If the Raiders had picked Leinart last year, they wouldn't have gone 2-14 and wouldn't have the #1 pick. Things would be completely different.

Gibbons is sorta caught between the Roch and the hard place....

Besides Gibbons moving out of the line up. Baltimore needs to move Mora down in the line up. Payton needs to bat at #2, move Hernandez to 6,Mora 7th,Millar 8th and Patterson stays the same. Mora needs to get bunting out of his mind for now, he needs to drive in runs. He also needs to get his swing back and its not going to happen in the 2 hole, he doesn't move runners over very well. Crowley also needs to work on some of these guys on going to the oppsite field when the ball is pitched on the outside corner,too many are trying to pull the ball.
I really agree with you on Pitching strikes. I played College baseball and was a pitcher,I knew that pitching strikes was very important,but it seems like they think they should strike out every batter instead of letting the defense work.I will admit that the umpires have been squeezing the plate lately too and Coach needs to get ejected on balls and strike calls for once,worked for Cleveland's coach last night!
Well maybe this 5 game losing streak will open their eyes and see that they still have to give it their best everyday.The bullpen can not do this everyday and they are being over pitched,let the starters work through some of the jams,Trachel should had stayed in for that final out.

Bench Gibbons tonight and put Millar back at first with Huff dhing and Bynum in the outfield. Corey Patterson needs to run all out to first base like he was doing a couple weeks ago. Either that or my tv is in slow motion. He's fast now, but he was faster two weeks ago. Just kick into top speed. He was getting bunt hits before. I seem to see players slowing up before they get three quarters down the line lately. Stop doing that. Run as fast as you can past first base. I guess somebody saw that scare at first when Ryan Howard of the Phillies hurt himself legging out a hit last week against the Nats. But after a few days off, he came back at started hitting home runs.

this is the same situation we've been in with Gibbons for the last three years, except in '05 it worked itself out with the decline of Sammy Sosa and last year Gibbons was injured during the time when he would have seen regular time in left field, which gave it to the September call-ups. This is really the first time he's been healthy enough for it to be an issue for Perlozzo, but I'm with you: go with Millar. Time and time again, Millar's proven that he can draw a big walk, bloop a single, or even play dirty and get his shoulder in front of an inside pitch to keep a rally going. Gibbons is infield fly bait.

But Gibbons really hasn't had a good year in quite some time. I've been of the mind that the Orioles should've traded him last year. He's just never been that great a player. His power has always been overstated, and he's really a pure pull hitter. Perlozzo should play Millar and leave Gibbons on the bench.

Roch. I agree with you re: Huff. I've said all along that his best position is DH; he'll probably hit better if he doesn't have to worry about fielding. He seems to accept the fact that he won't win any gold gloves and half the battle is getting true DH types to accept their role. By process of elimination, Millar becomes our every day 1st sacker and while he can look terrible at times, the man overall does a decent job. I think/hope that he's only a stop gap until we sign Texiera next year.
I also agree with your-"what do we do about Gibbons?"- post. He's basically worthless right now and no one is going to pick him up in a trade, teams have better ways to spend 5 mill per.
Use him and Payton in a platoon role in left, which is far from ideal but right now, what choice do we have? At first, I thought Payton was more or less our everyday left field guy, but after looking at his numbers, it's doubtful he can produce against tough righties and he's more of a 4th OF.
If Gibbons continues to struggle, then eat him contract and go after Willy Mo Pena or Marcus Thames. Both guys have pop and why not take a flyer? Either can be had cheap and while they won't win any batting titles, both can rake lefties. Crowley will have to work with Pena on making contact with the breaking ball but let him earn his money!

Hey Roch...

I hate to be an annoying stickler, but I have to make one correction to your blog...

"Gibbons crushed a ball to the opposite field last night, which the Orioles want to see from him, and it died on the warning track. If he was STILL ON THE JUICE, that ball clears the left fielder’s head. It probably clears the wall...."

His first year here, he seemed to hit a lot more homeruns to the opposite field. Of course, his biceps were three times the size they are now. Verrrrrrry interrrresting.

Post Steroid Era Gibbons is worthless.

Did anyone notice the double that B-rob hit the other day to start the game. Steroid Era B-Rob would have gone yard on that swing. Post Steroid Era B-Rob did not even make the warning track.

Where is Miggy's Post Steriod power? Maybe Raffy threw the right person under the bus?

Miggy's HR total = 2

Miggy's Errors = 4.......most of which were lazy errors.

Roch, maybe what the O's should do is just wait forever for guys who've been in the league a while, and have a track record and a trend, to do things they've never done or have a chance at doing again, given their recent history. Yea, right. That's not a plan, that's waiting on a rainbow.
Good teams evaluate players and dump guys that don't produce. The O's need production from more than 2 or 3 guys in the lineup. This team has no legitimate threat, therefore everyone has to be contributing. Otherwise, what you get is what you got. And Gibbons sticks out like the sore thumb he is. This is a classic example of wishful thinking.

Roch- question. What was the rationale behind giving Gibby the long, fairly lucrative deal and setting him up as a center piece of the team? I know he had the 100 RBI season, but hasn't he always been prone to injuries? And wasn't a promising Markakis already in the system at that point? I honstly don't know and have always been curious.

Also, have no idea if Jay pounded the juice in the past, but he does looks smaller now. As for Roberts, again have no idea if he pounded the juice, but his power problem seems much more to do with that helacious injury... his stature strikes me as the same.

Was it just me or did it look like patterson was running like he had it and was going to make a nice over the shoulder catch for sportscenter then suddenly saw he was in trouble and had to try and make up ground with a premature leap. Screw looking cool guys, hustle your butts back, get under the ball, and make the catch.

Is Gibbons working with the Crow? Someone teach this guy how to look at ball 3 and 4 out of the strike zone. I say bench Millar - he's slumping, too - give Gibbons a shot at the righties, and pinch Millar when a lefty reliever gets up.

It's time for Angelos to swallow his pride if he has any left. Im officially calling for DAVEY TIME !!!!!! Davey Johnson knows what it takes to WIN. He knows how to Manage his players and a talented bullpen. Id sit Roberts vs all LHP's. The O's should be in 1st place. they have lost way too many games that were sure fire W's if we had a decent Mgr.

Gibbons looks dreadful. Until Millar looks almost dreadfful they have to play him & sit Gibbons. No choice. MAYBE sit Millar against a tough righty & play Gibbons now & then otherwise , sit Gibbons.

I'm not blown away by all the steroid talk. Is it possible? Sure. But...there's no real evidence of it.

Gibbons hit 23 HRs in 600 ABs in 2003. Is that post-steroid era? I'd rather see him with 20-25 HRs and an OBP of around .350 than slightly more HRs and his low .300s OBP from the early '00s.

As for B-Rob, well, he slugged .600 last week, and he's worked his way out of a horrible start to get his OPS up over .700. If he slugs .400-.450 and gets on base somewhere around 38% of the time, we should be happy. I'm FAR more concerned about some of the defense I've seen up the middle than I am any decline in his "power." He did hit 9 HRs after the All-Star break. Is that Post-Steroid Era?

All of this "eyeballing" and anecdotal evidence is worthless.

As for Tejada, he's never been a 40 HR guy. And if he can give us 25-30 HRs, 100 RBIs and an .850-.900 OPS, well...that's pretty good value. The defense, as has been noted, is problematic. But everyone's paragon of integrity, Derek Jeter, has a handful of errors too. Wonder if Yanks fans are calling for HIS head?

if i was MLB, id try to introduce an NFL-style contract situation. With the HR's power outage sweeping MLB, a player like Gibbons would be cut about right now without getting but a part of his contract. the O's could save alot of $$ that could be used for a quality 4 or 5 starter.

I'm glad that the other half is coming around to the senselessness of the Gibbons contract. I got some heat for harping on that during the offseason, but the O's optimists said to give Gibby a break. Well, the enhancements that helped him to become a marginal major leaguer have worn off and he is back to being his Rule 5 self. That's a 4th place kind of contract extension.

I agree with RichD's lineup changes. Payton up, Mora down, Gibby out. It's also nice to see that Sam and Leo finally recognize that the pitchers need to allow the ball to be put in play. Why did that take so long to figure out?

Why does Thorne keep saying "Atom ball"!?! Sounds stupid.

No MASN again on DirecTV, it's the Cleveland feed and their sucko announcers. On the plus it is in HD so you can hear the inane comments in stereo.
Tonight is a big night for Bedard in my opinion. He is the ace, as appointed by Perlozzo. Aces stop losing streaks, and by my count we are up to five.
As far as Gibbons goes you can't bench Huff and Millar in the hopes Gibbons get's it going.

Ramon--we missed you and your clutchness!

These walks! It's like a flu that our entire pitching staff has caught--aaarrgghhh!

Roch - Good call on Ryan Kalil, who still hasn't been picked late in the second round. Maybe the Ravens will nab him anyway.

The Orioles arn't winning for two reasons. First, they have a starting lineup that, with the exception of Tejada and Hernandez (who has only played in 2-3 games), is hitting .243 with only 19 home runs. Second, their starters, on average, only last about 5 innings, so no matter how good the new bullpen is, they will burn it up by the end of May and the losing will get progressively worse. We have seen this happen year after year for the last 4-5 years. Plus, their "ace" Bedard, has an ERA over 6.00. So unless the starters start to challenge each other to see who can reach the 7th inning the most, its not going to be a pretty picture.

Perlozzo likes the sacrafice too much. We definitely have a philosophical difference there.

Mora is a great talent but he's so flaky it kind of makes you wonder sometimes. I hope that diving play gets him back in a groove.

Roberts is 8-8 stealing bases? He's getting his act together, and Hernandez has been key. I like watching his at bats, I wish some of the other boys would be as selective.

Roch (and other O's fans) - is Markakis really going to hit 3rd all year? I'm not sure if he should be there, but the juries still out. They jury is no longer out on Gibbons. He doesn't have the edge. Let's try Millar.

1 out from .500.

I know we all love the guy - but perlozzo has another problem. He can't keep a struggling 23 year old in the 3 spot...markakis is going to be great - but he has not struck the ball well all year...do you see options for him anywhere else in the order?

roch, what up with the protest call? weirdest call i ever saw (and to make it fun mlb.tv had the cleveland guys broadcasting). is the game still "under protest" from eric wedge? even if for some reason we don't "deserve" the run we should have deserved because it was 3 innings later, we still won by a boatload, so the game should still stand in our favor correct? i think eric wedge is the biggest crybaby i've ever seen.

Gibbons swing looks very long and thus vulnerable in nearly each at-bat I've seen of his.

Roch, I too am peeved by the walks, and yet I'm not convinced that they've been our problem. How many of those walks have come into score? (The two by Trachsel two nights ago, just before he was pulled, were admittedly devastating.) Of note is that while our WHIP is not low (1.41) our pitchers have also held the leage to the lowest slugging percentage (.335) in the AL.

Also, our 4.49 walks per game are the highest in the league (compared to Oakland's 2.79 and Boston's 2.99); notably, though, so are our strikeouts (7.71). I'm left wondering that this may not be that simple after all. In short, how many losses to we attribute to walks that shouldn't have been issued?

i agree with RichD's statement that Payton should move to 2nd position and Mora moved down in the order to 5th or 6th.

Gibbons? Well, he is on the team due to a fat ill advised contract. Knott would suit the team better at this time. What to do? Pretty simple. He needsto earn his way back by facing pitchers he has done historically well against in the past. If he can't hit them I'
d either send him down and bring someone up who can help the team, or DL him and find out if there is a physical problem. Sam has to put players on the field that are going to help win ball games. That's part of his job.

I feel bad for Gibbons, but I want the Os to win.

As to Ray I'd jsut like to say his WHIP is quite good for those saying he is not a closer. Quite good indeed. The problem for him has been two pitches, and his lack of trust in other pitches beside his fastball in game deciding situations. I think the problem is psychological in a way when Ray stated I didn't want to get beat thoriwing my second best pitch. Well, duh...batters like Rodriguez, and Oritz and Pena aqre gonna know that and sit on the fastball.

Anyway, glad to see the O's win one. Feels like forever. Hopefully, another one today.

Nice to see CPat hitting lefties when it counts. I hope to see more of Ramon around the middle of the line-up and less of Mora at the top...

I think Markakis will be fantastic for years to come, but does anyone else think he may be more suited to the 2 or 6 spot for this year?

Honestly, was anyone else absolutely thrilled to see Cleveland intentionally walk a batter to get to Ramon late in the game. I'm not sure anyone else knows how to get a big hit... though Patterson's toughness on a few ocassions has also impressed. Okay we went from a potential sweep to a potential series win. That win should relieve some tension and allow everyone to focus on the task of playing solid baseball (can the team physician prescribe Tejada and Mora some stimulant medication to improve their focus?).

if i'm the o's gm, i'm looking to ship mora and tejada.

Bedard leads the majors in Ks
Jimmy Rollins leads the NL in homers
Sosa has 7 homers

Weird month.

Roch, You're dead-on about the O's staff not throwing strikes. Earl Weaver had better control of his temper than the O's starters have when throwing to home plate. This team will never be good until that happens....and until they hit in the clutch...and play better defense...oh yeah, and run the bases better. I keep waiting for Miguel Tejada to tag up from first and try to score on a sac fly. He probably thinks he'd get credit for a run three innings later. I wonder if it's too late to reverse the Jeffey Maier call.

A quote from today’s article on the Orioles’ win last night: "After I get doubled off, I felt bad," Tejada said. "But after I see the run, I feel much better. I feel that I did nothing wrong."

What?!?! Committing yet another mental error during a game by forgetting how many outs there were and stopping an inning prematurely is not doing anything wrong? Somebody please help me understand what is coming out of his mouth.