Can We Keep This Up?
I needed a break yesterday. That third game in Texas was way too much to handle, and I had to take some time to collect my thoughts.
The thing is, this doesn’t feel like 6-3 is supposed to feel. I want to be riding a wave of optimism, feeling like the team is going to blaze into Boston this weekend and pad their early division lead. Instead, I feel like we’re constantly on the brink of collapse. Like Wednesday is closer to the norm than Monday and Tuesday. I don’t like it.
Heading into tonight’s action, the team ERA is 6.33 (12th in the AL). The next worst mark among winning teams belongs to Detroit — two full runs better at 4.35. Jeremy Guthrie‘s doing his part with a 2.25 and 5 strikeouts to 3 walks in 12 innings, but the rest of the starters have serious issues. I love Koji but he has to get deeper than the fifth. Hendrickson has given up 10 runs and 13 hits in nine innings.
Adam Eaton.
I realize it’s early and I realize the sample size is small. Got it, no problem, not going to freak out. But the trends are not good.
Here’s what I need from this series in order to calm my mind: two wins out of four, the starters average between 6-7 innings each, the middle and long guys don’t get used in back-to-back games.
Asking too much?
Yeah, it isn’t going to last. The pitching has been terrible and the hitting has been lucky. Look, those two things will eventually start to come into more equilibrium, but right now the Orioles are 100% Smoke and Mirrors. Which is fine. Smoke and Mirrors are interesting to watch, and a win is a win is a win.
But yeah, things are going to crash down on the Orioles in Boston. I guarantee it.
Agree it’s smoke and mirrors, but I’m not certain it comes to an end quite yet in Boston. They’ve been REALLY bad this year, and I think that may continue for a little while longer. I hope so anyway.
And @Andrew – I didn’t comment on your previous few posts asking for opinions because I was on vactaion. But I really enjoy the minor league notes and the format that you’ve been writing it. I like the selective stats backing up your opinions. Don’t know if it would be too much work, but as the season progresses, I’d like to know more than just W-L and ERA of the minor league pitchers. Maybe just through IP out there, so if I don’t know the name, I’d know how much to read into a very low (or very high) ERA.
I think by the end of May the rotation may very well be Guts/Koji/Hill/Bergeson/whoever. People can rotate in and out of that #5 spot as needed. Eaton is useless. Hendrickson should go to the bullpen. Liz is useless. Bass is useless. It’s a bad situation, but it could improve very quickly. If Hill and Bergeson are average or even slightly below average, things will be MUCH better, and we could make a .500 run. Things are coming into focus for this pitching situation even more quickly than most of us imagined, which is ultimately a good thing I think. This is definitely the year to figure a lot of this out.
@random dude – Cool. I will probably drop the win loss records, because I absolutely hate them, and throw up ERA, IP, and WHIP instead.
I’m really glad to hear that everyone who has something to say likes the minor league coverage so far. It’s a decent amount of work for me, and it’s nice to hear people are getting something out of it.
If the O’s can win 1 out of 4 in Boston I’ll be happy…
Best chance of that tonight…
Tonight’s minor league action, for those you too scared to peek through your fingers at the Red Sox-O’s game…
Norfolk is at Gwinnett (ATL) for David Hernandez’s (1.93 ERA, 0.86 WHIP, 4.2 IP) encore to an outstanding first effort. He will face Charlie Morton (1.50, 0.33, 6). The Tides gained reliever Fredy Deza today from Bowie to make up for Radhames Liz coming to Baltimore.
Bowie’s Brandon Erbe (3.00 ERA, 1.33 WHIP, 3 IP) takes on Akron’s (CLE) Josh Tomlin (1.80, 0.60, 5).
Frederick and Salem (BOS) go at it tonight. Tim Bascom (1.50, 1.00, 6) will face Jose Capellan (3.60, 1.60, 5).
The Shorebirds send Ryan O’Shea (1.80, 1.00, 5) out to face Ryan Miller (6.23, 1.38, 4.1) and the Lake County Captains (CLE)
Found a cool website:
http://firstinning.com/daily/bal
FirstInning.com has some minor league info, and in the link above are the daily Baltimore minor league box scores for the day, with some brief highlights. It’s the first thing I check on when I roll into work.
When did the Red Sox sign that brewer from the Sam Adams commercials?
Good hit and run with Wiggy and Luke
walked him in! way to go Brad Penny
let’s go AJ! bases loaded and we need all the runs we can get today
NICK.
“GRAND SLAM FOR NICK MARKAKIS” Gary Thorne never sounded so good
While I’m thinking about it I want to open up a question to the community: any opinion on frequency of comments during games?
We’ve been slugging away with a lot of in-game comments lately and I’m curious how everyone feels about that. Too much, not enough, or just right? Not that I would ever “enforce” anything, I’m just thinking it might be an interesting thing to get feedback on.
Matt Wieters is hurt.
Not to ruin the base on ball parade.
@Andrew – whoa, really? How bad?
It sounds like he pulled his hamstring running to first. Leg injuries are definitely not good for catchers, but it’ll probably keep him out of Baltimore for (and I’m just guessing) an extra month at least.
I can almost hear Chad Moeller thanking Whoever that he still has a job in fuckin’ baseball.
I just saw it on Schmuck’s blog. Sounds like there’s a chance that it’s no big deal, that maybe taking him out of the game was a precaution? Then again it could linger for three months…
Meanwhile, Guthrie is falling apart a little bit.
Every game we’ve lost, hasn’t Moeller been behind the plate? Maybe he’s cursed
I can just smell the douche baggery coming off Pedroia
Why are the O’s wearing the black jerseys? I know that they wear them every Friday, I just thought it wsa every Friday home game
Our pitching has to get better. We’ve given up 22 homers so far this year. Our pitchers need to go into the 7 inning
At least we’re getting to their pitching too. Penny only goes 3, and they bring in Delcarmen
Nick is unstoppable. Amber is giving the rundown on Wieters now. She says it’s not, but hopefully it’s not serious.
Roch sez Wieters had a cramp and his removal was a precaution. The always troubling re-evaluation happens tomorrow, but for now we can exhale a bit.
Damn it all to hell, this thing is going exactly how it didn’t need to go. Guthrie knocked out early, big lead blown, defensive miscues.
I mean, what do we get out of this if we end up winning 11-9? There isn’t another scheduled off day until Thursday 04/30.
I remember a game a few years ago when Josh Towers had a horrible start. He couldn’t do anything right. The manager at the time, whoever it was, left him in the game and I think he went eight ugly, painful innings. He took one for the team that day because we couldn’t afford at the time to tax the bullpen any further.
There will be a game soon where Trembley will have to see the wisdom in a move like that. Not tonight, obviously, but it’s going to have to happen.
@neal s – Well, sure, but we can’t be making any of our pitchers throw 300 pitches. And I’m fairly sure that that is what it would take to “take one for the team”.
@Andrew – Yeah, I get it. But we can ask them to occasionally throw more than 100. Guthrie threw 103 pitches tonight (62 strikes). Removing him from a tie game makes sense, but if it’s 8-2 Boston when he hits that mark then I’m saying give him at least 15-20 more pitches. Same for all the starters. Trembley seems to be obsessed with the 100 pitch mark and I just don’t agree with it.
Eaton vs. Beckett tomorrow, by the way, might be an excellent time to prove my point.
Well, my counterpoint is that with Eaton, 20 more pitches is what? an extra 2 outs?
No, I’m kidding – of course Eaton won’t always be as terrible with his pitch count efficiency as we saw against Tampa Bay. But hey, I sure as heck don’t want the only even halfway decent starter (so far) in my rotation throwing 120 pitches in a losing mop up effort. If they want make Mark Hendrickson throw 120 pitches in 5 innings because it’s already a lost cause, that’s one thing – but not Jeremy Guthrie.
Man, this is hard to watch.
Big Sloppy doesn’t look so good tonight. Couple of K’s and hasn’t looked good during those at bats
I hope they bring in Okajima. We beat the crap out of him last year and we need to get back into this game
My main point is that pitch counts should be treated on a case-by-case basis without a hard cap. Any MLB-caliber starter should be able to comfortably throw 120 if need be, and perhaps even more. The strategic reasons behind removing him sometimes might need to be set aside in favor of a long-term interest in saving the bullpen.
I don’t exempt Guthrie from that just because he’s our best starter. He’s in no danger of being overworked. That said, I agree that if there’s a “take one for the team” scenario like the one I suggested, do it with Eaton or Hendrickson and not with someone who’ll actually be here in August. No argument there.
Agreed Neal. We’ve all pretty much said that we won’t win this series. At best, I said we’d split the series and the way we looked tonight, I don’t think we have a chance. Tomorrow we have Beckett and he’s good. Good enough that we probably won’t win. Since he’s pitching, why not let Eaton just “take one for the team”. The way he’s pitched, he’s lucky to be on a team.
So much for us beating the crap out of Okajima
Having Felix Pie pinch hit is definitely a “let me go get a diet soda” kind of move.
This whole game — this whole series — is Diet Soda all the way.
Patience, patience, patience…I must remind myself.
Guthrie has failed to pitch into September yet because of shoulder issues. If I’m the Orioles, I’m trying to keep his workload as low as possible.
Kind of hard to find positives in this one, but I’ll say that it’s good to have an offense capable at any time of putting up seven runs in an inning.
That’s about all I can come up with.
@Andrew – OK, fair enough. Let’s go ahead and remove Guthrie. Doing that doesn’t much change my point. We simply can’t go to the bullpen in the fifth or sixth every night.
@neal s – I honestly don’t think it matters. If we are going into the bullpen that often on a regular enough basis that we need to burn a starter to save the bullpen, then we’re giving up too many runs on a regular basis for it to matter much whether or not Danys Baez is tired in September, because we’ll be about 25 games under .500 anyway.
For the record, I don’t think it’s a bad idea, but what happens after we save the bullpen by killing one of our starters is left unanswered in your plan. And that bothers me.
@Andrew – heh…I wouldn’t call it a plan.
You make a good point about the bigger question of how many runs we’re giving up in the first place. If things are working well then “saving the bullpen” isn’t an issue. No doubt about that.
I’m just going on the idea that we have fundamental problems in the rotation and have to mange them somehow. One way to help get there is by doing away with the idea that a starter can’t throw more than 100 pitches.
I don’t think that means burning or killing the pitcher in question because I don’t see 120 pitches as an issue. That’s the answer to the question left unanswered.
@neal s -
We all know what the answer to saving the rotation is: Brad Bergesen and Rich Hill. I’m not sure I like that answer, really, but that’s the future. Well, until The Future gets here, if you know what I mean.
In the meantime, the bullpen really, really does blow, doesn’t it? They never even got off on the right foot and have just sucked all 2 weeks (almost). But you have to have faith that these guys aren’t THIS bad and that things will turn around some.
Anyone else think it’s really weird that through 10 games this season, Jason Kubel has already hit the THIRD cycle of the season tonight?
As soon as it was 7-0 in the second inning, you knew that it was WAY too early for it to be 7-0. An early lead like that NEVER lasts in Fenway and we’ve seen many, many times already. It was just too early to put up a 7-spot. Sox aren’t giving up.
What happened to Guthrie in the 3rd?
This was a depressing game. Balls skipping off the bases, popping out of people’s gloves…. jesus.
Eaton today vs. Beckett? Why don’t we just forfeit now? That’s a game I actually have 0 interest in watching for the first time in awhile because the outcome is so obvious.
You knew the Sox were going to get healthy against the O’s.
I need a diet soda man, this season is already in full nose-dive, winning record or not. We don’t usually have games like this in April. This is an August or September type of game.
@Greg – I guess that means that good pitching is hard to find everywhere around the league, it’s not just the O’s suffering.