Trembley said simply that he wanted to let Luis Hernandez play, completely sidestepping a question altogether about Tejada not playing. Tejada, a four-time All-Star, seemed perplexed by the reasoning behind his seat on the bench.

“They feel like they want to give me a day off. I don’t know if it’s a day off or I’m sitting on the bench,” he said. “Then I can go somewhere else next year, [if] they have somebody that can play short. That would be nice for me.”

When pressed further, Tejada said that he didn’t want a trade — he just wants to play shortstop. Trembley said that it may appear to be a grand shakeup, but that it’s really more an opportunity to empty his bench.

Before jumping to any conclusions it’s only fair to point out that he did say he wasn’t asking for a trade, and you have to feel for the guy given the way this team has crumbled around him. That said, this reinforces my feeling that a change of scenery would be the best thing for all parties involved. He clearly doesn’t want to be here, and the two or three good prospects we could probably get for him would likely help us out a lot more in the long run.

The answer appears to be “nope.” SI.com is reporting that O’s outfielder Jay Gibbons is the latest ballplayer to get caught in the steroids investigation net.

This news, I’m guessing, surprises exactly none of you. Gibbons is practically a poster boy for steroid use, and the rumors have been around for several years. Of course it’s all still “alleged”, and we should remain willing to hear Jay’s explanation if he has one.

That said, let’s assume it’s true. If so it raises two major issues:

1. Is this it, or are there others?
The same question we had with Palmeiro can only get stronger now. Jerry Hairston, you’ll recall, has already been mentioned, and I’ve heard a thing or two about Larry Bigbie. But what if there’s another “big” name out there? What if Tejada‘s infamous B-12 shots really were dirty? This could get real, real ugly.

2. What do the Orioles do with Gibbons now?
The easy answer is “put him on the next bus out.” But it’s not that simple. They could cut him and take the financial hit, or they could try to wiggle out of his contract if the allegations prove true. But if they do that it’s going to set a terrible precedent, one that I doubt the Players Union would take sitting down. We may very well be facing the prospect of a steroid-tainted Gibbons suiting up for the O’s through the 09 season.

Nothing surprises me anymore.

My life is words. Whether or not you get a sense of it here — I’d like to think you do — I’m a pretty good writer. But I’m not sure a Frankenstein‘s monster with Hemingway‘s experience, Gammons‘ baseball knowledge, Joyce‘s gift for prose, and Hunter S. Thompson‘s appreciation of the absurd could manage to find sufficient words to explain what has happened with this team.

30-3, 9-7, 5-2, 7-4, 8-1, 11-3, 15-8, 5-4, 8-6, 8-9 (win!), 10-0, 3-2, 9-7, 4-8 (win!), 17-2.

I had it in the back of my mind that the 4-32 stretch with which we closed the ’02 season was as bad as it could ever get. Not by a long shot.

The 2007 Baltimore Orioles are the most hopeless, futile, snake-bitten, ragtag bunch of underachievers in the history of baseball. Take a look at this 2005 Sports Illustrated list of the worst teams in history. Records aside, I don’t see anything worse than what we’ve got.

Why? Because losing is one thing, and losing in epic, demoralizing fashion is quite another. You can appreciate a loser. You can even, under the right circumstances, get behind a loser. But you can neither appreciate nor get behind a group that consistently loses the way these guys do it.

There’s little to love. Their two most exciting and intriguing players — Erik Bedard and Nick Markakis — go about their business in stoic fashion. That’s kind of awesome in my book, but it doesn’t offer much to warm the heart. Their most colorful and vocal leader, Kevin Millar, doesn’t have enough baseball talent to do it all himself. Their most bankable stars, Miguel Tejada and Melvin Mora, have all but given up.

Only a torrid late-season run (and I’m talking wins at a .650 clip) could come close to redeeming this season. Failing that, we have but one solution: complete offseason overhaul.

I’m talking about trading Tejada and Mora (who, I’d imagine, will have no problem relinquishing his no-trade protection). I’m talking about taking offers on Roberts and, yes, Bedard. I’m talking about ridding this team of every last scrap of the past ten years of futility.

The future is Matt Wieters, Billy Rowell, Brandon Snyder, and the guys we get in those trades. It’s guys who aren’t part of the losing culture.

This approach might mean more losses next year. It might mean two or three last-place finishes.

But tell the truth: wouldn’t you take it at this point in exchange for a clean break?

I did an image search just now for “futility.” That search turned up this page, and the following image (click both pics for larger versions):

What we’ve got here is a team facing an epic losing streak. This is the kind of thing that fans of pretty much every other team, in every other sport, look at and say “wow, I’m sure glad we’re not that bad.”

Remember 4-32? This might get worse. Throughout all of the struggles we’ve seen over the past five years there has always been something to fall back on. We’ve always been able to say “we’re not Pittsburgh, we’re not Kansas City.”

I’ve got a splash of cold water for you: the Orioles aren’t Pittsburgh or Kansas City, they’re worse. At sixteen games below .500 the O’s currently outpace only the Devil Rays, Marlins, and Nationals — each of whom has, arguably, a brighter outlook next year than the black-and-orange.

One of whom just swept us at home.

So maybe that first image isn’t the one we want. Maybe it’s time to settle in and make this next one our mantra. It might be the only way.