| 16 April 2010
Last night, the Orioles lost their seventh straight game, as Ben Sheets got his first win in long time and the A's took the first contest of a four game set, 6-2
.
David Hernandez took his second loss on the year, going five innings and gave up five runs. He was charged with four of them.
The two real positives out of the game were Adam Jones were Mark Hendrickson.
Jones, has struggled in the first week and half or so of the season, went 3-for-5 and showed signs of coming out of his slump; meanwhile, Hendrickson continued his nice showing in the bullpen by throwing two scoreless innings. Plus, Nick Markakis got his first RBI of the season.
Other than that, Thursday's game was par for the course with the Orioles this year. There were more errrors (one by Jones and another by Wigginton to score in a run), lack of hitting in scoring position (0-for-8), and David Hernandez struggling on the mound.
As I see it, this team is not playing well at all. Yes, there's some bad luck involved; however, this team looks listless, clueless and out of sync. You've got guys learning new positions, crazy injuries, youth, and bats that can't seem to do much at all.
With Gonzalez out now, Jim Johnson is the decfato closer. Also, Kam Mickolio is back up, Pie is hurt (again) and it looks like Lou Montanez is coming back up.
Now, hearing the chatter on the radio and everything on television, a lot of fans want Dave Trembley's head. In all honesty, the past two weeks isn't really the fault of Dave Trembley. If the losing continures, of course he'll be fired, but what would be the point right now? Maybe change might be good; however, shaking up the sake of shaking things up would just lead to more madness.
He's not the problem. The team as constructed right now has flaws - some of them considerable.
The good news for tonight is Kevin Millwood is on the mound. Hopefully, he can act as a stopper and end this skid. This road trip is just beginning and if Baltimore doesn't get it together soon, once next weekend comes around they'll have to contend with 12 straight contests with Boston and New York.
Right now, let's hope for the best. It's going to be a long season from the looks of it. Despite the pain right now, it's too early to bail and things should get better.
This week also, the Orioles had the lowest attendance ever at Camden Yards on Monday with a little north of 9,100 people in the seats. Although there have been many theories as to why a game played at Camden Yards had almost no one come out on a gorgeous night, the simple answer is...
This team sucked for 12 years and still sucks.
Once you combine the 12 yeard of losing, a bad team & the pricing of tickets bought from the box-office on game day, it's it little wonder why few people would put their finanical and emotional investment into a product?
The losing affects more than the players and fans -- it trickles it way down to businesses, staffing at the stadium, vendors and more nameless faces than we realize. Seriously, something needs to be done to bring a viable product back to the field. The fans still care - as evidenced by the anger on the 'net and radio, but they are staying away from the park in droves.
Obviously, Andy MacPhail is trying to bring the team back to proimence, but this is all hard to stomach. Well, I hate to say this, but we all should perhaps start looking back at some of the choices our Chief Operating Office has made.
Finally, I am not happy at this revelation -- the 'Scalp Free' zone is gone. I can see why this has been done with Stubhub (which MLB has a business stake in) and to get more bodies to the box office, but did I ever get some deals over the years in that area.
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