Comments on: On Jeremy Guthrie and Jason Berken

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 26 May 2009 16:50:06 +0000

@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.

By: dan the man

dan the man — Tue, 26 May 2009 16:47:17 +0000

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.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 26 May 2009 16:31:45 +0000

@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.

By: dan the man

dan the man — Tue, 26 May 2009 15:51:05 +0000

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.

By: rick

rick — Tue, 26 May 2009 15:46:38 +0000

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.