I wanted to share here regarding Chris Waters:
Waters was a 5th round pick by the Braves in 2000 out of South Florida Community College. The O’s signed him in ’07. He did well at Bowie but his Norfolk stats are unimpressive: 3-6, 5.70, 1.56 WHIP, 97 hits, 72 K, 43 walks in 90 innings pitched. Apparently, though, he’s been pitching better of late.
***
I still don’t understand why David Hernandez isn’t on the radar, but then again they know a hell of a lot more than I do. I’m sure there’s a good reason.
Man, Tex is already killing us. That woulda been a run. Man.
Here we go Sarfate.
Well, so far Sarfate looks like…Sarfate. I’d really love to rally behind this guy and be positive about his starts, but the truth is he’s a bullpen pitcher and it’s fairly obvious. Maybe he can settle down tonight and make me eat my words…that’d be nice.
I enjoyed Buck’s pre-game thoughts that Dennis really has the stuff to be a starter and Kranitz said he’s excited about developing him into a starter and he was just nervous last time. Com’on Buck. Nobody is fooling anybody. That said, if – IF – Sarfate can learn to work out of trouble while he’s “starting” then it would definitely make him a better reliever, because right now he’s not even a guy I trust to come in except for a fresh inning (and still with a safety net warming up right behind him).
Is there a working RSS for Schmuck’s blog? I’m really enjoying it, I think he’s doing a pretty good job, but the RSS isn’t working for me. Anybody?
Kranitz seemed to agree totally with Dan. Sarfate has some good raw stuff, and hey, you never know.
Well, he’s looking a ton better in the second. You never know…(but you have a pretty good idea)
See if this works for you:
feed://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/sports/schmuck/atom.xml
When I call that up I get all the recent posts, but I don’t know what system/reader/browser etc you’re using so it might be a totally different situation.
The thing about Sarfate is that even if he has a great start here or there it doesn’t change much. He’s plugging a hole and I think we’re all hopeful that he can comport himself well in that role, but he needs to be back in his best role (middle-to-late innings, situational) as soon as possible.
I’m still trying to figure out what Chris Waters is doing with the big club and what it might mean. I have absolutely no idea what to expect.
Thanks, that works perfectly.
And yeah, what does Waters add? Well, he doesn’t have any stitches in his leg. Maybe he’s a wild, inconsistent righty with brief flashes of brilliance.
Ahhh, Randor Bierd warming up in the third. Fantastic.
I know why Bergesen (long start) and Penn (crazy bat shrapnel) aren’t starting, but I don’t understand the Waters thing. If Bergesen was considered, they had to also consider (and reject) Hernandez. I wanna know why. If Waters is the choice, why him over Bukvich and Leicester, neither of whom look very good but who both have at least a little Major League experience.
For that matter, if we’re looking at Norfolk then why not give Jim Miller (acquired in the Rodrigo Lopez trade) a chance? His stats (3-4, 3.29, 1.13 WHIP, 43 hits, 62 K, 19 BB in 54.2 IP) are the best of the bunch down there. I realize he’s not a starter, but Sarfate isn’t either.
Now that I think about it, why isn’t Miller up here anyway to provide us with bullpen depth?
Montanez removed early. Waters in Anaheim. No word on Jones.
I can figure this out. Jones has a fracture, he’s done for the year. Montanez will replace him, so you’ll probably be seeing Luis in center (which I don’t think is his thing…) or a Montanez/Payton/Markakis outfield. Either way is not preferable.
Waters is obviously the starter tomorrow. Maybe he’ll be real good and we find a diamond in the rough.
Sarfate was bad tonight. He wasn’t good at all in New York. Who’s next for him to mow down?
Maybe this is Sarfate’s last start and Penn will take his place. That would mean that our rotation would be:
Guthrie/Cabrera/Penn/Waters/Olson
That’s just crazy speculation, of course. The Penn/Waters spots could easily go to any combination of the following:
Penn/Waters/Sarfate/Cormier/Bierd/Bergesen/Bukvich/Leicester
One word for all of this: weird.
Meanwhile, Sarfate’s out and Bierd is in and the bases are loaded and things are looking just great.
Three HBPs in one game, two in one inning, one of which drives in a run.
What can you do?
Why so serious? Now I see the funny side.
I’d like to see what Sarfate does against a medicore team, but it’s safe to say he doesn’t have enough command of his secondary pitches to be a successful starter at this point. But then, neither does Cabrera.
I think the O’s thinking on Waters goes something like: they want to make sure Penn is 155433320% healthy and shows consistency before he’s back up (he’s out of options, also). They are reluctant to promote from AA, ruling out Bergesen (for now). Also wanted to provide him the opportunity at the Bowie win record since it’s not like we’re not going to the World Series or anything. Cormier blatantly would have failed miserably. Waters, though, is hot right now, is in AAA, and has options. It provides the club with a safety before going to finally having to go to either Penn, whom they want to give more time, or Bergesen, whom they want to bring to AAA first. Was that the correct usage of whom?
Can’t believe Penn’s luck, man. Remarkable.
Sweet new spam filter.
Man all we can get on this guy is singles and walks, huh?
Luke, dude… jesus. When will he start making some noise again?
Well, I guess since no one else posted after midnight, maybe no one watched the end of the game. If you didnt watch, or fell asleep, then do not watch any highlights, or listen to talk radio today, or read about it at all. It’s sickening. just assume we lost, which we did, we’ll leave it at that.
I cant wait for football season. Also cant wait for sept 1 when the 40 man roster comes out. see some of the young guns.
Offense pounding on all cylinders, defense and pitching…. eh not so much.
If their closer can blow a save, ours can blow it too, right?
The good news is that tonight really showed, I think, that this team won’t be facing that late season swoon like the past 10 teams have. You come back and score 4 with two outs against the second best closer in the game this year (behind Rivera, of course), that’s really making a statement.
If only we had had a starting pitcher out there. Seriously, I’d bet that he gets skipped with the off-day on Thursday and then they use him at Cleveland. If he turns out another one of these performances, it’s Penn time. Cleveland is one of the very worst teams in the major leagues (for some reason) so that’s about as easy as it’ll ever get, and if he can’t get into the fifth then then he never will.
And no, I wasn’t even a little impressed with him last night, even though I will admit that his first inning was more unlucky than anything else.
didn’t see the results until this AM. . .tough loss. Yup, Sarfate did himself no favors. Long relief guy, in mop up roles, until he can possibly settle himself down and pitch up to potential.
great comeback, but too bad Sherrill had too many walks to close it out and take it to extra innings.
this club has incredible character and moxie.
the moves now made by management to plug injury holes and pitching ineptness will be interesting. some truly talented guys in the minors which can hopefully translate to success at the major league level.
Has anyone here ever had Moxie, the soft drink? There’s one sandwich shop in Rochester (Open Face in Southwedge…check it out if you’re ever in the Great White North) that sells Moxie like there’s no tomorrow. Bottom line? Moxie is fucking disgusting. Totally undrinkable.
So I’m not sure I want the Orioles to have Moxie.
geez, wasn’t referring to some local soft drink in that part of the planet. . . .
and when I mention Waters, I’m referring to the O’s pitcher tonight, not John Waters the Baltimore movie maven. . .and yes, I’m hoping this young Waters can pull one out of the hat for the O’s. . .a tough assigment.
I think Andrew was just kidding, Rick. Clowning on the drink, not on what you said.
Meanwhile, what the hell happened there? I’m sort of glad I fell asleep because as much as that comeback seems to have been amazing, I would have been crushed to witness the end result.
Still, it is true what’s being said about the character of this team. Quite a thing to behold.
My expectations for Waters tonight run somewhere along the lines of my expectations for Sarfate last night. I’ll be thrilled if he goes five innings…or makes it into the fifth.
So I understand that Liz needs to be back in the minors to figure things out. But we’re replacing him with guys that are stop gap guys. Most of us agree that S’40 is a bullpen guy and pretty much everyone said that they’d be thrilled to see him go 5. Neal, you just said you’d hope for Waters to go 5… or 4+. Most of us don’t see these guys in our future except for in the pen.
So my question is, why did we send down Burres? Now I don’t really like him that much, don’t get me wrong. But he possibly has a future as a swing-man/ long reliever, and seems to be more capable of being our stop gap guy right now. Again, I don’t want him in the rotation next year, but I don’t see why he can’t go out there and get his 5+, maybe 6 innings. Maybe I’m splitting hairs here, but I feel like it would be better to hope for 6 innings than 5 innings of “please at least keep us in the game” baseball.
I sort of hope that John Waters can pull one out of a hat, too.
And yeah, I was kidding about moxie (but not the drink…that stuff is gross). Like I’ve been saying, I’m impressed with the team and it’s pseudo-magical run at .500, even though I don’t think we can make it especially without DigDug.
I agree with Neal, give me five innings and call it a success. Maybe the bats’ll tee off on Garland. We have to figure out a way to win one of these.
You’re dead on with the comments about Roch’s new MASN blog. It’s a terrible set-up, especially if you want to generate consistent readership. I like Roch and all, but I’m not going to go fishing every day to see if he’s posted something new.
There is a TON of to-do about Roch’s bad design on the MASN site. I don’t understand what the problem is. Within one minute, I was able to find the link that lets you see all of the post titles. I bookmarked it. End of story. Who knew blogging was such a picky affair?
Anyway… I kind of agree about not really having to send Burres down. You at least know he can turn in a good performance every once in awhile. But then again, it gives the O’s a chance to see who they have kicking around the minors, and if any of them have what it takes to pitch in the majors.
Anybody know anything about Waters? Hard thrower, junk baller? What’s he do?
I guess “sports”‘ inane ramblings didn’t make it. So it goes.
There’s a wonderful, excellent article up on ESPN from Jim Caple about closers and relief aces and throwing money away. Some of its a little too nostalgic for “the good old days when men were men and relief pitchers were called firemen”, but overall, you guys should check it out, because by and large the closer position is stupid, and Caple knows it.
Sometimes the spammers make it through no matter what — such was the case with “sports”.