Payton is 100% right. If your glove touches it, you should catch it. If the Orioles aren't going to win on Sunday, then I am praying for rain. At least you can't lose if you don't play. I understand it's Mora's turn to sit. Huff to start at 3B, Millar at 1B, and Scott in LF. So who is going to to DH if Mora is sitting?

I'm going! Wouldn't miss it!
I'll drop by (as usual).

One can always hope.

Everyone should support
"Shannon's Fund".

C ya

If the ball is in your glove anywhere anytime,it should be an error,unless you're in an all out dive or hit the wall.That would have ended the inning and instead it cost us the game.And the Genius's refusal to bunt under any reasonable circumstance is beyond me,and why you change the lineup that scored you 10 runs the night before is why we will always be a .500 ballclub.Millar has one good night out of 20 and you sit Hernandez and put Millar back at cleanup.Sorry anybody that thinks Dave Trembley is a real big time manager hasn't been watching the same games I am.The only things he's changed is the attitude of the ball club and attitude alone doesn't win you games,defense,fundamentals and talent do.Since we don't have the worlds greatest talent the emphasis should be on fundamentals,something we sorely lack.And lately we've been making the same mistakes we made earlier in the year.And it's starting to catch up with us,by the end of the year we will be at least 10 games under .500.

I think you are over valuing Albers. The problem is that you need starters that can make it through 6 innings. Counting on relievers to pitch perfectly for 4 innings every night doesn't work.

Roles will always change since no team goes through a year without injuries. The Orioles just don't have any depth.

What will happen when Johnson starts to slow down, or do people really expect him to have a sub 2.00 era?

First, Trembley benches Scott against a righthander. Second, Trembley pulls Burres from the game and his replacement immediately gives up a home run. Then Trembley decides it's not important to give Ramon Hernandez a day off from catcher and lifts Quroz from the game early.

I realize Trembley deserves some credit but this game shows he has plenty of room for improvement. For starters Trembley can start playing Scott everyday since he is in the top 3 in OPS on the team.

Gramby: amen

Payton at #2 is a horrible choice. Let's all hope DT has THAT out of his system.

Fahey not being lifted for pinch hitter is also pretty pathetic. I don't care how many hits he has this week, he is not a ML hitter. I guess we used up the whole bench tho. Shows how silly it is to have fahey and bynum on the same team. Bynum becomes 100% useless and we waste a roster spot.

I'd rather see Qiroz hit and fahey lifted for PH

Sooner or later we have to let olson, Burres and Liz stretch to 100 pitches. Maybe if we were 5 or 10 UNDER .500 we would be doing this. Trembley has been playing bullpen bingo to try to win every game. You have to take a longer view and a bit more risk with starters if you want to preserve your pen and let the youngsters learn. Play for the long term - not just tonight.

And how hard is it to get the damn lineup right? No need for this payton at 2 or Ramon at 4 nonsense.

Roberts (s)
Markakis (l)
Millar (r)
Huff (l)
Hernandez (R)
Scott (l)
Mora (r)
SS (l)
Jones (R)

Take advantage of millar's obp even when he is struggling, get Jones better pitches and get your speedsters together. And alternate your lefty-righty matchups. Sheesh it aint rocket science!

If you must start payton, put him in for mora batting 7th, put Huff at 3rd and let Scott DH.

This would be by far our best lineup and we haven't seen it once all year. Get with it already.

Oh yeah - trade Sherrill and Huff cuz their value is at its highest point. Keep Roberts - the soul of the team. Listen to any and all offers for payton, millar, bradford, walker.

And don't bring in eckstein for 3 months. Go after bill hall, brandon wood, even f lopez - somone with a non zero chance of panning out as a 2009 regular.

There. That's not too hard, is it?

"N" is for not nearly this difficult, dave, get with it!

Trembley would have an easier time finding that bridge to the ninth if someone would nail his butt to the bench in the sixth inning. He continues to preach that his pitchers must "step up" and "take the challenge" of getting thru the sixth inning, but often doesn't give them the opportunity to do so.

Taking out Olson on Thursday was the right move. Removing Liz on Tuesday after only 80 pitches in six innings with a 6-2 lead was ridiculous. Tonight he removes Burres after only 73 pitches in 5 and two-thirds witha 3-2 lead. While many were complaining here about him getting knocked around early and throwing 54 pitches in the first three innings, he was able to get some very big outs in those innings. Let's give him credit for that.

Rick Dempsey said at the end of the telecast tonight that the manager needs to "force" his young pitchers to get thru those innings. I couldn't agree more.

As it is, Trembley is only putting pressure on Olson, Liz, and Burres in the 5th and 6th by having such a quick hook. By now I'm sure they understand that one baserunner may mean you're out of the game.

Deke - I'm one of the bloggers who chastised you. However, it was after his 2nd forgettable appearance in which he gave up a homerun to the first batter he faced and then threw three shutout innings. As for getting out minor leagurs, he was 5-2 with a 3.45 era at Norfolk.

Sending him out now I believe was the right move. However, I would like to see what Jim Miller can do here.

Roch, this whole bullpen specializaton thing is completely out of hand. Are you serious? Now we have a sixth-inning specialist in Albers? And please stop with the pitch count stuff. Who gives a rip if so and so threw so many pitches. It's boring and overblown.
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I didn't say Albers was a "specialist." But they need a reliable guy in the middle innings because they have three five-inning starters. Ask Trembley about it. - Roch

Wy wife and I will be at todays game Roch. wanted to ask... who wears #67 for the Orioles this year (we were just watching batting practice the other day and pregame watching the Os do drills...)
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One of the bullpen catchers, Deck or Felix. - Roch

I'll be at the game...

Break the streak!

That Payton almost catch was tough. It would have been an incredible play if he was able to hang on, but it wasn't easy by any means.

I'll be at the game today. And I have a good feeling that this is the day the Sunday losing streak ends. I feel that they're either going to get to Millwood and tag him for a lot of runs...or they're going to work him and drive his pitch count up and get into the weakest part of the Texas bullpen early. That's my prediction and I'm sticking to it.

I'll be there helping reverse the Sunday curse. Free tix are in my future. I can feel it.

Roch, do you think the SS trade talks will cool if Fahey can keep getting a hit per game in the 9 slot?

Isn't it supposed to be rainy up there today? Maybe the O's will luck out and they get Sunday off.

n is for No More Sunday Losses!

yea man i am going to the game hopefully they can just get a w and be over with this horrible losing streak on sundays. Good promotion though hopefully it will be a good crowd

Losses this season are paradoxically easier and harder to take than those from last year (last decade?): Easier, because this team always plays with heart and won't quit until there are 27 outs; harder, because unlike 2007, we expect them to find ways to win (more often than not they do), not to lose, and the losses are usually closer than last year, so there are more opportunities to see where one or two plays here or there could have made the difference.

Kevin Millwood isn't 8-2, 3.29 against THESE Orioles. I'm predicting he gets outpitched by Radhames Liz and the O's Sunday losing streak ends today.

Concerning something you wrote about last week, Roch, I heard Buck Martinez comment that the O's shouldn't go after David Eckstein because he the "hard-nosed" kind of player that can help a contender, not a rebuilding team.

While I don't favor getting Eckstein if it required giving up a top prospect, I think (amazing as it sounds) Martinez is way too premature in writing the Orioles off as a contender this year. As play begins today, the team is only six games behind the Red Sox in the wild card race with most of three months to play. This is no time to be conceding anything.

This is a bad team playing over 500 ball. Someone is doing something right. Nitpicking to try and prove how smart we are in our brilliant hindsight is missing the big picture. Blaming the manager for trying things and seeing how new combinations fit during a year devoted to building for the future and not about this year is silly.

Lucky Horseshoe--Good news! You're the winner of this week's Glass Half Empty Award for labeling the Orioles as "a bad team playing over .500 ball." I might be tempted to agree with you, but they've been doing this since the beginning of the season and still show the sort of resiliency that has won the grudging approval of thousands of the most jaded O's fans...except for you, of course. LOL

p for pessimistic horsebleep

Deke, although I didn't chastize you , I did comment that three appearances seemed to be appropriate. Having said and seen all of that , you were in fact prophetic about Bukvich.

That's why we read this blog.

I agree, Lucky Horseshoe. After the mismanaging of the past 10 years, people should be glad to have a guy who knows the game, acts decisively and steps up to answer questions. He even gets thrown out of a game now and then. Man, memories are short. It's BASEBALL, people! Not tax hikes or war!