Tag Archives: Baltimore Orioles

The Orioles stink at everything, especially losing

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Some interesting statistics and rankings of the 2012 Baltimore Orioles:
22nd: Their rank in team Batting Average (.245)

23rd: Their rank in team OBP (.310)

17th: Their rank in team OPS (.719)

18th: Their rank in runs scored (569)

17th: Their rank in team ERA (4.01)

9th most: Their rank in hits allowed (1196)

Tied for seventh most: Their rank in Home Runs allowed (152)

20th best: Their rank in WHIP [Walks and Hits per innings pitched] (1.31)

Tied for second most: Their rank in team errors (97)

2nd: Their rank in the American League East

1: Games back of the New York Yankees

Getting a lay of who is still in it, who isn’t, and who could get back into it

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Well, with the Olympics now over, it’s time to return to 100% baseball mode. Okay, 97% baseball mode. You never know when I might decide to go off on a tangent about football or the movies or something.

But right now, all baseball. With the season about to enter it’s last month-and-a-half of madness, it’s time to figure out where all the teams are and who, exactly, still has a shot at reaching the playoffs. With the addition of the second Wild Card, this means more teams than previous years have at least an outside shot at the postseason. Of course, that doesn’t mean every team has an outside shot. So, here are how every team can be classified, in rough order of least to most chance of reaching the playoffs.

(jump)

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Baseball Public Service Announcement: Manny Machado

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We interrupt this regularly scheduled blog for a special Baseball Public Service Announcement to inform you of Manny Machado of the Baltimore Orioles, who hit two home runs in just his second MLB game. That, by the way, made the 20-year-old the youngest person to ever have a two-homer game in either his first or second game.

Go after the jump for more.

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RETRACTION- The Orioles are not dead

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On July 17, I declared that the Orioles’ playoff hopes were dead.

However, since then, the Orioles have somewhat stabilized, and are now 6.5 games out of 1st in the AL East and only 1.5 out of a Wild Card spot. Therefore, as I thought they would drop completely off the map by the end of July as they struggled heavily, I must retract my previous statement: the Orioles are alive.
At least for now. They continue to be playing far better than their run differential suggest (they’d be 46-59 if their record reflected their run differential!), and, while they didn’t make any moves at the deadline and have had Jim Thome and Brian Roberts go on the DL, it’s becoming increasingly clear that they will at least somewhat remain in it so long as they can continue defying the gravity of their run differential problem. They are winning close games but losing blowouts.

It will, in the end, all come down to how they play against their AL East rivals. And in MLB’s toughest division, I’m wary of making predictions.

Obituary: The 2012 Baltimore Orioles’ Playoff Hopes

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The Playoff Hopes of the Baltimore Orioles passed away last night at the age of 89 games, dying shortly after a 19-7 trouncing at the hands of the Minnesota Twins, who sometimes don’t even seem to score 19 runs during a single month. Although Hopes, who had not been seen this late since 1997, is still technically alive, doctors confirm that the prognosis is extremely grim and that it is only a matter of time before it is overtaken and destroyed by the American League East and the tough competition for the AL Wild Card spots due to a lack of starting pitching.

The Orioles’ Playoff Hopes leaves behind it’s brother, fellow Baltimore native Michael Phelps Olympic Hopes, as well as it’s distant cousin, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Playoff Hopes.

Services are the rest of the season. In lieu of flowers, send quality starting pitchers.

Jim Thome: Just another 500 HR hitter to play for the Orioles

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Jim Thome is, according to MLB Network, going to the Baltimore Orioles. It makes sense: the Phillies have been floundering with their bats on the DL and every starting pitcher not named Cole Hamels either hurt or having a sub-par season (if they continue to rest in the basement, look for Hamels to get shopped around too). The Orioles, having fallen behind New York but still fighting everybody else in the AL East, could always use another bat.

Or maybe they are just continuing the long Orioles tradition of having a member of the 500 Home Run Club play for them at one point or another during their career. Check the jump for what I mean.

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Stuff that has happened since the last time Jamie Moyer pitched for the Orioles

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On September 16, 1995, Jamie Moyer came in and pitched 1.1 innings in a relief appearance for the Baltimore Orioles against the Yankees. The game was called due to rain after six innings.

Moyer has not pitched for the Orioles since then.

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They call the AAA team the Norfolk Tides (but the All-Stars don’t wear blue)

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Miguel Tejada (left) chats with Brian Roberts before a ballgame in Rochester. Photo by Dan Glickman.

Brian Roberts. Miguel Tejada. Nate McLouth. Jamie Moyer. Between those four players, there are 10 All-Star Game selections. And yet, all four of them are currently at Baltimore’s AAA affiliate in Norfolk. There are several other ex-MLBers on the Norfolk roster as well, such as Bill Hall.  I recently saw three games involving the Tides. Here are some impressions of this unusual group of players who all have found their way to the International League, whether due to injury, poor play, bad luck or an attempt to make a comeback.

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What is wrong with the Orioles?

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It’s too early to declare the Orioles’ season, which I wrote about awhile back, as heading down the tubes. But it is definitely not looking as good as it once did. They’ve lost six straight. They’ve fallen out of first. Nick Markakis is hurt. The AL East is becoming even more of a gigantic no-holds-barred brawl than it was.
So what happened?

What happened was that the pitching- especially the starting pitching has been having a tough week. They have been routinely falling behind early. They fell 5-0 on Friday night, for example, giving up all of those runs in the first inning. They were falling behind to the Blue Jays early in games. In other words, the Orioles are getting dragged into the same kind of shooting-gallery, pray-we-can-outhit-them-because-our-pitching-cannot-stop-them kinds of games they’ve been getting stuck in the last decade and a half or so. Spoiler alert: They usually can’t.

The Orioles are by no means out of it yet. They are only one game back. A win today would get them tied for first again. Two wins over the weekend would get them to first outright. All of the AL East teams have flaws, and the Orioles still have a very good bullpen, something that is essential in this day and age. They also have Adam Jones, who can, on some days, win a game by himself.

The question is: Can they pull themselves off the mat, or will, like so many season before, the Orioles squander a good start and fall back into the basement?

Only time will tell.

Who is Dylan Bundy?

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This is a baseball public service announcement.

You may have been hearing about somebody named Dylan Bundy on ESPN. And perhaps you are wondering: “Who is this Dylan Bundy?”

The answer: Only one of the best pitchers in the minors. Maybe even in all of baseball. He’s 19, in the Orioles organization, and yesterday, in his first start in High-A Frederick and ninth start overall, he gave up his first professional earned runs. Ever. This brought his total ERA to date to… 0.51 in 35 innings. The six hits he gave up yesterday doubled his career minor league total to an astounding… 11. And his opponents’ batting average for his career has skyrocketed to… .097.

Oh, and he’s walked a grand total of two people. That means that, given how many hits he has given up, his WHIP (Walks/Hits Innings Pitched) is 0.371. In other words, he allows less than half a man to reach base per innings.

Oh, and he’s struck out 46.

It is too early to think about how Bundy will do as he makes his way up the ranks, and, of course, every pitcher is a ticking injury time bomb, but should he be able to move up the ranks, it won’t surprise me if he ends up in Baltimore near the end of the year if they are still in the race. And he could be a regular starter in just a year or two.

This has been a baseball public service announcement.