Around the Oriole Blog-O-Sphere: Acceptance Edition

Roar from 34 looks at the ultimate good news/bad news situation. The Orioles pitching staff has been racking up quality starts. But they haven't been winning any of them.

Camden Crazies delves deep into the question..."Where the hell if the offense?"

Camden Depot has a quick graph showing Nick Markakis' walk rate and how it has diminished over the past week or so. Indeed, Nick has no walks and 9 strikeouts over the past 9 games, something he'll need to turn around if he is to have lasting success this season. I would imagine this is a sign that he is pressing a bit, feeling the need to swing the bat more with the offense in a funk. But for now, it's working.

Baltimore Sports Report breaks down the upcoming series in Boston.

It could always be worse. At least the Orioles are not the 1899 Cleveland Spiders.

Chris Stoner at Baltimore Sports and Life looks ahead to what he hopes to see from the rest of the Oriole season. It certainly better than focusing on the present.

Over at Camden Chat, sandalfan believes that the Oriole's woes are best explained by one phenomenon...bad luck.

Patrick Smith imagines Andy MacPhail having a sit-down with Dave Trembley. This is a week old but unfortunately, still very relevant.

Not really the Blog-O-Sphere but Shorebirds announcer Bret Lasky has an interview with former Oriole and current Delmarva coach Mike Devereaux. I know Bret did an interview with Matt Hobgood...looking forward to hearing that.

Quick Thoughts on the Slump

If you would have told me that the Orioles' starters would be 7th in the AL in ERA during the first week of the season, I would have been encouraged. If you would have told me that the Oriole starters would have turned in more quality starts than the Yankees or the Red Sox, I would have been thrilled. If you would have told me that the Oriole starters would lead the AL in strikeouts, I would have thought the Orioles would have been off to a very good start.

Hasn't worked out that way, has it? All the above facts are true and yet the O's are 1-6.

The starting rotation was supposed to be the big question mark on this team, especially early in the season. Instead, the starters have been solid. The bullpen, outside of Mike Gonzalez has also been solid.

The real issue has been the offense, a supposed source of relative strength. A .312 OBP and a .365 SLG give the team a .676 OPS so far. Only Cleveland and Seattle has been worse.

If you believe the bats will stay cold, I guess there's reason to worry. I have a hard time believing that though. This slump sucks but things are bound to get better and soon.

Base Hits: 6/19/2008

Oriole Magic is alive and well. Baltimore comes from behind again (only 1 run but still...) to win in extra innings. The Orioles now have 36 wins and 22 of them have been comeback wins.

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The offense is finally starting to heat up. June OPS's for major players:

              June OPS
Hernandez       .760
Millar          .811
Huff            .911
Roberts         .954
Bynum           .404
Mora            .794
Markakis       1.037
Jones           .796
Scott          1.222
Payton          .837
 

Outside of that sucking sound eminating from shortstop, these are all very encouraging trends. Especially for Adam Jones. I had such high hopes for Freddie Bynum though.

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I have nothing against Erik Bedard and Miguel Tejada but it does make me happy that they wanted out of town and now are on teams that are worse than the Orioles. Of course, it's a Catch 22. We wouldn't be so good without the pieces we got in return for those guys. (Sarfate, Albers, Scott, Jones, Sherrill, etc.)

I have seen credible reports that the Mariners may try to move Bedard at the deadline in July. Wow. That was a really bad trade for them...

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Jay Gibbons has signed on with the Long Island Ducks of the Independent Atlantic League. Good luck to Jay, it's a long road back.

Jay joins fellow ex-Oriole Todd Williams as a Duck.

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God, I can't wait for the Orioles to face off against the Yankees and Sidney Ponson.

Giving the O's Some PrOPS...and Reavealing the Real Problem With This Team

Last week I wrote a post about Ramon Hernandez and how he is hitting better than his Mendoza-esque batting average would indicate.

It looks like it's catching.

          Actual Batting Line      PrOPS Batting Line
Roberts     .263/.353/.421           .288/.374/.432
Mora        .257/.306/.412           .284/.330/.441
Markakis    .270/.395/.451           .290/.409/.510
Millar      .224/.315/.344           .274/.358/.438
Huff        .266/.341/.452           .265/.337/.450
Scott       .286/.366/.418           .252/.337/.353
Jones       .231/.272/.359           .250/.291/.370
R.Hernandez .202/.234/.364           .302/.330/.465
L.Hernandez .243/.304/.257           .276/.336/.340
 

So far, only Aubrey Huff is hitting about what he should be hitting based on the batted ball data. Adam Jones is close but he should have slightly better results at this point.

Luke Scott is the only player who seems to be destined for a correction down. Indeed, that may be what this slump Luke's been in actually is, a correction to the kind of numbers he will actually put up.

Everyone else is underperforming their PrOPS scores. It can't last. There is going to be some upswing in the offense barring an injury. Again, look for Ramon Hernandez, Kevin Millar, Brian Roberts and Nick Markakis to come out of this funk pretty soon with modest increases from Melvin Mora and Luis Hernandez. (Of course, you could replace Luis and spell Mora with Scott Moore every so often and goose the numbers up that way...)

The offense is not great but it is not as bereft as it looks right now. Dave Trembley needs to leave these guys in the lineup and it will work itself out.

Their baserunning on the other hand...I haven't found statistical evidence of this but there can't possibly be another team in the majors who has been picked off, thrown out stealing or thrown out trying to take an extra base more than the Baltimore Orioles.

More than hitting, fans should be concerned about the fielding on this team. Brian Roberts is near the bottom in the league for fielding by a second baseman. Ditto for Luis Hernandez. Melvin More has been OK. Millar has been bad. Ramon has been passable behind the plate but leads the league with 4 throwing errors. (The outfield defense, in fairness, is pretty good across the board.)

The Orioles are going to play a lot of close games this year so the team needs to find solutions to it's defensive woes (especially up the middle) if it hopes to be respectable.

Watching the Game....

...and it's so frustrating watching these guys hit the ball right at defenders!

This team is not this bad offensively. It will get better. But they can't buy a break these days...

Just had to get that off my chest.

Around the Oriole Blogosphere: 5/7/2008

Before I start the trip around the blogosphere, this quick fact. The Orioles are 1-5 in their last 6 games but the pitching staff has an ERA of 3.48. Obviously, the offense is letting the team down at the moment but the 4 errors in the last 6 games isn't helping either.

More on all that later...

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Amber Theoharis reports that Adam Loewen could be back on the mound as soon as next month.

When Loewen returns, that could be the end of Steve Trachsel as an Oriole. The only reason he's here now is that the Orioles don't want to rush some of their young pitchers but now with Guthrie, Cabrera, and Burres seemingly entrenched as starters, Garrett Olson off to an encouraging start and Matt Albers breathing down Trachsel's neck, he's going to get squeezed out. And that's a good thing.

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I was going to blog about this myself but two other Oriole bloggers have done it for me. Jonah Keri wrote about "loser dynasties" on ESPN.com (where the Orioles belong) and stated among other things that the Oriole's ETA for a winning season is 2012. Matthew Taylor from Roar From 34 and Ben at Oriole Central both wonder about the depth of Keri's analysis of the past and the prospects for the future.

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Ben also looks at the sorry state of the Oriole offense and ponders a future without Steve Trachsel.

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Meanwhile, Matthew Taylor ponders what the present would have been had the Orioles traded Tejada for Ervin Santana and Erick Aybar

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Dave (aka Desert O of Weaver's Tantrum) is hiking the Appalachian Trail and has reached Hot Springs, NC. A good read and coming soon...a bear raids Dave's camp!

Dave has started giving me the itch to strap on my pack and start training for a hike again. Not the whole Appalachian Trail but I do miss backpacking and haven't done any since I left Maine. I started training in February but family illnesses put that on the backburner. Time to start again, I've got the bug.

Evidently, Dave has started Enchanting Sunshine's mind to wander to the trail as well.

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Speaking of Enchanting Sunshine, she has split off her Oriole musings to a different blog called Oriole Fanatic, at least for now. (edit: Looks like the new blog is now called Sixteen Gold Gloves...for now)

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Anthony is tired on the same old results from the offense at Oriole Magic.

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Wayward O wants no more "styling" on the basepaths from Ramon on the basepaths and less knee-jerk reactions from Oriole fans. Oh, this post too with a hilarious picture of Melvin Mora vs. the Angels...

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Pressbox Online has an article on Oriole pitching coach Rick Kranitz.

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SC thinks the Orioles have seen the last of .500 this season.