By Zach Wilt, on October 6th, 2011  It’s hilarious to me that a month ago Andy MacPhail’s departure from the Baltimore Orioles was a done deal. It was a sure thing that was being reported by all kinds of media around Baltimore. Today, MacPhail’s future is much more disputable and some are reporting the opposite from those August and September certainties.
MacPhail’s contract is set to expire at the end of October and initial reports linked Orioles manager Buck Showalter to be his successor. Dan Connolly of The Sun reports that MacPhail and Orioles owner Peter Angelos met last Thursday after the Orioles bumped the Boston Red Sox from the American League Wild Card. Had MacPhail decided to leave the team it likely would have been in that meeting. Roch Kubatko is MASN reports that MacPhail is “still deciding what he wants to do.”
Fourteen straight losing seasons always make fans want change, but this season I felt that MacPhail had arguably his best year with the O’s. For starters he locked up a franchise shortstop in J.J. Hardy who the team signed to an extension in the middle of the year. He also brought in the team’s only true power hitter in Mark Reynolds and dealt an older injury prone relief pitcher (Koji Uehara) for a starting pitcher (Tommy Hunter) and first/third baseman (Chris Davis).
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By Matt Sadler, on August 31st, 2011 The Michael Gonzalez experience is over in Baltimore. 2 years and $12 dollars later (I guess the Rangers are covering some of the cost) and all we he has to show for it is 3-5 record, a 4.18 ERA, 78 innings and …wait…. here it is…. 2 saves. yes folks, this guy was supposed to be the closer. 2 saves in 2 years. He blew more saves the first week of the 2010 season.
Anyway, I shouldn’t be surprised that all the O’s got in return was the nebulous “Player to be Named Later.”At least he is off the books. Maybe, we can now start the healing process.
By Zach Wilt, on July 15th, 2011 Major League Baseball is back in full swing (did you miss it?) and the Orioles and Red Sox suspensions have been issued. As you’d expect, MLB’s disciplinary actions were just as ridiculous as the incident itself.
To summarize, David Ortiz, who started the entire incident on an inside pitch, got four games along with Kevin Gregg. Mike Gonzalez got three games for throwing at Ortiz on Sunday after warnings had been issued to both teams, though the Orioles hadn’t hit anyone and had two of their players hit. Buck Showalter got one game for ordering Gonzo go hit Ortiz, which is ridiculous because the Orioles had been getting plunked all series. Jim Johnson and Jarrod Saltalamacchia were fined and John Lackey, who hit Markakis without a warning and Derrek Lee, was disciplined.
To summarize, Boston players started a fight on a pitch that never hit one of their players, then threw at the Orioles the next day, which caused warnings for Baltimore and when the Orioles finally retaliated their manager and relief pitcher get suspended. Absolutely laughable.
And what about Josh Beckett’s comments after the fight? “But if it’s just because we scored eight runs in the first inning and they’re going to throw at our [expletive] guys, it’s going to be a long year,” Beckett said. Sounds an awful lot like a threat and he didn’t even receive the slap on the wrist that Lackey got.
What a joke.
By Zach Wilt, on May 20th, 2011  For Orioles fans, it’s a sigh of relief. No more green monster, no more “Let’s go Yankees,” no more pinstripes or New England accents and no more Red Sox and Yankees bias until mid-July. Thank goodness for that.
The Orioles dropped three straight games to Boston and New York by a combined 25-9. They lost the games on the field, but the bias presented by the umpires certainly doesn’t make the situation any better. It seems that everyone is afraid to call out the Evil Empire and the…what do we even call Boston…the Want-To-Be-Evil Empire, because as we all know, Boston fans so desperately wish to be just like New York fans.
The Boston/New York bias has gotten out of control. On Monday, the Orioles faced Daisuke Matsuzaka in a four hour 9 inning game. No rain delays, no benches clearing brawls, not a ton of pitching changes, but a game that lasted four hours. Why, you ask? Because Matsuzaka throws a pitch about every minute and half. Dice-K throws one across the plate, then wonders back to the mound, signs a few autographs, takes some photos with fans, calls him family, shakes off Varitek a few times and then throws another pitch. Four hours for a nine inning game is ridiculous, but you won’t see it change because that would require the umpires to tell Boston that they’re doing something wrong. You’d never see that, especially in front of their home crowd.
Against New York, it’s a similar situation. In the bottom of the 9th inning on Wednesday, Marino Rivera was called upon to close a 1-0 game at Camden Yards. Now I know Mo is about 50 years old, but he took his sweet old time getting from the bullpen to the mound. It got so bad that Orioles manager Buck Showalter voiced his complaints with the umpires, reportedly asking them to cut back Rivera’s warm up pitches. As predicted, they did no such thing.
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By Zach Wilt, on May 19th, 2011  After a five hour, 15 inning game in which Buck Showalter and the Orioles used two starters and seven relief pitchers, the Orioles certainly face some question marks going into game two against the Yankees.
Showalter was forced to throw Thursday’s starter, Jeremy Guthrie in the 15th inning after Mike Gonzalez surrendered the lead to the Yankees. Guthrie pitched a full inning and was not charged with any earned runs. He threw just seven pitches.
“I’m ready to go tomorrow, so we’ll see,” Guthrie told MASNSports.com’s Roch Kubatko. ”I have to go talk to him [Showalter] first.”
Early indications are that Showalter could go with Brad Bergesen as Thursday’s starter. ”Bergy’s got four days rest tomorrow,” Showalter said. ”He could potentially start tomorrow.”
Relief pitching is another question that surrounds that Orioles going into the weekend. Troy Patton is in Baltimore, but would require a roster move to join the team. Derrek Lee was out of the lineup on Wednesday night and Tuesday in the postponed game in Boston. According to Kubatko, Lee is “fighting the decision to put him on the disabled list” after he suffered an oblique injury against the Red Sox.
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By Avi Miller, on April 29th, 2011 It took the Orioles until June 27th of last season to finally designate Garrett Atkins for assignment after he was hitting .214 with one home run, nine RBIs, and a .562 OPS in 152 plate appearances. The reason for waiting so long to remove him from the 40 man roster was his $4.5 million contract that was hanging over the heads of Orioles officials. If a young player during his arbitration years put up these Atkins-esque numbers, he would be easily pushed back to the minor leagues or released. The decision to cut Atkins was a simple one in the eyes of O’s fans, and probably became easier for the execs after they saw him consistently perform at a poor level for such an extended period of time.
 Mike Gonzalez, one of the other high end contracts given out prior to the 2010 season, has definitely had his ups and downs in the Orioles system. After saving ten games (in seventeen chances, none the less) with a 2.42 ERA in 2009, Gonzalez came into Baltimore last year to be the team’s primary closer for two years. At least that’s what the organization had planned on.
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By Steve Giles, on March 17th, 2011  Last season wasn’t particularly nice to O’s reliever Jim Johnson as he only played in 26 games due to elbow problems. The 27-year-old right-hander was sidelined in early-May after suffering a low-grade tear in his right elbow and didn’t return until late August. Johnson started feeling discomfort in his elbow after just the first game of the season against the Tampa Bay Rays and pitched through the pain as long as he could. He went 1-1 with a 6.52 ERA during that period and wasn’t nearly as effective as he had been in the past.
In the wake of Mike Gonzalez’s early-season shoulder injury, Johnson’s role changed from being just a middle reliever to someone the O’s would need to rely on to shore up the back end of their bullpen. But Johnson couldn’t answer the call as well as the O’s had hoped, allowing 15 hits and four walks over just 9 2/3 innings. As a result, he was optioned to Triple-A Norfolk on May 1 and, after just one appearance, got his elbow checked out and was placed on the disabled list.
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By Weston Bruner, on January 17th, 2011 I remember this time of year last season. The Ravens had just been knocked out of the playoffs by a team they just cannot seem to beat (yea, the other team they just can’t seem to beat) and so my attention swung over to the upcoming baseball season. The Orioles were looking good, coming off of a bad season but seemed poised to take a turn for the better. We were even talking about finishing above .500 for the first time in over a decade. Adam Jones, Matt Wieters, and Nolan Reimold would surely take steps forward in their development as young player, and it wouldn’t be long before Chris Tillman became an established part of a rotation anchored by the ever-reliable Kevin Millwood. Sure, Mike Gonzalez wasn’t the ideal closer candidate, but he would sure be better than the Jim Johnson experiment. Oh yea, and Garrett Atkins wasn’t taking over at first base. Well, we know how that turned out. Almost none of the elements the Orioles hoped would come together did come together until Buck Showalter turned the team around in August and September.
But naturally, there will be comparisons between the tepid optimism of this season and last season, and whether the orange-colored glasses we put on in the winter has any more merit in 2011 than it did back in 2010. The needs were much the same each offseason, so how do the club’s solutions compare? READ MORE >>>
By Steve Giles, on November 27th, 2010  The Orioles 2010 Minor League Pitcher of the Year, Zach Britton, made the decision that he didn’t want to be just another client with Hendricks Sports so he decided to sign with Boras Corporation. Britton said that he never got the chance to meet the Hendricks brothers and he didn’t want to continue moving forward with an agency he wasn’t comfortable with. He then met with Scott Boras and was very impressed with what Boras had to offer, so he decided to sign with him. Britton joins a list of teammates that are also clients of Boras including Matt Weiters, Jake Arrieta, Mike Gonzalez, Manny Machado, Josh Bell and Brandon Erbe. Along with signing with Boras, Britton also took another big step forward when he was added to the Orioles’ 40-man roster this past week. I think making the decision to sign with Boras was a step in the right direction to accomplishing his next goal, which is to be in an Orioles uniform next season.
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By Matt Sadler, on October 6th, 2010 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.
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By Weston Bruner, on October 5th, 2010 Before the season, there were two decidedly different camps of fans depending on their outlook for this team. There were those who said that the Orioles were ready to turn a corner (most of the BSR staff included), and those who insisted that this Orioles team was no better than any of the 12 that preceded it (most of our loyal commenters included). Even so, a direct look at the season doesn’t provide us with a clear answer as to which group was right. A direct look at the final record would indicate that those who said Baltimore would be a smoking crater were right, but the Orioles .500 record in the second half of the season and incredible record under Buck Showalter indicates those with rose-colored glasses saw the field clearly. I decided to take a look at some common beliefs held before the season to see how closely each side hit the mark on other issues. READ MORE >>>
By Weston Bruner, on September 1st, 2010 There was something different about last night’s 5-2 win over the Red Sox. No, it wasn’t just the fact that the Orioles won, though that is always a pleasant surprise when taking on a team in the AL East. I seemed to notice something in this team that I thought I was going to see back in April. It wasn’t even that Luke Scott set a career high for home runs in a season last night. With all the talk that goes on about what an incredible power threat Scott is, I actually found myself a bit surprised that this was his career high. But that’s beside the point. This was the first time I noticed that the Orioles have had- and used- every part of the roster they hoped would win games back at the beginning of the season. READ MORE >>>
By Weston Bruner, on July 21st, 2010 By the end of the week, we could have Brian Roberts, Mike Gonzalez, and Kevin Millwood back in Orioles uniforms, all healthy for the first time this season. Whether Millwood’s difficulties were more due to exhaustion and overuse early in the season is up for debate, but either way, the O’s could be looking at a team that is starting to resemble the club that fans hoped would win games back in March. Luke Scott has already returned, though he hadn’t been gone for nearly the stretch that Roberts or Gonzalez had. Pie has been back in the lineup and has taken on the leadoff spot he occupied oh-so-briefly early in the season after Roberts first went down. Hey, with all of these players coming back, maybe they can take Dave Trembley off the DL to manage. Just kidding.
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By Zach Wilt, on May 24th, 2010 Talk about kicking you while you’re down. The Baltimore Orioles invested 12 million dollars in Mike Gonzalez to be their closer for the next two years only to have the guy go down on April 14th with a shoulder injury.
Then, after rallying back from Tommy John, Alfredo Simon solidified his role as the O’s closer while Gonzo recovered and recorded six saves, now he too is down with a hamstring strain. He joins Koji Uehara, who will likely be DL’ed just six appearances after being activated from his third trip to the disabled list since joining Baltimore in 2009.
Nothing seems to be going right for this team on the field, but their injuries are making the play even worse. If Koji and Simon make trips to the disabled list the team will be forced to call up a pitcher from AAA Norfolk, but they are limited there too. Unless they would like to bring up Alberto Castillo, with his 12.79 ERA in nine games, or Kam Mickolio, 1-0 7.71 ERA, the Orioles may be forced to think outside the box.
I am of the mind that I would much rather see Chris Tillman or Jake Arrieta, guys that are supposed to have a future with this club, than 35 year old Castillo. Bringing up either Tillman or Arrieta, who are both have stellar years at Norfolk, would cause a shake up on the Orioles roster. The birds would likely have to move David Hernandez to a long inning relief role, a move that I recommended in Spring Training.
No one saw the roster being this shaken up on May 24th, but this is probably the Orioles best bet with Simon and Koji being the latest to go down.
By Steve Giles, on May 5th, 2010 Trying to figure out who is going to be the next Orioles closer is like trying to solve the Rubik’s Cube while wearing a blindfold. In other words, its really difficult to figure out just who is going to consistently close games for the O’s. They signed Mike “I-can’t-stand-still-when-I-pitch” Gonzalez to a two-year, $12 million deal in the offseason hoping he would be the answer to the closer problem. Well it didn’t take but two games to figure out that finding a closer would be a lingering problem for the O’s all season. Gonzalez doesn’t have horrible career numbers as a closer, but I’m not quite sure if he was worth $6 million a year.
The most saves he has ever recorded in a season was 24 with Pittsburgh in 2006. He has an excellent career strikeout-to-walk ratio of 2.50, which is one of the attributes you need to be an effective closer. But he has been a setup guy for the majority of his career, so to give him that much money and expect him to come right in and be successful as a closer may have been too much to ask. After blowing two saves against Tampa Bay and Toronto in the first week of the season, it seemed as if that decision wasn’t the smartest one the O’s have ever made. Gonzalez was then placed on the disabled list on April 14 with a left shoulder strain. So with Gonzalez out of commission for several weeks, the O’s were in need of a new closer.
The most logical guy to throw into the closer role was Jim Johnson. Johnson did well last season as a setup guy so Trembley gave him a chance to try and close out some games. Well Johnson has appeared in 10 games this season and has accumulated a 6.52 ERA, allowing seven earned runs in 9 2/3 innings. After his mysterious implosion, he was optioned back to Triple-A Norfolk on May 1.
With Johnson currently out of the picture, Cla Meredith, Will Ohman, Matt Albers and Alfredo Simon have been handling the late inning situations. Of the three, Simon is the only one who has the potential to be a closer. Meredith, Ohman and Albers are strictly setup guys and are hard to trust when it comes to relying on them to close out games. Simon is considered the closer for the moment, but judging from his career numbers (26 hits, 16 earned runs in 22 1/3 innings) he probably won’t be the long-term solution. However, he has fared well so far this season, appearing in three games this season and not allowing an earned run. He throws hard and his 6-foot-4, 230-pound frame makes you believe he has the physical attributes to be a good closer down the road. He has only been in the league for two years so he has a lot of learning to do.
Early on, I thought Kam Mickolio had the stuff to be a decent closer, but he was optioned back to Triple-A back on April 27th after just three appearances. He was called up on April 15th, but allowed five hits and three earned runs in just 3 2/3 innings. Mickolio’s fastball is anywhere from the mid-to-high 90s and both his slider and changeup are works-in-progress. He definitely needs some work on his control, but I think he could eventually be an option for closing games for the O’s.
Needless to say, the O’s could have anyone close out games in the coming weeks. I guess it all depends on who the hot pitcher is at the time and who Trembley thinks can handle the situation placed in front of him. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised with anyone they throw in there.
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It’s hilarious to me that a month ago Andy MacPhail’s departure from the Baltimore Orioles was a done deal. It was a sure thing that was being reported by all kinds of media around Baltimore. Today, MacPhail’s future is much more disputable and some are reporting the opposite from those August and September certainties.
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