Base Hits: 2/13/2009

I had to give a tip of the hat to Desert O at Weaver's Tantrum who did a fair job of arguing that Rich Hill's control problems may have been injury related and Rick Ankiel-like mental blocks may have been overstated.

A well argued premise that seems to been given credence by Hill himself during an interview on The Hot Stove show in MASN. Per Roch Kubatko's blog:

Hill said the injury, to a "little joint" in his back, often occurs when attempting to lift something heavy.

"I tried to compensate so I could compete," he said. "It kept building and building, and every start it would get worse and worse.

"I blame myself for continuing on and trying to fight through it."

So a tip of the hat to Desert O. Nobody who writes about the Orioles had made that assertion before him. Well played sir, well played.

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Just in time for Valentine's Day, Garrett Olson is moving on with his new partner while removing reminders of the old one:

But Thursday morning (Garrett Olson) spent time getting rid of the last vestiges of his Baltimore Oriole pitching career.

He took a black magic marker and filled in all the orange on his pitching cleats, orange being the dominant color of the Orioles. Actually, Olson did it with one pair and clubhouse worker Pete Fortune did it with another pair. It was sort of a paint-by-number thing.

Olson eventually will get properly color-coded shoes inclusive of the Mariner blue and teal. But for the moment, ''I didn't want to go out there wearing the orange,'' Olson said.

This is the baseball version of removing the old pictures with your ex-girlfriend in them before bringing over a new prospect for dinner. Good luck looking for happiness Garrett...

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MASN has released their schedule for televised Spring Training games...only 4 Oriole games on the schedule. LAME.

Look, the Orioles are most certainly going to be a losing club in 2009 and the one thing fans have to look forward to are the young prospects. So let us see them play! This schedule could easily be doubled. I guess I'll be reduced to watching other teams during Spring Training...again.

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Write your own punchline. Feel free to leave them in the comments for this post!

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The Orioles have signed another Japanese pitcher, this time former Chiba Lotte Marine farmhand Ryohei Tanaka. According to a translation from NPB Tracker, Tanaka said "I was surprised. When I heard, tears came out." Given the state of recent Oriole teams, one has to wonder whether they were tears of sorrow or joy...

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Pitcher and catchers report on Sunday! Spring is nearly here!