Hey, Roch. I'll be in St. Pete, too, for Monday's game! Why? Not to see some great baseball. Just loyalty, man. I grew up in Balmer and live in West Palm and haven't been to a game all year. I've been following the misery on mlb.com and this site and your blog all these long five months, but now I'll make the drive with the gal pal to see it in person.

You seem to be the kind of guy who'd be fun to have a beer with. Want to? Afterward, we'll probably both need a few. Streak might be 13 by then. But I'm being cynical....

According to the RedSux blog……their fans are “really grateful that they are getting ready to play the O’s and their AA- pitching staff.” I assume that the – means we aren’t quite as good as AA? It was just a couple weeks ago that these guys were worried about the O’s playing the spoiler. Guess we are attracting the bottom feeders now. Oh….they also want Millar back.

Why is Payton still playing? Why aren’t we giving the at-bats to Redman at this point?
Also what is the harm letting House catch every other game…..see what he has? It’s obvious that Ramon’s tank is running on empty. What have we got to lose?

This bullpen my not technically be the worst in history…..but it damn sure is the most expensive turd ever purchased by a major league team!! Time to flush folks!!

Terrible week? Are you kidding Roch…..that is the best he could come up with?

Maybe a change of scenery will do this team some good. All the jokes have been made. Just about everyone's jumped ship and there really is no need to press because they are expected to lose in Boston. So who knows? This post was brought to you by the letter "w."

This is ridiculous. There is no pride being exhibited by this team. They have hit rock bottom. Trembley should be fired just for making excuses. The management doesn't make any changes because they know the idiot fans will keep buying enough tickets for them to profit. Thank god for the Ravens

100 runs in 10 games?

100 runs.

10 games.

10 runs/game.

1.11 runs/inning.

oh wait...12 innings wednesday means only 1.075 runs/inning. that's a bit better.

1.72 runs/inning after the 5th inning for the opposition..
0.26 runs/inning after the 5th inning...for the O's

O's pitchers avg'd 5.5 BB/game
O's hitters avg'd 3.5 BB/game

O's pitchers avg'd 7.3K's/game
O's hitters avg'd 5.3K's/game

hey, there we go!! a positive! We avg'd more strikeouts than the opposition's pitchers! see? they are pretty good after all.

GO O's!!

i'm impressed, are you??

Glad to see they're sending you on the road, Roch. Bring your glove... they might need you for the eighth.

Thanks for all you bring to us... what's left of us.

Anita Marks gets up in arms for negative callers regarding the O's and offers up the Weiters signing and MacPhail as positives. Please educate this woman Roch...

First, Weiters was the second highest paid signee in history behind B.J. Upton. Why was Upton so high? He was a highly touted player going to a very bad team... just like Weiters. The O's and Rays have to overpay because they can't risk losing them.

Second, MacPhail is one of many who rotate through the where-are-they-know-house.

Roch. Lousy job of cheering me up but the facts are the facts!
Besides, don't you know that it's the fans fault!! At least that's what Mora says in today's Sun-something to the effect that we need 35,000 fans to get us excited...Melvin, I think that inflated 8 mill/yr salary should be 'motivation' enough..
You'll get your chance to play in front of more than 35, 000 fans this weekend so 'cowboy up'! The way you and your teammates are playing now and with your attitude, you're lucky to draw 10,000 fans in Baltimore. Don't expect a rush to the ticket office any time soon!
I almost gagged on my morning coffee reading this and other such comments.

Pressing? Frustrated? Who has it worse, the players or the fans? After grounding into a DP in the seventh, and apparently dogging it up the line towards first base, the fans behind first base had a few jeers for Miguel. Miguel decided it was a good time to greet those fans with a nicely audible "F--- You!" and turned and went back to the dugout.

The team stinks. The players are frustrated. The fans are disgusted. Football season is here and the Orioles will fade into the sunset.

At least the O's are moving up in draft order for June 2008!

"Each guy needs to look at himself in the mirror and say, 'What can I do to make myself better and make this team better?'" Payton said

Hey Jay, look thyself in the mirror!

Roch, it appears we all picked the wrong week (or week and a half) to quit sniffing glue. There’s mediocrity, and there’s just plain awful. All those numbers, plus the cold hard fact that we just got swept by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, smell like 1988. There are some clever (or, what I might think as clever) jokes I could make about Jeff Stone and even Rick Schu, but, man, I’m tapped out. These undead that are currently wearing Orioles uniforms have sucked the life out of me. They’ve even gotten to Guthrie, and Bedard, seeing the rampant evil that’s afoot, has decided to skip his next start, which I’m sure means he’s in deep meditation/prayer somewhere, finding the inner strength and divine guidance to combat the zombie plague that’s consumed his club.

On to Boston. But why? Can’t the team just get a pass on the rest of the season? So what if we forfeit the rest of the season and lose 100 games. They might just do that by playing them all. I’m sure Trembley and MacPhail and others would say, we’re going to spend the next month evaluating talent, giving guys a shot, but why bother? The most positive thing that could happen to everyone would be an early end to the season. Camden Yards could be opened as a house of worship for September as long as the club promises to keep the All-You-Can-Eat Left Field Club in place.

Maese is talking the O’s going the Oprah route and using The Secret to help themselves out of this. Things are so bad I can’t even tell if he’s being serious or making a funny, and admittedly, I couldn’t even read the whole article anyway. Maybe the team should go the Metallica route and seek group therapy. Perhaps they need salvation but the bullpen would find a way to blow that too.

The worst thing is that during Trembley’s two-month interim reign, the team was playing well and things were looking up. The future couldn’t have been any brighter in recent memory the day before that 30-3 loss. The team had played reasonably well for a two-month stretch, played well against Boston and New York, they’d just signed their top draft pick, Bedard was reaching for the Cy Young, and Trembley was looking like the real deal as manager. Now, things couldn’t be any bleaker. Aaagh! If the team doesn’t seek therapy, I might seek some for myself.

TAKE THAT ORIOLES!!!!

Thats what you get for lying and not putting a competitive product on the field for 10 years...

Let this streak ride out for the rest of the season in my name!

We were at the game Thursday night. It was the smallest crowd I've ever seen at Camden Yards--probably less than what we saw at a Delmarva Shorebirds game last week. Despite this, I feel the fans that were at the park were supportive of the team and encouraging of the players--just what you'd want from hometown fans after a long losing streak.

The team looks spent and lethargic--but they were trying. I saw the D'Rays shortstop make several fine plays and realized that Miguel Tejada probably isnt a shortstop anymore. But he'd be a fine third basemen next year should he accept this role.

It was a game that we could have easily won but for some reason, this team just doesn't have that extra gear that gets them over the top.

How many records were set on this homestand?

30-3
11 in one inning
3 game sweep by TB
Most runs on a 10 game homestand
Worst losing streak on a 10 game homestand....

Am I missing any? I know I am, because every other word I read has "record" in it...

AND...Put me down as someone PISSED that they won't even let the kid play once with Aberdeen. I have never seen an Iron Bird game because of the drive, but was already planning on buying tickets to drive up and watch. Even if he struck out 3 times...I wanted to see what our money bought and maybe see a team win. Thanks Again Front Office!

Haven't we seen this all too often the past few years? Thank goodness for football, because for the Orioles, the later part of the season has been dreadful. Are we in one of those time loops that occur late in the year, where the O's win rarely, lose often and frustrate the living daylights out of their fans. Where's SG1 when you need them? Maybe Samantha Carter could figure out how to stop this! The pitching, especially the relief pitching has been horrible. It's hard to imagine that these pitchers are getting paid millions to lose games and blow leads on a regular basis. Maybe it should be explained to them that they are supposed to stop the other team from scoring and winning games. I've been a die hard Oriole fan since 1966 and I don't know how much longer I can take this.

I'm a little disappointed in the comments made by some of the players the last few days.

Payton talks about losing being like hitting a brick wall and needing to look in the mirror and seeing what he can do to get better.

Well, Jay, I think the brick wall your referring to is padded and that what you might have seen last night in the mirror was that pop up that about landed on your foot, kicked up some chalk, then bounded into the empty bleachers for a double.

Jay, you want to help this team get better? Watch your counterpart in right field and do what he does. I don't know about looking in any mirrors this morning, but good luck looking Nick in the eyes.

Melvin is desperate for a change of scenery, a more lively place to play, 35,000 screaming fans at Fenway to get him more excited.

Well, Melvin, I'm sure our crack front office could arrange that for you but you have a no trade, high dollar deal and you have been kind of sucking lately. There are no takers. You'd just be a reserve over there anyway and we know how you feel about sitting.

I really like you, Melvin. You've continued to play hard even when things weren't going so well. But like a lot of players who've come to Baltimore, you were real good for one year, got your contract, and except for a pocketful of web gems, haven't been a lot of help since. So quit saying stupid, boneheaded stuff like that. And give the kids hugs and kisses for me.

And bless your heart, Kevin. You really think a couple of wins and we'll all forget about the history we've witnessed this past week?

My lovely daughter, sophomore in college, who dutifully accompanied her dear Pop on all those Oriole Pilgrimages as she was growing up, hating baseball, in it just for the cool hotels and Dippin-Dots, called me last Thursday morning and exclaimed "30 runs? I bet that's never happened before!"

And years from now, while sitting in the hallway of my nursing home, drooling on my black Orioles jersey, cartoon bird hat squashed down on my flakey, bald head, some visiting great grandkid of the senile old coot that is my roommate will lean down and whisper in my big, hair-filled ear, "30-3".

Kevin, I know that's what you feel you have to say, but this is one of those rare occasions when I wish you'd have just said "Holy crap, that was pretty bad week. I'm gonna have a tough time washing that one down!".

Please enter the letter "w" in the field below. You've got to be kidding me.

I thought we were only supposed to try for the top spot in the draft if we DIDN'T sign Wieters.

Oh well. Another great draft pick couldn't hurt. But seriously, BLOW UP THIS BULLPEN.

They say you learn more from your failures than you do your successes. The Orioles bullpen can now recite Pi to the 50th decimal, do their taxes on hand ledgers, name all the elements and their atomic weight on the periodic table, perform open heart surgery and win Ben Steins money. The only thing they can't do...pitch a scoreless innning.

Hey Roch - Any chance that Steve may be making Trax before midnight??? He's had to have resurrected some of his trade value wth his pitching in August (2.37 ERA) - although his 18 walks and only 8 K's in 40 innings are terrible!

I've heard talk that we may be able to get a mid-level prospect for him. Let's do it!

Okay, so I went to Thursday's game with the only friend who will still go to the games with me. I have gone to at least one game every time the O's are home and I scream and yell until I have no voice left. I clap and tell the players to keep their head up when they get out and try to motivate them as much as possible. Here is the problem though....

I CANT DO IT BY MYSELF! Yes, I realize we are horrible right now and have been for almost 10 seasons, but what bugs me the most is that, say next year we turn around an amazing season and enter the race for the pennant.... all of the so called "loyal O's fans" will come running back saying they have "been a fan for so long and stuck by the O's through thick and thin". Honestly can we please show some support. There were honestly so few fans there last night, that I could have had a full conversation with Millar while the game was going on. It kills me to see an empty stadium. It also makes me want to kill myself when the stadium is completely full.... not with O's fans, but Yankee and Red Sox fans. Honestly Baltimore, you should be ashamed of yourself. I am a struggling college student and I've spent hundreds upon hundreds of dollars to go support my O's. And I will spend even more to be there to root on my O's when they take on Boston and NY.
But anyways, I had the opportunity to talk to some of the workers in the dugout who hang out with the team on occasion and we have constructed a list of things the Orioles need to do to aim for a winning season next year.

I will call Jennifer's "Keys to the Game"

1. Give Bedard whatever he wants. Money, his own dugout, his own locker room. Keep him as long as you can.

2. Give Roberts, Millar, Markakis, and Patterson a pay raise and keep them here. All quality players who deliver each and every night. Honestly if Roberts leaves Baltimore after 2009, I'm going to cry everyday until he returns.

3. Clean house by dropping Tejada, Mora, Hernandez, Payton, and Gibbons. If Tejada makes one more error I swear I'm jumping on the field and playing for him. And for God sake, could someone teach Hernandez how to run, throw a ball, and hit a ball.... has he even played baseball before.

4. Tell Angelos to stick it where the sun don't shine. The guy obviously isn't hurt by 10 losing seasons. He's too busy swimming in his pool of MASN money. Hey Angelos, why dont you use that money to buy some quality relief pitchers. Bedard can't pitch every game ya know?

5. Put Burres back in the rotation. Am I the only one who notices that Burres looks so uncomfortable as a closer. After one bad game, they take him out and stick him in the bullpen. If that's how they treated every player, we wouldn't have a team to play.

And finally......

6. Just let Bako take over as Catcher. The guy is patient and appreciates the opportunity and he can actually hit the ball.... my God just let him play and give hernandez a bus ticket home.

Ok this is a crazy idea, but that's what watching this team will do to you...

For the remainder of the season, let's replace the "closer" role with an "opener" role. Since our starters can only give us 6 or 7 innnings, why not use them cover innings 2 - 9 rather than innings 1 - 7. Let a "reliever" start each game. If he "doesn't have it", bring in another releiver or bring in the "starter".

I'll head back to my padded room now so I can talk to my invisible friends.

Miggy is no longer a credible major league shortstop. During the offseason, the Orioles need to talk to him about moving to 3rd for the good of the team. Sad to say, but they need to tread gently and avoid bruising his ego. If he doesn't agree to move, then they need to trade him.

Its probably not a coincidence that we did just fine while Miggy was on the DL.

Anthony,

That was funny as hell. LMAO

Heh .. EVERYONE crying in their Natty Boh .. .. it's ONLY A GAME !!! GET OVER IT !!!

Why oh why in my 10 years of absence from Orioles games did fate have me buy a ticket for the Sept. 8th Boston game at OPACY instead of the come from behind/Millar HR game a month ago?!

I honestly think I will literally be the only Os fan there now that we're in the post-30-to-3 era. Yea though I walk through the valley of the navy and red... :-x

Daytona - Well said!

Front Office:

It's the bullpen, stupid. If we had the second worst number of losses in the league when leading after 8 innings we would be 20 games better off in the standings. 10 fewer losses and 10 more wins. We would be over .500 and in the wild card race.

16 losses when leading after 8 (and more than twice as many as any other team) is amazingly, awe-inspiringly awful.

I can't blame Flannaquette for trying to "fix" the bullpen before the season. An average bullpen would have us contending right now. They overspent and obviously picked the wrong guys, but it is not like there were lots of other better choices out there.

If Benson, Wright, Penn, and Loewen don't all get lost for the year, we would have Penn, Guthrie, and Burres in the bullpen all year. That sounds like it would have been helpful.

But the FO MUST figure out how to fix the bullpen - if it ain't the individuals, it must be the coach, the environment, the usage patterns, something. Find it and fix it. A little alacrity, if you please, guys.

Also - Keep Traschel. We will not need another "mid-level" AA-AAA guy next year or the years after. But we will be able to use a proven number 4 starter! And he is cheap. Who else do we think we can sign over the winter to fill his spot in the rotation? How much will that cost?

I moved to the Philadelphia area six years ago, but have been faithful to the Orioles during this time, as I have been for the past 49 years. Until now...

I am ( ) this close to transfering my allegiance to the Phillies. Yes, those same Phillies that have the losingest franchise in sports history, but the Orioles have replaced them as the butt of jokes all across baseball.

Where has Oriole pride gone? Where has the "Oriole Way" gone?

Do I like following a butt of jokes? No. Yet every year, I start out in the spring as hopeful as anyone, but each August when the swoon comes, I get heartbroken into apathy and I don't want that in a team that I follow.

This has to be the saddest I have ever feft about the Orioles. Sports are supposed to make you feel good about life, make you feel pride in your city. It's just sad to see what the Orioles have sunken to.

At least the Phillies make it interesting each September, even if they do lose in the end. The Orioles don't even make it through August, before they break your hearts.

I wish I knew what the answer is to fix their problem, but it seems so systemic, throughout the whole organization, that to fix only one problem isn't the answer. I wonder if changing owners would finally be the change needed to get them back to winning again?

"When you get into bed with the devil, you have to sleep with him too."

I think most of us need to get some perspective. 16 days ago this team had just gone 4-2 against the Sox and Yankees, and ponied up to sign possibly the best amateur player in the country.

This team has had about half of the anticipated pitching staff miss substantial time due to injury (Loewen, Benson, Penn, Ray, Baez, Wright). Tejeda, Hernandez, and Mora, three players you count on for offense, missed substantial time. Gibbons, Huff, Patterson, Payton, and Hernandez have grossly underperformed for long stretches at different points in the season.

If I knew all this would happen at the beginning of the season I would predict 100 losses, but that's probably not going to happen. They'll probably lose 92-95 games... an impressive .500 in the final 30 games would leave with 89 losses. But the record isn't really important and it never was. This is a work in progress.

There are several positives that are important to the future:
1. Bedard is a legit #1 starter.
2. Guthrie can be a plus ML starter, obtained for next to nothing.
3. Found a manager who is organized, can communicate, and make rational in-game decisions.
4. Hired one person with a track record and authority to run the club.
5. Tejeda is still an offensive threat, meaning he has trade value or will be a productive member of the team in 2008 (at a different position hopefully)
6. Markakis is now an established ML player, and consistent at the plate.
7. The club can cut a deal with Boras and is willing to spend money on talent.
8. Roberts is fully recovered from his 2005 injury and back to one of the best lead-off hitters in the game.
9. Several pitching prospects have progressed well in the minors (especially Olson, Hooey, and Liz), have shown their potential at the ML level, and should have a positive impact in 2008.
10. The club clearly has more depth at the AAA level than in previous years, and with attractive affiliates should be able to sign quality minor league free agents.
11. Mazzone seems like he'll stick around.

Not that there aren't huge obstacles for improving in 2008... Ray's injury is devastating, the free-agent talent pool is thin, and you have several unproductive, hard-to-trade players (Gibbons, Payton, Huff, Hernandez) on the books for next year.

Roch,

What is the record for most decisions by a starting pitcher in a season? Is Wakefield a candidate? Maybe the Os can be part of that record...

OK, give me a break...I'm lookin' for a positive...

"Ok this is a crazy idea, but that's what watching this team will do to you...

For the remainder of the season, let's replace the "closer" role with an "opener" role. Since our starters can only give us 6 or 7 innnings, why not use them cover innings 2 - 9 rather than innings 1 - 7. Let a "reliever" start each game. If he "doesn't have it", bring in another releiver or bring in the "starter"."
Hey Earl, I had thought of the same thing. It probably won't happen, because it's against the traditional way of doing things, but wouldn't it be an interesting gamble, especially because the traditional way is just not working with this relief staff.

Chris - I am not really one to defend Anita Marks - I mean how many discussions do we need to have about who she is going to draft on her fantasy football league team or hear about what great perks she gets for being a celebrity-sports-chick?

But you are a little off on your comments about her.

She did not get exercised about people making negative comments about the O's - although she appropriately expressed disdain for callers who are in the "its all bad, nothing good will ever happen" mode.

She tolerates negative comments about the team very well - otherwise Mark Zinno might need to find something else to do with his afternoons.

She got "up in arms" over a caller who told her that, because she was never at Memorial Stadium and was not personally present when Cal broke the streak (point of order here - only 47,000 some living souls were at that game, so most of us are among the excluded!), etc. she had no right to say anything positive about the O's.

His point, which was ridiculous, is that she has not suffered like us "native" fans so she has no understanding of our pain.

I find this whole attitude astonishing. So we have had 10 years of losing seasons. Imagine how some of the people who blog here and/or call the talk shows would feel if we were like the Chicago Cubs, Boston Red Sox or KC Royals or Tampa Bay D'Rays?

There are people around here who want everyone to put on hair shirts and flog themselves because the team has a recent streak of poor play.

There are people - many of them the same - that can see nothing positive in the O's actions, no matter what.

I do not get the moron at the game with the bag on his head. He still bought a ticket to be there. If it is that bad why in the hell is he at the game? That garbage is all about getting attention for yourself as opposed to making a protest.

So you can choose to see the dark cloud in every silver lining. You can choose to force yourself to be miserable. But that does not mean we all have to. It also does not mean you are right.

This is painful for me, too. I was at all of the caller's milestone moments and then some. I have been to World Series and playoff games. The last 10 years have been one disappointment after another.

But I do not choose to be bitter about it. Life is too short.

I love baseball and I love the Baltimore Orioles. Win or lose, I have fun at the games. I am teaching my kids about baseball and creating memories that they can be fond of. In this respect, the result is incidental.

I have family in Chicago and Boston who are also die-hard fans and I know what they have been through. And I know that guys like the caller to Anita's show and many of my fellow bloggers get laughed at by people up there.

Mope if you want, but Anita was dead on in her sentiment about this.

Well stated Tom. This club has a stellar history of winning. The club is a mess but if instead of crying the sky is falling people would look at what was accomplished this year towards ending this run of mediocrity you would see some positives. Just take a look at Jeff's post for a few good examples. Our farm system is looking better than it has in years. Maybe oh "loyal" fans there is light finally at the end of the long dark tunnel. O's fan since 1964. AND STILL PROUD TO BE AN O'S FAN!!!!!

The O's, hard as they are to watch, offer a fascinating study of human organizations. When we see a bullpen give up so many leads so horribly, to an extent rarely seen in major league baseball, we aren't just seeing a few failures by a few guys with bad arms who had off days at the wrong time. We're seeing the result of many, many years of poor decisions at all levels of an organization. Only a fundamental ignorance of baseball could have led to those repeated, consistently bad cumulative decisions -- choices that favored the short-term over the long, the cheap over the dear, affordable mediocrity over expensive quality. And the Orioles' unforgivably bad customer service has given the whole slow-motion fiasco a horrific stench.

What you're now seeing isn't anything any one manager could prevent. It's the end result of this institutional awfulness, in all its glory: 30-3 losses, record-setting 11-run innings, 1-9 homestands, and a whole lot of empty green seats once filled by loyal fans.

Bad quality has eaten into the Orioles the way termites eat into a foundation -- slowly, quietly, irreversibly. When your house finally collapses, do you stand there and debate whether this beam or that was too feeble? Or do you look at the problem as a whole and ask yourself, "how on earth did the infestation get this bad" and put up the fumigation tent?

Bad drafts, awful scouting and unrealistic player evaluation have left the tanks empty. The O's could have traded the best value they were lucky enough to acquire -- Tejada, the 17-win version of Ponson, Javy Lopez and others -- had they had the foresight to act at the right time, ut they waited till those players had zero value. They're likely to butcher the Bedard situation, too.

On another front: Anita Marks? How can any serious sports fan get past her insipidly flirtatious behavior, her juvenile references to her own physical appearance and her silly giggling at all the wrong times? In defense of that caller who criticized her, what he probably meant was that when Marks -- a newcomer to Baltimore, and not a long-term thinker -- points to those few Oriole bright spots, she isn't saying anything new. There have ALWAYS been a few bright spots -- remember Chris Richard, and that young lefty with the tattoos, and future phenom Luis Matos, and Bruce Chen with his 13 wins? There always will be. The O's ownership has always used those mirages to keep the anger and frustration of the fans at bay -- while filling roster spots with discounted mediocrities (Payton, Patterson, Gibbons, Palmeiro) who inevitably come up the plate with big games on the line.

It's no surprise that a lightweight like Marks would fall for this stuff. It takes time, and even patience, to see how deep the patterns are. A single rookie signing means nothing. A new "president" means nothing. It's all about the infestation.

The optimism is cute, Anita, honey, but in time you'll learn what's really happening here. Stick to flirting with the Raven of the week and giggling.

Hi Roch,

First, I want to congratulate you on the tremendous success you have had in your career. As the Esskay song goes, "We were there for the Kubatko 'early' years!" (in the bingo hall-shh, I will not say that too loud) or was that song for a different Hall of Famer.

Secondly, I have to admit I am as old school as they come. I managed a summer team this year. For one game, I finished the game with eight players even though ten players showed. One player did not play at all for disciplinary reasons and the other got pulled in the fourth inning for disrespecting the game. I felt the lessons trying to be taught by having them sit, outweighed the effects of having only eight players on the field instead of nine.

Finally, while I have enjoyed your work over the years, I have not written before. First time caller, long time listener – opps – old school reference; I guess new school is first time writer, long time reader. In the scheme of things, this may be way too trivial with the Orioles current woos, but when did it become ‘uncool’ to run to first on a dropped third strike. This seems to happen league wide or at least I have noticed it more this year. Hernandez doubles to start the inning. An Orioles player swings and misses for strike three. The ball is obviously in the dirt and noticed by the Orioles player. Their catcher needs 2 or 3 attempts to control the ball and then reaches out and tags a sulking Orioles player. There was not a question of foul tip or anything. The Orioles player clearly knew it was strike three and did not even make an attempt to move toward first – as Mora did later in the game forcing the catcher to throw to first. Yes, the catcher will make an accurate throw to first 999 out of 1,000 times, but that could have been the one time the ball ended up in right field. I have no idea if anything was said to the Orioles player, but are the coaches ‘enablers’ by just putting the player back in the field. Did Martin do it right with Jackson as seen in ‘The Bronx is Burning’? Are the coaches allowing a certain culture to exist for the Orioles or are their hands just tied behind their backs – like the NBA- with the contracts, player personalities, etc?

An Orioles player bunts with a runner on first. The ball is rolling in foul territory but only by a few inches. The Orioles player stands at homeplate instead of taking off for first as Pasada hustles after the bunt and throws to second in that 1 in 1,000 chance that the ball might come back fair. Pasada hustles as an Orioles stands – talent or culture?

An Orioles player hits a ‘major league’ pop fly into a ‘Bermuda Triangle’ in left. As the ball hits the ground, I look for the Orioles player going into second. No sign of him. He is just rounding first because he thought it would be an easy catch. That 1 in 1,000 chance, talent or culture?

An Orioles player hits a grounder in the ninth inning of a close ballgame with 2 outs and the potential tying run on. It is a tough play for the fielder. The fielder throws, surely with the offensive player’s speed, he will beat the throw. The first baseman catches the ball and the runner is 2 or 3 steps from first. Of all the coaches to ever coach, surely first base coach Rick Mr. Hustle Dempsey (happened last year) will say something to the Orioles player. Nope. Talent or culture?

In any given year, as a whole, would I take an infield of Mora, Tajada, Roberts, Millar, Hoff and Hernandez and put them against any other talent-wise? Absolutely! Are they top 3? Maybe not, but they can play with anyone. So I do not believe talent is a problem. Let’s try to change the culture of the ‘Orioles player’!

Thanks for everything, Roch. I enjoy all that you are doing. Please continue to work the ice cream (Good Humor) into your blog, articles and talk shows.

Old bingo buddy!

OK, you convinced me. I'll give them one more chance.