I knew it was bad from the 1st game. Not only was it a blown save by Michael Gonzalez, but it also was a loss. Game 2 was not any better. Game 3 was the first win of the season- barely. Then there was the 9-game losing streak. Before we knew it, the O’s only had 5 wins in the month of April. The team that was supposed to be approaching .500 was 5-18. There were injuries- Pie, Gonzalez, Roberts, and Koji. Promising stars from 2009, Bergesen and Reimold, were abysmal.
Nothing was going right except for Ty Wigginton. Meanwhile, Coach Dave Trembley left us all frustrated. He was as dumbfounded as we were. He acted is if there was no explanation for the results we were seeing. All we knew as fans was that if the O’s were going to turn this around, it wasn’t going to be by Dave Trembley.
May was a better month, but not by much. The Orioles started the month by sweeping the Sox, but the momentum failed to continue. The Birds mustered a whopping 10-18 record in May, leaving them on pace for the worst record in baseball history. For Trembley, it was just a matter of time. The papers, the radio stations, the fans, everyone was clamoring for Trembley to be removed. People weren’t going to games. What finally forced MacPhail to make a move was an 8 game losing streak that went into early June. As the O’s arrived home from a bitter sweep at the hands of the Yankees, MacPhail finally let Trembley go.
Trembley is a good guy. He is a like-able guy. He has a decent baseball mind. That being said, he was unable to get the most out of his players. The injuries and slumps hurt, but at the end of the day, his team played terrible under his watch. It would be one thing if they were playing as expected never mind overachieving, but they were playing at the lowest level possible. The change was needed, but the first change wasn’t necessarily the right one.
