Thursday, May 13, 2010

Nolan Reimold Sent to Norfolk, Corey Patterson Recalled


(Sorry I've been away from the blog but I'm traveling for work and keeping long hours this week...back to regularly scheduled blogging next week.)

In a way, this is what you have to love about baseball. There's always a surprise. Nobody would've predicted this Oriole transaction back on April 6th.

Nolan Reimold, last season's rookie phenom, was sent back to AAA today after starting the season with a .205/.302/.337 line over 29 games. This represents a failure for the organization as they were too aggressive (or let Reimold be too aggressive) in bringing Nolan back from Achilles tendon surgery in the offseason. Reimold never looked quite right in Spring Training and instead of DHing him exclusively early in the season, they put him in the field far too often when it was apparent he wasn't ready. They should have DHed him exclusively in Spring Training, let him start the season on the 15-day DL, kept him in Sarasota for more rehab and let him come back in late April. Instead, he failed to recover in an adequate manner and is now being sent back to Norfolk. I guess you could call this Monday morning quaterbacking but I expressed this concern in the offseason.

All that said, at this point Reimold should have stayed. He's not hitting for much power and not hitting the ball very hard at this point but he was hitting no worse than Luke Scott and the odds were that he was going to turn it around eventually. The O's cast the die with Reimold, now they should have stuck with him.

Compounding the move is the recall of Corey Patterson. Patterson was (and is) a superior defender but is an offensive black hole. But because he is fast, Dave Trembley will do stupid things like bat him leadoff. Like he did tonight. The first night Patterson was up with the big club.

The bright side? I don't think Reimold will be gone for long. If nothing else, he will force his way back to Baltimore in June and bump Lou Montanez back to AAA. It can't come a moment too soon.

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