re the manager's comments-

Mora is not a #3 hitter!!. he is a # 7 or #8 hitter pretending to be a #3.

wake up, Dave T!!!

Roch, did you know if you Google "Kubatko" your blog is the fourth item, after three about DJ Kubatko, a Drum & Bass/House "musician"? You should be leading off!

You know roch i really appreciate updates from the minor leagues because i really don't stay on top of things that good down there. But in reality outside of hearing good things about weiters and jake all i hear about are injuries , this guy has shoulder stiffness, this guy has a stomach ache, this guy has a torn labrum, which in the old days nobody had. I guess the pitchers in the 60 and 70 's that pitched close to 300 innings a year either were to dumb to know that they were hurt or just had the heart to pitch.I can't blame andy for stocking up on pitchers because you need about 50 of them to get maybe 2 to the major's.And the sad part the 2 that we have that are as sturdy as nails, liz, and daniel couldn't hit the barn door from 60 feet. What a shame to have the starting pitching worries that the orioles do. It will be at least until 2010 before we can possibly have any kind of starting rotation.

I agree with Trembley's logic, but he is the one who has decided to make Mora his no. 3 hitter not his critics. David Wright, Derek Lee, Bobby Abreu, Carlos Guillen, Matt Holliday, BJ Upton, JD Drew, Jimmy Rollins, Josh Hamilton, Ryan Braun, Joe Mauer, etc, etc he is not!

That said, it's not a bad call to let Mora swing-- I would have rather it had been Huff all game though. That's what makes less sense. He is seeing everything right now.

It was evident very early on that Penn would never be big league material. He confirms it at every opportunity.

Maybe DT wasn't aware of who his No. 3 hitter was.

Well Roch, if your #3 hitter hits into many DPs I'd have him bunting. That would put runners on 2nd and 3rd w/ 1 out and Millar coming up. Possible situation a single drives in 2 to tie the game. With Huff swinging a hot bat I would have PH instead of having Mora bat. Maybe we lose some defense with Huff playing 3B in the 9th. But that's the chance you take. Mora is only hitting around .240 and his average is dropping slowly. Meanwhile Huff is hitting around .275 and is one of the hottest hitters in the Majors.
Seems as if Trembley is to scared to PH his veterns regardless of there situations.

Hey Roch-just wondering what your impressions of National Park are ? i was,umm, not impressed. i did like the video screen and that you could see the field from the upper deck concourse(was sitting right behind home plate, couple of rows in front of the press box), but it was kinda drab-all you could see was concrete in the stadium, and our "view" from the upper deck was pretty much just parking garages and the very top of the Capital dome. very disappointed. oh, and the Nats dogs don't come close to the O's Esskay dogs !!
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Nothing special. That's been my review. It's not a bad ballpark, but absolutely nothing "signature" that makes it memorable - besides the horrendous drive up and down 295 to get there. - Roch

Maybe if Melvin and the rest of the team would remember the 1st fundamental of hitting (don't swing at the 1st pitch and wait for the 1st strike!), then maybe he wouldn't be hitting into double plays at the wrong times. I can't understand how and why Crowley does not stress that! It simple fundamental baseball. Stop being eager beavers!!!

I have no problem with Mora swinging away...I have a problem with Mora hitting 3rd in the O's lineup...
And I'm hating the 'if its 2 feet left or right' malarky..it wasn't and a guy hitting 230 isn't hitting that many balls to the right part of the ballpark.
And yes, I know the O's have little choice but playing Mora nearly every day. The performance of 3/4 of the infield this year means you can't do anything but continue to rebuild. Thers' another legitimate long-term option?

Last night was the first night since the that BS Tejada at-bat to keep his BS streak alive, that I have felt we looked like the awful, lost, Orioles of 2000-2006.5

I am NOT saying all is lost and now we suck again. I am saying that last night, we sucked from defense to pitching to baserunning to managing. With the managing being the worst.

We know Trembley had been good, so I am confident he will shake off this poor effort and get back to doing things right.

But, Roch, he is getting off way to easy by simply saying he does not want Mora at SS. We all want to know WTFN? (Why not?)

I think we are sort of owed an explanation here. (sent many a boy younger than you to the gas chamber Danny... Didn't want to do it... Felt I .. OWED it to them). It would likely even be better for Melvin since it would allow him to drag his sorry OBP and Avg into the lineup for a few more years as he moves rapidly through his dotage.

Sitting Scott and Huff was just plain boneheaded. It was a horrible decision from the start - as everyone pointed out before the game confirmed the obvious.

Having Fahey start instead of Cintron was even dumber, if possible.

And don't ever ever ever anyone give me any nonsense about Fahey's "hustle" and intangibles. He didn't run out of the box on his fluke hit in the crucial at bat. (he was stunned to make contact, no doubt, and then he figured it may be foul, so he watched it for a while.)

And when he did run, he ridiculously ran into an out. I never want to hear "hustle" or Ssmart" and Fahey in the same sentence again. Had he run, we'd have had the tie run on 2nd with no one out. Even when Cabrera inevitably struck out trying to bunt, we'd have had a decent chance to score the tie run that inning. (who knows, maybe Trembley would have done the smart thing and pinch hit for Cabrera, increasing our odds of tying the game and then holding the Nats down the following inning with a fresh relief pitcher.)

Just a terrible terrible game for the whole team, other than AJ.

We need to come back and get them tonight and tomorrow.

And we need to see Cintron in there (or Mora at short) and we need to see Huff in there and we need to see Scott in there.

As some of us have been saying since April, Mora has been an abomination as the #3 hitter all year, and yet game after game, there he is. And don't tell me about RISP, either. He doesn not belong in the 3 slot.

For all of Trembley's tirade, it seems to me that Mora did square to bunt and ruin one of his at bats earlier in the game. I can only presume, given DT's pontification on the subject that Melvin was, yet again, doing this on his own.

Enough already. Get Melvin down to #7 where any hit, even a bunt, is a plus. And move him to SS already. The press needs to push harder for answers to these questions.

E is for excrutiating to watch that lineup try to hit. And for Eliminating any repeat appearance in the #3 slot by Mr. Mora. He is 37 or something, has it really not occurred to DT that he is getting continuously worse?

A reporter should ask this question of DT during the press conference after the game:

"With all due respect to the stellar job they feel you have been doing, many fans are eager to understand why you went through these interleague series without playing Mora at SS a couple of times to Keep Huff's bat in the lineup. Can you elaborate a bit on your thinking here?"

And if he stonewalls the question with the "I don't think we want to play him there" kind of answer, the followup question should immediately be:

"Yes, you have made it clear with actions and with a couple of comments that you do not want to put Mora at SS. The question was one of Why? What are the factors that are leading you to this conclusion?"

Should be able to be asked without risking the reporter's head being torn off. And many of us would really like to know.

Does Melvin feel he can't play SS any more? Does DT feel Huff is a big defensive liabiltiy at 3b (where there is, what, 4 plays a game or so?) Has Melving put out some sort of ultimatum? Is DT afraid it will throw off Melvin's hittting? (too damn late for that!) Is there a number of at bats or starts clause in Mora's contract? What is it?

Roch, I get the sense, however inaccurate, when you write about Hayden Penn that you're rather a fan of his. Perhaps you see something I don't, and I'm curious as to what that might be. I personally find him already more frustrating a supposed talent than D-Cab was before this year.
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Really? He refused to give me an interview over the winter because he felt that I had written some things about him that were "unfair." Granted, he said he'd talk to me in spring training, but he wouldn't grant me a phone interview. So he definitely doesn't get the "fan" vibe from me. I have nothing against him, but I'm not predicting 20-win seasons from him, either. He has to show all of us that he can stay healthy and start winning games consistently. If he did that, he'd be in this rotation by now. I like his potential, but not what he's done with it. That's probably true of most everyone in the organization, too. - Roch

I'm sorry but almost all of your predictions have been wrong. If you're right, we better see Mora knock in 9 runs like Delgado tonight. Get that average way up with that kind of performance.

I understand Trembley's decision but with Mora's bat control, even if he tried, he couldn't hit that ball to the third baseman/shortstop hole. And, he can't equally hit the ball the other way. I've been begging our hitters to go the other way. Roberts and Markakis does it beautifully. Other guys need to follow their example.

Let's take the series tonight.

yea dave that might be correct if you had a legit 3rd hitter in your order.You know dave only breaks bad with certain people. He cuddles the veterans like mora on this team like he owes them something. You keep batting mora 3rd and you will be back coaching in iowa. When i hear a manager talk like that he really gets under my skin. He deserves to get 2nd guessed , when he keeps playing a washed up over the hill player like Mora.

Just because Trembley bats Mora 3rd does not make him a #3 hitter. Maybe its me but I think a .230 hitter should be batting much lower in the line up. Like 8th! He has the lowest B.Ave/OB% of anyone on the team with at least 220 ABs. Let Jones hit 2nd and Nick 3rd. At least Jones is batting .265.

Ponson and Parrish (so far) having back-to-back dominating starts for other teams in the AL East? The world must be coming to an end, or the big baseball entity in the sky is mocking the O's lack of such quality starters and lack of Job-like patience with these two old pros in particular.

I never questioned Melvin swinging away. Even if he does bunt and it's second and third with one down, you still may end up not scoring. Mora hit a bullet right at someone. That's baseball. But I do question Huff sitting. We need a good outing from Olsen tonight -- if I remember correctly, John Lannan shut down the O's in Baltimore. Olsen tends to hit a wall around the fifth or sixth inning. Hopefully he can get through the wall tonight. If Trembley really wants to shake things up, he can hit Adam Jones third and Huff fourth. That would be really interesting.

I have no problem with Trembley's decision there...as he said he was a few feet from being a genious. I agree Mora is not a number 3 hitter - but on this team he's still a pretty good option. Trembley didn't get stupid overnight...just unfortunate he hit the ball right at someone.

That's a novelty....Renshaw pitched so poorly that he made himself sick to his stomach. Wonder how the pitching coach is feeling ?

Most fans are virtually glowing over Trembley's performance so far, but it's my contention the O's are winning in spite of his insistence on batting Mora third (or at all) and still sending Walker out there to get murdered by lefthanded hitting. With one sure out already in the lineup (Cabrera), how can you sit Huff and Scott and start Fahey and Mora? That's like going with six players against their nine.

I have no problem with DT's decision about Mora. But I do wonder why when, down 2-0 I believe, he let Cabrera bat in the 6th with runners on base.

He's not a good option. I'd take any of our OFs over Mora in the 3 hole. to tell you the truth Mora hasn't been a top part of the order hitter since 2005.

Overall Trembley is doing fine. I just don't understand his reasoning.

If Mora's still hitting .230ish by the All-Start break, and Trembley keeps batting him third, then you can officially count me off of the Trembley bandwagon. Dave, this decision is very Perlozzo-ish. Be very, very careful.