Roch,

I am glad to hear that you will still be around. You are the best thing to happen to the Orioles since Wild Bill Hagy. Thanks for the great Orioles coverage and the laughs!

Tim

Geez I go away for a couple days and so much has happened.
These Roch leaving rumors almost gave me a heart attack.

Well with my morning tea today I was able to catch up on all the entries. First things first........... Brian! You went to a game. I thought you weren't giving another dime to Angelos & Co. I'm shocked. Truly Shocked!

I was able to catch the Luke Scott walk off homer and boy was it nice. He is so precious! I hope he stays with the team. Good Guy!

So here is something that'll get fans to the stadium on Sundays......

If the Orioles win this Sunday, all fans will receive a coupon worth one swing at Peter Angelos with a bat. That stadium would be full!

GO O's!

After reading that second to last comment, I think I'd be okay going 1-25 on Sunday this season. This blog is the only reason I can keep any semblance of sanity between October and February. In fact, it's really the only reason I don't lose it during the season, also.

Lower reserve tickets at AA Bowie cost $14? The best box seat for a Tides game is only $11!

Nice blog Roch,,,,,,,,,,,I'm encouraged by the last two statements,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Don't go.

The cartoon bird would put an end to this streak.

Have someone look up the year that the O's had their best record (in Baltimore) and they can wear that uniform instead of that sorry BP orange jersey.

Actually, if we lose every Sunday game until Sunday September 21st, and then win the final regular season game in Yankee Stadium to break the streak, I will be ok with it. Sacrifice now to win the final game and crash/ruin the Yankees last party on national TV (ESPN Sunday Night). It would be awesome to win that game and send the battery throwing idiots home one last time by a team that had lost 24 straight Sunday games.

Well, first, i wouldn't mind "We Win You Win 3" where you would get 3 tickets if the O's beat the Angels this Sunday because I have tickets to the game. But I think the fans need to do a little something to help reverse the jinx. How about "Opposite Day at the Yard". All fans should wear their hats backwards, their shirts backwards, heck, wear your shorts backwards, although that may present some complications if you've been filling up with Natty Bohs, so hats and shirts would suffice.

I'm waiting for them to offer the 13 game Sunday plan for next year before I go on a sunday again.

It just seems to me that on Sundays, we don't really field the best lineup possible. Also, we don't usually have the best pitcher on the mound.

I think the streak will continue for a few more weeks.

The recent David Steele article gets a bit too weepy about Loewen and other O’s so-far-failed (or gone) young starters. Yes, even a year or so ago, we were thinking Bedard-Cabrera-Loewen-Penn were going to be staff of the future, but Bedard’s gone (though his impact may be felt more with what he brought in a trade), Cabrera can pitch at the big league level though it’s anyone’s guess if he can put it all together regularly (but at least he’s healthy), Loewen’s done as a pitcher, and Penn is a perpetual disappointment with health and performance even at the minor league level. While this is painful for us, this sort of thing happens all throughout baseball. How many touted pitchers don’t make it or are just mediocre? How about those great young Mets pitchers of the 90s? It was very unrealistic to expect that all four of them would find themselves in the rotation for the next 5 or 8 years. There were bound to be bouts of devastating injuries and general ineffectiveness.

The situation is made worse that the next wave—Liz and Olson—are clearly overmatched at the major league level (maybe this will change, but I doubt anytime soon). Now, we have to look forward to the wave beyond that with guys like Tillman and Arrieta and the team should be mindful not to rush them no matter how desperate things are at the major league level.

It’s become cliché to say, you can never have enough pitching, but how true is that? It’s highly frustrating for all of us to see all of this highly touted pitchers disappear, but the team has to keep going that route. At least the team is not looking at a situation like it did 7 or 8 years ago when it was pinning all its hopes on Matt Riley. There are some real internal questions about why bad things keep happening. This cannot discourage them, though, of still seeking out as much top-notch young pitching as they can get. I guess you hope that for every 10 bright young prospects you get, maybe 2 of them become rotation fixtures.

As for Loewen, I wish him the best. He may very well do it, though I hope the team is realistic and considers that his contributions as a major leaguer are done. His chances of making it as a position player are quite slim, even if Rick Ankiel was successful. If he makes it just as a limited role bench player, that would be a success.

Don't know about Larish, but I'm pretty sure we can't get Joyce for our junk(Payton and Walker or Bradford).

It's been reported nationally that the O's do not want to trade Sherrill unless overwhelmed. Trading him for Aybar would be overwhelming the Angels.

Roch,
from a business standpoint, it makes no sense in an environment of change from paper to internet to dispose of one of your best assets in the new market. If your newspaper doesn't see that, you are just as well to move on. If there is a restrictive bargaining agreement that is driving the program ; that's too bad. I sure hope your people know that you have a unique product here that outshines any others I have seen. You should take a peak at some of the other blogs for various teams out there... for the most part they are brutal.

Feed our addiction!

The Top Six Ways to break the OsSunday Curse (I couldn't think of Ten).

# 6 Add Benny Ayala to the 25 man roster every Sunday. "Benny the Bat" was Mr. Sunday for the Os of long ago.

#5 Move the next Sunday game to a city on the other side of the International Date Line. That will really make it a Saturday or Monday game.

#4 Sell the team to Cal Ripken Jr. People seem to think that would solve all the Os problems.

#3 Have the Maryland Legistature re-enact the Blue Laws. At least then the Os couldn't lose at home on Sunday because they couldn't play on Sunday.

#2 Have Trembly tell the players he will schedule a Monday 9 AM workout to review baserunning fundamentals if they lose on Sunday.

And,

#1 Get some decent starting pitching.

Roch leaving..... the rumors are afloat...I heard he is refusing to re$ign so they are trying to get the best deal they can for the guy before he goes FA & joins ESPN like all the past, good scribs from Bal'mer have done.

"PAY the Man!" has to be rekindled!!

I will eat TWO hats & a copy of the Sun before I start reading Mease or Steele's blog.....

Mora got drilled with a 99 MPH fastball on the forearm or hand..... I bet that left a mark....

Sebastien Boucher?? I thought he was Bedard's agent in Canada?

$14?? I just bought a $48 ticket , same area probably, to see the O's. Didn't PAY that much for it, by I digress..... Quite a difference huh? Some of the current O's should be at Bowie, so shouldn't the O's get their tix prices closer to Bowie's?

Roch:
Based on your statement, it sounds like you are definitely gone. Hopefully, it was your choice and not the goofey Sunpapers that pushed you out. If you go, you will definitely be missed. This blog with all of its characters, along with the factual insights that are provided, is a blast.

It's a shame that the national media keep stealing away The Sun's top baseball writers, whether it be Ken Rosenthal, Buster Olney, or you. Pretty soon, there will only be one poor Schmuck left to write for the paper.

Roch, Whats the story with signing Brian Matusz? When is the deadline?
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Aug. 15. Orioles are convinced they'll get a deal done long before that. - Roch

door to door blogs...cool, i hope you have a good travel budget and like coming out to los angeles every day...you're the best roch!

If you do leave then this blog will be missed. But now that you said it I will expect an Orioles blog at my doorstep in AZ every morning by 8 am... sounds good! I will settle for one on the internet tho but the personal delivery would be nice. How big of a setback do you think the loss of Lowenn is to the pitching staff and to the team as a whole?

Door to door? That won't be necessary, Roch. We love you and all that, but we need our space.
Do keep blogging, though, even as you become first a TV studio talking head and then color man to Mel Proctor's play-by-play work for MASN -- a dream team.. As I said previously, some of us prefer to read rather than to listen. Particularly to that Ann Arunnel (cq) county accent of yours.

Speaking of promotions - and I hope I am wrong about this - it looks like a decent possibility that the winner of the 50 Millionth Fan promo will be a Red Sox fan on August 18.

I would schedule a fireworks night before then just to prevent the possibility.

Call me crazy, but in light of David Steele's article about the inability of our starting pitchers to go deep into ballgames, I have a proposition: use starters as relievers!

It seems absolutely silly to me that even when a starting pitcher gets knocked out of a game early, he is not expected to pitch again for 5 days. The transition in the 80's to a five-man rotation as well as the specialization of bullpens has led to the overall softening of pitchers. But in a market where the chief complaint is "you can never have enough pitching", why not give players dual roles?

My thinking is this: every starting pitcher throws a bullpen side session in between starts anyway. That means on any given day, there is a pitcher that will be starting the game, and another that is on his side session day. If the starter runs into trouble early, get the side session pitcher up throwing. Then, the side session pitcher can either come in for 2 innings to bail out the starter and bridge to the bullpen, or if the starter recovers, get his work in under the supervision of the bullpen coach during the game (at a point in the game when the bullpen mounds aren't otherwise needed).

Roch, why isn't this ever done? I see this as a great way to take some of the innings burden off of the bullpen pitchers without really increasing the number of pitches on the starters' arms. It allows the bullpen pitchers to (predominantly anyway) stay within their roles, and gets the starters some competitive innings in between starts. What are your thoughts?

If you do go, will "Roch Around the Clock" remain as intellectual property of the Sun?

I don't think I can stomach "Schmuck Around the Clock."

Eric in Pittsburgh - a fine contribution from a rival city. I liked your list.

And I loved Benny Ayala. But that got me thinking back to the late 70's and the great "Sunday" Pat Kelly.

Pat started mostly on Sundays and was a PH or reserve the rest of the time, but he was a very productive guy for the O's. He got his nickname from hitting a few home runs in a few of his Sunday starts one year and from his clubhouse preaching. (he became a minister after he retired from baseball).

Many will remember this famous exchange while Pat was in the clubhouse before a game and Earl walked through:

Pat Kelly: "I am walking with the Lord, Earl!"

Earl Weaver: "I'd rather you walk with the bases loaded."

Although Pat passed away a few years back, maybe there is something we could do to bring him back for a Sunday game. Show his picture on the scoreboard with the famous quotes from him and Earl, for example.

If I were the O's marketing team, I might line up a dozen or so examples of great luck or good fortune from the Orioles past. Then hype them on the scoreboard before and during the game. Hard line drives caught by pitchers and turned into outs. Pictures of the competing architects drawings when they chose HOK's Camden Yards design, Pat Kelly HRs, maybe a Sunday pennant clincher or WS victory, that sort of thing. Call up the ghosts of good fortune from our past.

But realistically, there are things that would truly help.

1. align the rotation so that Guthrie pitches and the best hitters play on Sunday - rest them on Monday or Tuesday instead.

2. do something to get a standing room only crowd - free tickets, some huge giveaway, whatever it takes, just fill the park.

Hey Roch, you have everything you need: humor, sports knowledge, looks for the tube. MASN first, ESPN second. You will be missed, but you have the talent to move on and up.

Jennifer, I did indeed go & I had fun too. Heineken drafts now available at the stadium helped make my day. I don't see it that I helped potter out, I repurchased an already paid for tix , so he gained nothing in the way of $$, except vocal support & an O fan present staring down Tiger fans from me. :-)
I LIKE your Sunday idea. I'd PURCHASE a tix to every Sunday game if that was the promo!

Brad that's Norfolk vs the DC area buddy. The cost of living here blows away the Hampton Roads area.

Hun, I didn't know AArundel had an accent....

How about this coming Sunday, the first 25 fans will take the place of the existing team..... Heck, it can't hurt and if they win give them free sunday tickets for 5 years.

Brett, maybe they could attach the winning R Sux fan TO a firework?

You guys actually READ Steele?

"Schmuck Around the Clock." Never, it would be better if he called it...
"Bunch of Schmuck's"

I have shared parts of Roch's blogs with my non-baseball fan friends and they appreciate the wit and humor. I appreciate the wit, humor, O's updates...this Blog has kept me more interested in the Orioles than otherwise.

The Sunday thing boils down to religion. The present Orioles are all Christians and see Sunday as the sabbath and day when thou shall not work, and God knows the O's of 2008 and yet to work on Sunday.

Tell me more about this door to door blogging.

Are you going to blog about our lives now? "Paul R. had some Mickey Tettleton chewing gum for breakfast--Froot Loops mixed with chewing tobacco."

Or are you going to refuse to leave until we read enough blogs to earn you "points" for a vacation or whatever that scam is.

Or is every blog going to come with a copy of the The Watch Tower or whatever it's called.

Sunday games should start immediately after a Saturday night game. Thus, despite actually playing parts of the game on Sunday, it is still Saturday in most parts of the country.

Roch, I would never encourage anyone to come to Cleveland, even as part of a Door-to-Door Blogathon, but we do have some great beer and pierogies here....

Either way, hopefully we are all just jumping the gun here as the body's not even cold yet and we're planning the wake. (And with this group? What a FUN wake to go to!)

"F" is for effing corporate america.

Roch, it is all over the internet. We are your loyal flock so why are we the last to know. Where are you going?

What the Sun and Sheila Dixon doesn't need is 10,000 RochBloggers going Postal in this city. There is no force on the East Coast that can stop us if we don't get our Roch fix. Check with NIH and the CDC, Roch is 1000 times more addictive than crack, and that is saying something in this city.

Can you explain the process as to how the O's are going to be able to send Lowen to the minors and not pass him through waivers, offering him to all other clubs first.

I thought the waiver concept was a union thing to protect a player from being bounced back and forth endlessly. No matter what the O's and Lowen want to do, doesnt MLB and the player's union have to go along?

It should be noted that the O's have endured some tough pitching matchups on Sundays this year, meaning that regardless of the day of the week, they would have been underdogs in those games.

In 12 of the 16 Sunday games, the opposing starting pitcher currently has a winning record. One of the four who doesn't is Verlander, who is obviously very good. Some of the guys the O's have had to face on Sundays include Roy Halladay, Andy Pettitte, Felix Hernandez, Dice-K Matsuzaka, Bartolo Colon, Joe Saunders (12-5), and Manny Parra (9-2). All told, opposing Sunday starters are currently 114-87 (.567).

I think Jennifer's idea of taking a swing at Angelos may be -- may be -- a little harsh. How about this? Put Angelos in a dunking tank.

If I am Brian Matusz I wait till the last moment to sign. Every time a pitcher other than Guthrie starts a game, Brian's asking price goes up.

Hey Roch, any way Jim Johnson gets the Joba treatment and gets a shot at starting a game?

Are you using this as a negotiating ploy to get your BLOG Photo updated?

I am realitively new to this blog and have enjoyed it tremendously since January. I had been deployed and was trying to soak up as much information as I could about the Orioles from when I was gone. This became one of my best resources (minus some of the bloggers of course hahaha). I sure hope you don't leave Roch, but if it's for a better position than congrats and all the best! Wow, $14 for a lower reserve seat at AA Bowie? You can fly out here to Omaha and see the AAA Royals for same seating at $7 max.

Is Tracking The Terps ever going to be updated. No reporter at the ACC media event?. Where are the posts. FRETERP

condolences to loewen and his ailing left arm. Personally I think he has the athleticism and the mental makeup to make it as a big league hitter. No telling that he will be an all star, but just making it back to the o's as a position player will be awesome.

Is Sherrill going to be traded? I think the Tiger series showed that we will see much of the same from the O's as the first half, save the August swoon. It doesn't add up to anything meaningful, and a left handed reliever could be in high demand.

...what if the O's were 15 and 1 on Sundays this year? Wow.

Dooley raises a good question. Most people think that JJ will eventually be a starter. Why don't we start stretching him out now? Aren't we just losing time to be able to run that experiment. He should have enough confidence by now to know that he belongs. Why not start up a couple of runs for the rest of the bullpen instead of down by several? I think we have a better chance at finding other effective relievers than findings potential starterrs with his stuff.

Anyway, I'm sure there is a reason, but has anyone asked the brass that specific question?

Btw, I am totally out of the loop on this Sun takeover stuff. Can anyone shed some light here?

Tomc13 and Jennifer have interesting suggestions for Angelos on Sunday Promotions.

My suggestion : If the O's win next Sunday game , why not have Angelos go to home plate with a barber , and have his head shaved ?

I wouldnt miss this for all the coffee in Starbucks .

Roch, here's to hoping the O's continue to lose on Sundays (that is if it means you sticking around with us). Of course, I'd then hope they win all six other days of the week.

Congrats to Luke Scott for being named American League Player of the Week! Keep it going Luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuukeeee.

Go O's!

Glad your still going to be with the organization in some capacity, whatever that means. I'm all for giving you a Sunday call-up next week to hit DH for the Orioles. I saw you in an Amber Theoharis interview or was she in your interview? Anyway, you look like you could swing the bat. You kinda look like a baseball player and hey with a name like Roch Kubatko, that would even look menacing on the lineup sheet.

Roch, just pick a good URL, we'd all come for your blogging! Odd article for subscribers, etc.

Roch,

Glad you're sticking around. Lord knows this town needs professional writers.

But you stole my 80s music reference for your blog title!

How about moving as many Sunday games to Monday as possible?

Your blog is required reading for O's fans. Here's hoping it stays in one form or another.

Hi Roch,

I have a comment a comment / question regarding Adam Loewen. If he is going to convert from a pitcher, wouldn't it make more sense to try him at first base then as an outfielder? Physically, he's what you'd like in a first baseman (tall at 6'4", and throws left-handed), and he's played first base in junior college. Plus we seem to have better prospects in our farm system in the outfield than we do at first base (Reimold, Montanez, etc.).......

I'm not a 100% sure on this but I watch the games of the tv and when they lose on Sundays the o's extra show says that the Orioles don't have batting practice on Sunday and I think that is one of the reasons that they end up losing. It even looks that way because they don't score a lot of runs and don't hit that well. I think that if you want to do a promotion you should just keep doing the ticket thing but make sure the Orioles have batting practice.