Trembley's mistake was not in taking Olson out of the game. The mistake was who he brought in. With Walker on the DL, I expected Loewen to be the situational lefty in the 7th and maybe 8th innings. Bradford for the 7th. Cormier is one of our long guys. I feel pretty certain that had he come into the game for Olson things would have fallen in place and the Orioles get a win. Trembley managed backwards tonight with his bullpen and it cost us.

"It took a bad hop... blah blah blah... so nice to hear the much heralded leader taking full responsibility for his costly mistake. *rolls eyes*

It was a tough TEAM loss. It was the third bad loss in a week. The momentum is shifting on this team, and I hope the O's can keep up with the Rangers.

Attended the Baysox game in Harrisburg tonight & saw Matt Wieters hit his 1st AA HR - a towering shot to right center. He also added a 2B. He certainly looks ready for Camden Yards to me, at least on offense (he was the DH tonight, so no report on his defense). Also, Nolan Reimold hit 2 HRs & Chorye Spoone gave up 2 1Bs, a walk, & a grand slam to the 1st 4 batters he faced, then proceeded to pitch 4 scoreless innings (5 if you count the last 3 outs of the 1st).

Was Kevin Millar going to the bag for an unassisted out (seemed to be what was required) or was he looking to feed Olson?

For some reason, even when it looks like the unassisted play should be no problem, Millar looks uneasy going to the bag. Does he lack such confidence in his legs?

He may describe the play in terms of a hop, a ball popping out of the glove, but I think the error came from his mind scan that he had to make it to the bag.

Much talk tonight and recently about our pitchers going more deeply into games. There is no doubt that we coddle our pitchers as one poster mentioned earlier. We actually train them to be six inning pitchers. I would agree that Trembley did the right thing in removing Olson tonight, but surprised to see that no one here questioned Liz being removed on Tuesday.

Liz left the game with a 6-2 lead after only 80 pitches, 55 strikes. Only eighty pitches. He could have easily gone one more inning, if not two. It's a mindset. It's about mental toughness. But for all of Trembley's emphasis on such things, he fails to allow his young pitchers the chance to prove they can do it.

Roch - I know that the organization has a rule that if a starter throws 30 pitches in an inning he comes out of the game. Maybe you know or can find out for us if their is pitch limit for starters in the Orioles minor league system. Quite often you see our young starters pitch a strong six innings and leave with the lead only to have the bullpen blow the game in the later innings.

Ryan UVA - Notice I prefaced my comments with "assuming MacPhail does not get a young shortstop at the deadline". That would be my preference. That said, Orlando Cabrera would be an excellent option. Last year he batted .301 with 86 rbi from the two spot. This year he's at .266 with 33 rbi. He is excellent defensively. Getting him for one year would be great, but I don't believe you will be able to do that.

Also, several have posted here recently that we should trade Brian Roberts(30) and George Sherrill(31) because they are old.

I missed the game, with no good excuse. Good to hear the Huff is heating up and hopefully increasing his trade value; bad that Olson is still having control and innings problems; unfortunate that the O's are considering trading anything more than a bag of balls for Eckstein - we all knew this was a rebuilding season. I for one am ready to take the bad with the good, which we've had plenty of. We need to know for sure what we have in Fahey, L. Hernandez and Cintron, which doesn't appear to be much, but I think we should use this season to confirm or deny our suspicions.

More importantly, is there anyway we can arrange for the O's PA guy to play "Are you gonna go my way" by L Kravitz before every A-Rod at bat (is it too much to ask for it to happen in between every swing?)? Of course, all O's fans would chant "Cynthia!" after the song's refrain. It wouldn't be as good the Chuck Finley "Here I go again on my own" entrance, but if we could start the trend throughout the bigs that would be fantastic. I would even consider subscribing to the Yes network for the sole purpose of watching every A-Rod at bat when the song was played. Roch, please tell me you can make this happen.

U is for Madonna is Ugly!

What he needed to say was instead of going with the guys who had the best arms and best eras on the relief staff,I decided to use a lefty who had only been up for 2 days and a pitcher who has allowed more inherited runs to score then anybody on the staff,while still managing to keep his own era around 3.5 so it looks like he's dependable,and I screwed up big time.Words you'll never hear.Chalk another one up to bad bullpen managing,like last year and the year before,etc,etc.Why bring Olson out at all and after a very wild 4 pitch walk why not take him out then?By the way,we made 2 errors in that inning,a physical one by Millar and a mental one by Fahey.Nice kid,career minor league player.The stats prove it.

I'm sorry but I'm of the belief that MIllar's defense has been pretty damn good and he has saved dozens of $hitty throws from our stellar left infielders.
He gets a pass on this one from me Jim66. I think I heard that it was only his 3rd error this season. If thats the case, I mean Yikes!!, please show me perfection from your view.
Is he the future, course not but cut the man a break.

If we sign Eckstein it tells me the rebuilding phase is over.Get well soon Alex Cintron.

Hey Roch, do you think they'll move up Nolan Reimold to AAA anytime soon after another 2 HR night. He's demonstratively shown that he can handle AA pitching, and it's time to bring him to the next level to challenge him, especially considering he's already 24. And he's been healthy.

ok folks, long time no see, good to see everybody is still posting away. i got back from Chicago 2 days ago. man, what a trip! its all ancient history, but i'll just say it was an awesome time, and it was great to meet so many cool O's fans out and about in the bars...lots of orange! 2 things stick out in my mind, the Sherrill save in the first game of that series; the atmosphere felt like a world series game, and, sitting in the bleachers with other O's fans the next 2 games, all of us chanting "adam jones"...so cool. ok, those were happier times, now on to the current state of affairs. i will be succint as possible---what is Trembley doing right now? he sends down Salazar, the only person on the bench who can tie a game, or take a lead, with one swing of the bat. brings up Fahey, who is a (very) poor man's Mark Belanger, without the glove and with less power. the guy can't even make the throw from ss without the ball going in the dirt. fahey and luis hernandez for that matter had more lives than a cat, yet bynum can't see the light of day in the line-up. screw Brett Favre, how about a Cal Ripken comeback? Cal could start for us tomorrow and bat .260 and give us 15-20 homers from that position. another thing, i've been saying this for about 2 years---adam loewen is not a major league pitcher. i would put him in a package and trade him asap; the guy may be still hurt. i wouldn't trust him to be honest about it if he were. he does not know how to PITCH, never had the time to learn, he just THROWS. anyways, thanks for the loss adam, millar as well. i cannot wait for the true rebuilding to begin. lastly folks, i'm getting that "when does Ravens training camp start?" feeling, usually its a little earlier, but i think this is the beginning of a bad stretch.

Relax everyone. All teams have the type of games once in awhile. We really haven't had too many of these, unlike last year, when it seemed implosions occured every 3 days.
I suppose we can question Trembley's bullpen handlling but to me it still comes down to our starters not being able to pitch deeper and throw strikes/avoid the BB.
We have to find out if Loewen can pitch; if he if continues to implode then maybe he needs to go down to the minors and find his grove. Injuries and all, he never seems to have much command and his BB numbers are horrendous.
I'd also say NO to Eckstein-another one of JP' s 'brilliant moves-why does he still have a job?
And on a final note-before hitting the links-who gets moved July 31? I'd say Bradford, Walker(if healthy), smiling Jay. Huff is an interesting dilema-he's got another year left and obviously, he is now a key part of the offense. We could use him to bridge during the rebuild but a team like the Angels might jump. What is he worth? Maybe they'd give us a SS/3B-Wood/Aybar..

I'm a little late, but it's a better discussion than dwelling on last night: no to Eckstein. I agree with the idea of going after a prospect (or "failed" prospect) that's blocked. Think the Angels would give up Brandon Wood now? He's been bad in about 100 MLB at bats, Aybar has taken over SS, Figgins at 3rd, and they have that bizarre fascination with Maicer Izturis. Wood strikes out a lot, but he's never really gotten a fair shake at a MLB trial. Maybe he'd come cheaply, although it's not obvious what the Angels would want (maybe Huff, and I'd want a bigger return for him right now).

millar you are the weakest link.
goodbye.

If I were calling the shots last night I probably wouldn't have brought Loewen in to replace Olson with runners already in scoring position. He's still adjusting to coming in from the bullpen and that might not have been the best spot for his second night back.

That being said, I don't really think Adam pitched poorly. In fact the ground ball to Fahey most likely would have been the double play ball that was needed to get out of the inning without much damage, if Brandon hadn't gone to cover second because he thought a steal was coming. Sometimes baseball is just a weird game. Of course Kevin's error didn't help matters much.

I'm sure some posters might start freaking out about the bullpen...but yesterday's game is over, let's move on to the Texas series.

Happy 4th of July, Everyone!

Went to Aberdeen to watch the Ironbirds last night. A kid named Jedediah Stephens hit two massive home runs, including a walk-off 3-run dinger to win the game 4-3 in the bottom of the 9th. I don't know if he's viewed as a "prospect," but man was he mashing the ball last night.

I totally agree Wayward O. Millar is, has been and always will be the weakest link. He never has been and never will be a Baltimore Oriole. He's a Red Sock in an Orioles uniform. Get rid of Millar and the Orioles instantly become a better team.

Folks, we are two games over .500 past the halfway mark in the season. So we have a few bad nights. This was a team that many sportswriter's were saying would be one of the worst in baseball history.
If the season ended today and Tampa Bay was not playing exceptionally (most people thought they might be better, but 1st place in the East -- no way), Trembley would be high on the list for Manager of the Year.
If this teams stays above .500 I will be thrilled with this season. If we finish above the Yankees...that would be awesome!

What does not make sense with the Eckstein rumor is that the Jays are rumored to be trying to acquire shortstop. If Eckstein is not good enough for the Jays, why would we want him. I would rather see Fahey.

Fahey, Cintron, Bynum, I don't see Eckstein as an improvement and I don't like him, either. Just one of those players I don't like. All that nervous energy, I guess.

Bynum's interview segments and his mother's live phone talk during the game revealed a lot -- nice kid, nice family, he seemed like a true innocent, a rarity, I suspect, in MLB.

Sure wish he could hit.

"Get rid of Millar and the Orioles instantly become a better team."

somewhere, Jennifer's head is exploding.

while i simply love Milllaahhh as a team cheerleader and a "clubhouse fun" kinda guy, i'm not sold on him doing much more than DH'ing. on alternate days. in august.

but i bet he's lots of fun at parties!

"u" is for ugggghhh. enough with the eckstein garbage. we don't need the complete set of "2008 Miniature Middle Infielders"....