Put Matt "Pig Pen" Albers in the rotation. He's got the hard sinker, a good breaking ball, and he's not afraid to go after hitters.

And he's the anti-Trachsel in his rhythm, delivering 5 pitches in the time it would take Trachsel to think about 1.

Hey Roach:

The O's could draft another high school player? How is that Billy Rowell and Brandon Snider pick working out? I agree with your idea of taking the best bat, which is Justin Smoak. However, they really need to look at taking the best college second baseman with the second round pick because I don't see any good prospects to replace Roberts anywhere in the organization.

Might as well give Albers the start although I'm not sure why Trachsel still holds a roster spot.

Tracy--Happy Birthday!

The Birds will celebrate it by beating the Red Sox. Nick Markakis drills two doubles to drive in 3, and Luke Scott waits patiently on a knuckler--annotating his notebook shortly after the ball departs from Wakefield's fingernails--and unloads a towering home run.

Albers should join the rotation, Trax should stay in the pen, and they should try to pass Luis through waivers-- only to bring up Oscar Salazar, not Radhames Liz.

Let's hope the Birds get a win here and climb back to .500 in Minnesota, where Oriole-killer Torri Hunter no longer resides. I'd give Albers the start on Tuesday because Liz is obviously not ready for the bigs. He's got that Daniel Cabrera arm, but his pitches are all over the place. He still just throws -- he doesn't pitch.

Shouldn't tonight's game have been played at 3:05 for the sake of both teams?

Does anybody know about the minor league situation at first, second, third and short?

Is David Ortiz in the BoSox lineup?

You know when you post the lineups every day, it really never dawned on me until today just how out manned we really are. Not one oriole in tonights posted lineup could start for the red sox. Now you could argue that nick could but that would be a stretch.I think andy has down wonders with this pitching staff but if you want to be realistic we are light years behind the rest of these teams with everyday players. With the exception of nick, adam jones, and maybe i said maybe luck scott we need to fill every other position. You tell me how many years that is going to take.And by the way Adam Jones still has to show me that he is a 5 tool player like he is projected to be.

If they're implementing base-running drills, how about some hitting drills, for their sakes?

Did anybody watch the Mets vs. Dodgers game last night on ESPN? The Mets hitters were just hitting the ball the other way, when the situation required it, and guess what? They were up 6-1 by the 5th. The Orioles hitters have to learn situational hitting seriously. B-Rob and Markakis are very good at this, but the rest of the hitters seem to like pulling the ball and not going the other way.

Please, Trembley/Crowley - teach these aging hitters to learn how to simply stroke a single with 2 outs to just get a run in. Don't go overboard with the drama, and think about pulling the ball to get a homerun.

The Orioles better get their drills straightened out as well as their bats because here comes interleague and if they really want to hang around .500, they better get their act together FAST.

the one upside of the current struggles the Orioles are experiencing is that it thwarts the idea that they should keep the status quo as long as they are competitive. We have seen the new life that the offseason trades have breathed into the organization and we knew their was more to do to build a solid franchise. I like B. Roberts and Sherrill but they can bring a heck of a lot in trades in July.

As for Trachsel, I would rather watch any of the young guys get a chance than watch him pitch in an Orioles uniform again. Its too painful.

I don't know why everyone wants to trade George Sherrill? Sorry but Chris Ray is not that good! I don't know what games you all were watching last year, but he was not nearly as good as Sherrill. I say we keep sherrill and unload the others.

PS I wasn't watching the game, but I just went on orioles.com and Tim Wakefield isn't pitching.... why did they change pitchers?

Sorry my mistake.... I read something wrong. Wakefield is in the game. HAHAHA! Wow, I need to sleep. I'm seeing things.

So the plan tonight is that if any of the top three and maybe the bottom two guys in the lineup get on base, they try to run on the knucklehead Wakefield and the rarely-used specialist catcher Cash (how come we didn't sign him up as part of our rotating array of backup catchers last year?). Once again, I can follow the game only on web-enabled ticker tape, but it seems to me that either Mora miscalculated or that it was a botched hit-and-run or that Huff K'd on a pitch that was easy for Cash to handle, knuckler or not. Thank goodness I'm not "watching" on MLB.com, where I'd be getting more info than anyone needs on the pitch trajectory, speed, and location.

"Looking to implement" some base running drills? How has this not been looked into already? What, are major leaguers just considered too advanced to toil in base running drills? A good team should always be practicing every aspect of the game, even if its in short stints.

Why do our managers always sound like, "ah shux, I just assumed these guys were really good at everything, but you know, maybe we should try some practice in the area we've been weak in for 2 months already." I hope Trembley's light bulb starts going on a lot quicker. This team, from managment on down, just sounds lazy at this point (already). If guy's don't start trying a little harder, I may have to change my blog name back to Almost Former. C'mon guys, I hate that name.

Anybody know what Trembley said when he got ejected?

This is MLB's fault of adding these new rules. Just play the game the way it has always been. It's hard enough to even play baseball now. Now, the umpires are changing the strike zones and speeding up the game.

A few of the pitches tonight have been not correct. I.E., the Huff at-bat with the attempted steal by Mora. It looked low. Even MASN had put up a ball, not a strike, and it said 3-2.

Just ridiculous in how MLB is changing the game in the way they want it to be.

The speed-up-the-game campaign is crazy. They want to sell the game to non-baseball fans, who complain about the length of the games, and don't care if they ruin it for the fans they already have. It's not football or basketball; please stop trying to fix what's not broken, MLB.

It reminds me of how many newspapers who have abandoned their core audience to try to attract more young readers than newspapers normally attract. It doesn't work, and turns off people who want real news. Not referring to the Sun, of course, Roch. I'm not a Baltimorean (?).

Wasn't there supposed to be a push toward developing better umpires ? What happened to that ?
Consistency is all we need, because having to guess is not helping our hitting.

Wow ! I love to see DT come flying onto the field with fire in his eyes !

With Adam Jones hitting around .250, it looks like the Orioles took the wrong outfielder of the three they were after during the past off season(Jones, Matt Kemp of the Dodgers and Jay Bruce of the Reds).

Bruce in the first 6 games since his recent callup, is hitting .591 with 2 home runs and 6 RBI's, and Kemp is hitting .311 with 30
RBI's. Let's hope our guy picks up the pace. He seems like a nice kid with a lot of talent.