Orioles-Mets: Echoes of ’69?
I really wanted to do something with this post that stirred up some kind of vengeful passion regarding 1969, but I can’t. The truth is that the Orioles settled that score (not really) back in 1998.
Yes, Joe Carter was on that team. So were Norm Charlton and Doug Drabek. 1998, my friends, was a rough year.
I digress.
Tonight we’ll send struggling ace Jeremy Guthrie to the mound against Mike Pelfrey (4-2, 4.68) in what appears to be a very winnable matchup. Adam Jones is back in the lineup and happy days are here again.
Damn it, Guthrie is frustrating.
Bats coming to life in the sixth…so, so nice to see Nick get another homer under his belt.
Headed to the bottom of the ninth down by 4. I could use some Birdland here.
Off-topic, but did anybody else notice Jon Heyman making an ass of himself again over the weekend by claiming Nats manager Manny Acta was about to be fired? Here we are on Tuesday night and it hasn’t happened. Not saying it won’t (doesn’t take a genius to speculate on that), but in typical Heyman fashion he spoke with undeserved authority on something that he basically didn’t know much about. What an ass.
This got a little interesting, yeah?
No I didn’t hear that it came from Heyman, but I did hear about that rumor.
WOAH WOAH WIGGI!
He took some acting classes last winter, just barely got by with that walk.
Oh man…Mr. Jones…take us home.
well…they at least used up K-Rod tonight, got him over 20 pitches.
This loss sucked, but it wasn’t embarrassing. The fact that Markakis finally hit another homer eases the pain quite a bit.
@Tomás – good call on K-Rod. That could prove valuable tomorrow. Although I’d just as soon not see him at all.
To be fair, when I say “not embarrassing” that is completely coming from hearing it on the radio, and not the whole thing at that. I realize that the errors probably are actually embarrassing.
I dont know, Neal. That was easily winnable. Despite scoring all those runs sat and sun, the O’s still look a team that doesn’t care very much, with BRob being the main culprit. I know tonight was just a rough night and all good players have nights like this, but he looks like he has been just going through the motions for a while. He jogs to 1st routinely, he loses focus on grounders, he swings at everything. Maybe that new contract and another losing season has got him complacent. Whatever it is its depressing to see.
I dont know what to think about Mora, he’s a black hole in the middle of the lineup right now. Part of me thinks he’s definately on the decline and part of me thinks he’s just having a rough first half and maybe he’ll absolutely tear up the second half like last year. One thing is fact he is definately not as fast as he used to be and someone needs to tell him that. No more bunting for hits no more stretching singles to doubles no more super aggressive baserunning he used to be able to get away with.
It’s not the whole team that looks dead. Reimold looks very good. Luke is awesome. The pitching has been pretty good lately. But the select few that are dogging it are really starting to get on my nerves. AJ, BRob, Huff.
I hear you, Dan, and if you watched the game then you definitely have a perspective on how they looked that I can’t claim.
It’d be hard for me to believe, though, that Roberts doesn’t care. Nothing in his history suggest that he’s a quitter. Maybe he’s tired or nursing some nagging injury, but I can’t imagine that he’s given up — especially this early. My guess would be that he’s simply slumping a bit right now and that he’ll put together another run soon.
I agree 100% on Mora, though. I love the guy but he needs to realize that he’s a different player now than he was 3-5 years ago. He’s got to play smart and use his experience as an advantage.
I was spitting nickels when Adam Jones struck out. He swung at three pitches he either had no business swinging at or could have easily clubbed into the gap or over the wall.
My mom had a term that she used to use when watching games like that with me as a pup: Bozo Ball.
That was tough to watch, folks.
Sloppy play afield and lackadaisical turns at the plate yielded an unneccesary loss.
Guthrie’s seeing an unfortunate regression to the mean. I don’t have my copy of the Baseball Prospectus in front of me, but I seem to recall that for the last two years he’s seen an unsustainably low Batted Balls in Play avegare (BABIP, if you will).
Which is to say, for two years, batters kept hitting them off Guthrie where someone was waiting for them.
This year, not so much.
Hey, I was at this game, so I feel like I can comment on a few things (and our discussion two days ago can happily be avoided):
1) I don’t think it’s a case of the team not caring. If anything, the veterans are trying to I think maintain an even keel. You saw Roberts approach in the ninth compared to the much younger Jones. I think if we had a team of guys with the mental approach of Roberts, we would have won last night. Don’t get too crazy about winning, don’t get too down about losing – that’s how to survive a baseball season.
2) Guthrie was actually pretty good last night. The key is giving up no home runs (not that Mets hit a ton of homers, but still). If Roberts doesn’t boot the double play grounder to him, Guts probably gives up 2 runs instead of 4, and if Huff doesn’t drop that popup (oh, the irony), those other two runs don’t score. So, the defense was maddening, Guthrie was pretty good.
3) One last thing on Roberts – I doubt he has a nagging injury or is down on the game or complacent or any of that junk, and I’ll just throw out that he stole second in the ninth to really put the pressure on K-Rod and Jones. That was a really smart play right there. It just didn’t work out.
We’ll get’em tonight unless it rains.
…and by “avegare” in the previous post, I meant “average”. I swear, the longer I work in DC, the dumber I get.
I’m a little disappointed in Roberts right now. Not only did he not step up and address the error after the game, he hasn’t been running down the line to 1st base. Add to that the fact that he’s not embracing a leadership role on this team and you have another typical Orioles veteran. Now I will support Roberts to the death more than I would have ever supported a guy like Tejada, but it’s getting worrisome.
It’s also worrisome that when Trembley took over this team two years ago, he was fire and brimstone, accountability, hustle, and all that good shit. Now it’s “these things happen”, “99% percent of the time, we’ll make those plays”, and “I think you have to support your guys.” What exactly changed? Where the balls?
I’m frustrated this morning.
@Greg – Jones has been slipping back into this tendency. You can almost call a strikeout at certain points in the game before a pitch is even thrown to him. He’s regressing right now, in my opinion.
@dan the man – Well, Dan, I don’t know what to tell you (mostly because I, too, am losing some of that Trembley-faith, but not a lot of it) but these things DO happen. Nobody goes errorless, even on routine plays. I’m not sure it’s healthy for the manager (or anyone) to get really hot under the collar everytime something bad happens.
@dan the man – I blame the diet soda frankly.
@Andrew – Yeah.. I guess this year there hasn’t been a lot of balls. I need more balls on my baseball team. Well, the Aubrey fist pump was pretty ballsy, and I enjoyed that. But now he’s not hitting home runs.
Winning cures everything, bottom line. So does good pitching.
What I don’t like is DT changing his approach in what looks like an attempt to be liked by the veterans. That smacks of Sam Perlozzo, to be honest. Maybe there’s less to be fired up about this year. And maybe he’s doing more than we know with the kids, making sure they play hard, etc. And maybe it’s hard to get on Brian’s case when your boss just handed him $44 million and you’re hoping to keep your job as the manager.