O’s-Tigers Open Thread
The Birds are in Detroit for a three-game set against the Tigers, and it doesn’t look good.
Chris Waters vs. Nate Robertson tonight, Dennis Sarfate vs. Justin Verlander tomorrow, and Garrett Olson vs. Zach Minter on Sunday. I’m looking at one out of three for this one…hopefully. Not to be negative, but each of these guys would ideally be at Norfolk right now. It’s not their fault, they’re just overmatched.
The offense though is clicking right now, so we’ll see. I’m not putting anything past these guys.
I dont know if this has already been discussed on TLC, but it’s worth mentioning that Hagerstown, MD has made it to the semifinals of the little league world series playing tonight at 8 on ESPN. Its not O’s of course, but this might be the first time for a while that we see a maryland baseball team in the national spotlight.
It hasn’t been mentioned, and I actually didn’t even know about it. Very cool stuff, indeed. Here’s hoping they take it all the way.
Thanks for checking in.
No Rough Waters Against Tigers
11-2…wow. The Tigers look (sound, actually) a lot like the O’s did last year.
Now that I look at it, that headline joke above should read “Slightly Rough Waters Against Tigers”.
Schmuck says “Cormier Provides Bridge From Troubled Waters.” Yeesh.
the waters puns are going to go on forever. Wow! alot has happened in the last twenty four hours. O’s pour it on in the ninth inning again. Awesome. Matusz (Mad-us) signs, great news. Hey, the yankees are 9+games back, and designated melky cabrera to AAA, are they punching the clock? no october baseball in new yawrk? how sweet it is!
Towson high school alumn Michael Phelps. Im kinda shocked no one has posted about him yet, at all throughout the week(unless maybe i missed it). the 100M fly, closest call by far. I honestly didnt think he actually had won it until i saw the underwater cam. that serbian guy had him the whole way, and they said the overhead cam gave indisputable evidence that phelps won. i beg to differ on that statment. the sensors on the walls that clock them are state of the art. its not a guy with a stopwatch that can fudge the times. with that i still wasnt convinced, but the underwater cam shows his hand slapping the wall nearly instantaniously, but .01 seconds ahead of the serbian guy. wow. GO FOR 8 MICHAEL!!!
50,000,000th fan. i’ll be there monday and tuesday. if 43,289 people go monday. i’m walking out and sitting outside the gate til tuesday so i can enter numero uno, making 50,000,000. if anyone is ahead of me i’ll hit them over the head with a blunt object, then cut in line while they’re knocked out. just kidding, but if its me, drinks on me at the warhouse bar. there cant be a science to it. just luck. what a great promotion though. if I dont win tuesday I can always say “I tried to be the 50,000,000th fan and all I got was this lousy Luke Scott T-shirt”
Damn, you gotta feel for the Nats a little. Can’t even sign their first round pick. That’s rough in their position, to say the least. Looks like his demands were pretty absurd, although they probably knew that when they drafted him. At the 9th pick, he wanted a higher bonus than Matusz got (much higher) and a major league contract. I really wonder if that team is ever going to be good. At least the O’s have a lot more hope than they do…
Another great game last night. Mora is ridiculous right now. Honestly, who could have predicted this out of him? Insane… It’s those 18 kids.
I went down and saw the Baysox lose to the Mets on Friday night. The only run was a long, long home run in the 8th into the woods behind the fence. Good pitching and good defense were the highlights of the game. Not too much else to report except that Matt Wieters led off the ninth and worked a walk – which my friends the B-Mets fan Wally T. Atoms declared to be “very, very impressive for an AA player”. I had to agree – usually you’d think the top prospect in baseball would be swinging for the fences. Wieters only wanted to get on. Very impressive.
The Tigers are awful. How did that happen exactly?
bad chemistry fueled by too much money and not enough desire to play fundamental baseball
That’s the problem with veterans. Think they get a free pass on practice because they’ve been around the horn for a couple years.
Or more likely a bad pitching staff. Like epic bad. They sure can hit though. It’s a damn shame.
You all might be done with the Orioles this year (which is your right as always)…but not me! It looks like dem O’s are making a push for 82 wins for the first time in forever, something that excites me more than, honestly, it should.
The important stuff:
This year’s August: 9-7
Last year’s August: 9-19
Think about that one, folks.
This ten(ish) game homestand is important to The Effort:
Guthrie, Cabrera, and Waters go against Boston.
Olson, Guthrie, and Cabrera go against New York.
Waters, Olson, and Sarfate/Bergesen/Liz/Dear Lord Help Us Lowly Sinners go against Chicago.
If we go 3-3 against Boston and New York or better, and somehow win one of those White Sox games and steal the suspended game, that’s a really good homestand, because this is the toughest homestand left…but do better than .500 this week and I’ll be singing the praises of Birdland.
Then, it’s:
@Tampa, @Boston, Oakland, Cleveland(4), Minnesota, @Toronto, @New York, Tampa(4), Toronto
I’m very cautiously optimistic, IF our offense can steamroll Boston and New York, because the pitching against Chicago worries me and we’d be extremely lucky to do better than .500 the rest of the way.
Jake Arrieta so far today against China:
5 IP, 0 ER, 0 R, 2 H, 1 BB, 2 HBP, 7 K
The US is winning 4-0 in the 6th presently. ARRIETA.
Roch just gave us a fist-bump. Nobody sits like this Roch sits. You rock, Roch. The Roch just sits and is. You show us how to just sit here and that’s what we need.
I think the Tigers season puts the Orioles season into context. It’s interesting to see a team who won the World Series in march do so poorly during actual games.
I’m sure some posters, who will remain nameless (DF) would surely disagree that this season has been Positive.
They (Drew) would say that ticket sales are low, we’re still in last place, too little too late with the jerseys, or whatever…
It irks me that those people, who I would never dare call out (Drew Forrester) can spew such filth before the season starts, but can’t admit in the same forums, that maybe they were Wrong.
***
This season has been a success on so many levels:
The trades have proven to be nothing short of…an R word that shouldn’t be used in the context of sports. We’ll call it Robbery, for the sake of the children.
The prospects are looking Damn Good. I’m not a pregnant chicken and I will NOT count my eggs before they hatch, but DAMN it’s tempting…
And even the veterans are grinding it out to the bitter end (Millar, Huff come to mind)
***
I’m here.
Summer has been busy, but this is still where I go for game recaps, before the news outlets, before ESPN…This is the spot.
I don’t like to chime in if I don’t watch the game (that’s not really true) but I’m here grasping for .500 with y’all and I always appreciate the informed, intelligent posts. Although I like the odd ones too. I played water polo once, but my horse drowned.
LC
Water Polo…that’s with beautiful swimming ladies…like mermaids?
Hey everyone. I am, in fact, not dead. Just vacationing! And in a wedding. And in a recording studio. At the beach. Largely without the steady internet IV drip into my bloodstream.
Back on the wagon.
Of course I missed a week of awesome Orioles stuff.
Firstly, congrats to you Neal for scoring that Examiner gig. Does that start today? Let us know. Also, more props to you for getting TLC on the hallowed pages of Roch’s blog. That’s just cool, and I might add a little overdue.
What a crazy season. If we even had halfway-legit starting pitching, we’d certainly be at least above .500 right now. What’s the secret to this crazy offensive resurgence? What’s the Crow been up to the last bunch of years? We get rid of our power hitter (who has 12 home runs, by the way, as many as Ramon) and suddenly Mora, Millar, Huff, and the career minor leaguer Luke Scott are all going to finish with more than 20 home runs. We have a good lineup, minus shortstop and Jay Payton. FUN.
This is fun baseball. And the best part is that these dudes are hitting BETTER in August, something we haven’t seen … ever?
The whole attitude is different. I think we’re going to remember 2008 as the year that things started to change for the better. For whatever reason (Trembley, no Miggy, no Bedard are my three big ones), this team doesn’t care about its losing past. Even though they’re technically not far from where they were last year, it’s not even close.
WTB
Last time I posted I mentioned how at WVU so far the ratio between New York:Boston:Baltimore:Pittsburgh sports wear has been even, but today on the first day of classes Baltimore is leading all others by a 6:1 ratio; and most of the time it’s been ala George Sherrill flatbrims.
Ain’t the beer cold?