On Jeremy Guthrie and Jason Berken
As noted in the comments by Andrew, Jason Berken will get the call to face the Blue Jays tomorrow. Probably not a name that’s going to excite anybody, but I’m OK with it. Give him a chance, see what he does. The numbers down at Norfolk suggest he’s earned it.
Before we find out for sure, we must come face to face again with the problem that is Jeremy Guthrie. He’s been bad this year (you’ve seen the numbers), and I’m concerned. I like the guy and I want him to do well here and anchor the staff as the Cavalry charges in. Right now, I wonder.
So it’s time to come out and ask a question I don’t really want to ask: does the forced pay cut he took before the season have something to do with his performance?
It’s either that or the WBC. I blamed the latter, but we’re 53 innings into the season now and that’s plenty of time to regain rhythm and routine. I wonder if he’s just not there — mentally — this season.
Iit’s a moot point if he rights the ship, though, and that’s what I’m hoping happens today against the Blue Jays and Brian Tallet.
(photo via)
Do we really think that Jeremy Guthrie is intentionally pitching poorly because he took a paycut? Really?
Why does it have to be the paycut or the WBC? Why can’t Guthrie just be having a tough time right now? I realize that strikeouts are down, walks are up, and home runs are up but it could be any number of things. Guthrie is 30 years old, and 30 year olds are often not as good as 29 or 28 year olds.
He took a pay normalizer. He was still riding out the bonus money given to him from being signed by the Indians. He now makes a salary that is more in line with what he should be making. I highly doubt that’s the reason he’s pitching poorly– if he was intelligent (and he is, no question about that), he would understand that pitching poorly is no way to get a pay raise.
The Orioles rotation with Berken in it gives the Orioles the opportunity to win a game through the first 5-7 innings IN EVERY GAME. I have faith in all of our starters– Guthrie, Uehara, Hill, Bergesen and Berken. How many times in the past can you say you’ve looked at the Orioles top five and said “damn, we could win every night of the week if we wanted to”. It’s been quite a while; DCab was here for a long time.
I think this is incredibly exciting. Eaton out; Berken in. LETS WIN SOME BALLGAMES.
WTB
@Greg – What about Jason Berken makes you think he gives the team a chance to win every time out? You’ve never seen him, you don’t know what kind of a pitcher he is, you don’t know how ready he is for the AL East.
Heck, I don’t really know much about him. Everyone seems to be doing cartwheels because the guy had a 2 something ERA and no losses for Norfolk. And I can tell you without any doubt in my mind that those numbers are immensely misleading for the quality of the pitching Berken was giving the Tides.
@Andrew – Who said “intentionally” anything? I’m suggesting that there’s a possibility that a negative event has impacted his mental readiness and, thus, performance. I realize you can’t quantify that kind of thing with stats but, believe it or not, sometimes that doesn’t matter.
rain delay + Orioles lead after 5.5 innings = WIN
@neal s – I just feel like a guy who is as intelligent, talented, competitive, and as good a guy as Guts is can be upset about it but should be able to put it behind him and still go out there and pitch to the top of his ability. Unless I’ve misread his character badly, I really doubt that there’s a particular reason behind his struggles such as the WBC or the paycut. This isn’t at all about stats. I’m not constantly sitting around thinking about stats and how the person factor means nothing.
At any rate, good job today: 7 IP, 1 BB, 0 HR is perfectly acceptable to me even if the strikeouts weren’t there (only 4).
I do not think this right handed heavy lineup is good news for Sherrill. But I do not think being behind by 3 runs is good news for the fightin’ BJs regardless of who is pitching.
Yes indeed, it all goes out the window with a performance like that. What struggles?
Guthrie didn’t look bad today. He had his moments where, yes, he should have done better. But he equally had those moments where he looked good. Guthrie and Baez looked both looked good today, and I am encouraged about the rest of the season.
We need to address our bullpen, but for the most part, I’d say we are on the right path
I have long waited for this point in the season, where the Orioles don’t have that embarrassing starter that makes no sense, has no upside, and can’t get into the 6th with the lead. I said pre-season I thought the O’s would make a strong run at .500 and that most of the preseason evaluations seemed to assume that a) Adam Eaton and Mark Hendrickson would make 50+ combined starts, b) Rich Hill would never win another game in the majors, and c) Koji Uehara was more junk, not worth talking about, and the Orioles should have gotten Kenshin Kawakami instead.
But now we have a young team that can certainly hit (and will get a big boost very soon) and isn’t interested in stopgap, useless veterans making starts. If a useless dude is going to make a start, it’s going to be a young guy who’s been rushed through AAA, not some castoff from the Phillies or Marlins.
So let’s see what happens next. The O’s are certainly in a deep hole in terms of .500, but there’s a lot of season to play, and we have had a brutal opening couple of weeks schedule-wise.
@Andrew – Your “pshaw, he’s nothing special” attitude is the stuff of a fan who is legitimately happy with the way the Orioles are. No room for a 25.5 year old pitcher with decent AAA numbers here. Resign Eaton MacPhail; apparently Andrew doesn’t think this is a good idea.
I don’t think Andrew is going that far, Greg. It sounds to me like the argument is more “Berken is likely not part of the long-term future” than “Berken sucks.”
For my part, I see it this way: at least one member of The Cavalry is likely to falter, and at least one of the so-called second tier guys is likely to surprise us. I’m glad Berken is here (although I’m a Hernandez guy) so we can see what we’ve got and go from there.
I don’t know how you jumped from me saying “useless veterans…castoff from the Phillies” to “Resign Eaton McPhail”. I merely think that Berken has been rushed to the big leagues as is in over his head. I would have preferred Hernandez (although I’m not high on either of them, frankly). I’m excited to see what Berken does with his opportunity, though – you never know when you will find a diamond in the rough – I just don’t expect anything out of him.
Anxious to see Berken pitch. He’s got the potential to surprise some folks. Heard audio clip this AM from Brandon Snyder re: Berken, and Snyder believes Berken will do very well. Says he’s fearless, has 3 excellent pitches, will go inside on guys, and has a warrior’s mentality.
Also, it was good to see Guthrie gut it out yesterday and get the win. Plus, looks like Sherrill’s work with Kranitz is really paying off.
Send Jamie Walker to pasture. Too many bad results too often to be simply bad luck, etc.
There we go, Guthrie. I think he’s going to continue to get better as the season goes along.
Can we give some love to Izturis? None of the past 3 wins would have been possible without Cesar. He’s made play after play out there and we’re already taking it for granted. He’s awesome, straight up.
I’m not sure I see why it would be considered “rushing” Berken. Plus, tonight’s game is going to get rained out anyway, so he probably won’t even end up getting the call. He’s dominated AAA. Give him a taste of the bigs and send him back down if need be. He’ll be alright. Liz, we rushed, but we also didn’t have any other options at the time. Now we have a glorious thing called depth so let’s see what these guys can do. We know what Waters brings. We know was Liz brings. We sort of already know what Pauley brings from his spot starts in Boston and his struggles in ST.
@dan the man – Let’s play Mystery Pitcher:
A) 67 career minor league starts (339 IP), 3 starts at AAA, 9.1 K/9, 5.1 BB/9, 0.3 HR/9 (those are career numbers). Pitcher A’s brief AAA stop featured some pretty strong numbers: 2-0, 1.27 ERA, 1.3 BB/9, 8.9 K/9
B) 66 career minor league starts (375 IP), 5 starts at AAA, 7.7 K/9, 2.5 BB/9, 0.6 HR/9, (again, those are career). Pitcher B’s brief AAA stop featured: 2-0, 1.07 ERA, 2.1 BB/9, 5.7 K/9
Sure, you know that B stands for Berken. And sure, this is cherry picked and not applicable in a variety of ways. But did you know that A stands for Adam Loewen, the poster-boy for rushing prospects?
Again, I’m not totally against Berken coming up and making a spot start. I don’t think he’s really earned it yet, especially compared to David Hernandez. I’m sure glad we aren’t seeing Chris Waters again – but I will quickly point out how excited a lot of you all were about Waters and his potential or whatever last year.
The difference, though, is that the Orioles were forced to promote Loewen early because of his contract. If it was MacPhail running the show when Loewen was in AAA without his ML contract, knowing the kid was a possible future ace? I doubt it. Berken is no ace, and was never supposed to be. Loewen was our Tillman, maybe even more highly regarded.
But I get you. I mean, my point is… Berken isn’t really a top prospect, so whatever. Go ahead and give him a look. It would have been Hernandez if the starts lined up, probably, and he’ll be the next one anyway.
Either way, there’s no way this game gets played tonight.
@dan the man – Yeah. I think we basically agree.
I actually hope it rains, so I can go see Sugar at the movie theatre instead, but I don’t want to miss Berken’s debut.