Orioles: Simon to go long
Pitching coach Rick Kranitz said today that Alfredo Simon is pitching with a lot on the line tonight, though Kranitz wouldn't go so far as to say that Simon could lock up a spot in the rotation with a great performance.
It doesn't take much to reach that conclusion. He's going to be on a 90-pitch limit and he's going to be out there for awhile no matter what happens, because the Orioles are only taking four relievers along with him and a couple of them will not pitch more than one inning.
The Mets are expected to play almost all of their regular-season starting lineup, so the Orioles coaching staff is going to get to see Simon in a real-game situation under the lights.
Kranitz and manager Dave Trembley sat down to discuss the roster today, but no one's saying yet whether they've decided to go with 12 pitchers or 13. The difficult option situation seems to point to 13 pitchers, but there are six exhibition games to go. Everyone knows how I feel about that. The club would have to release a useful utility player to keep a guy who couldn't crack a 12-man pitching staff.
We'll see what Trembley has to say before the game tonight.
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Comments
I think what you are failing to realize however is that that 13th guy could be a SP that is out of options like Bass, or Pauley, or Penn. Sure he couldn't crack a 12 man pitching staff because they love Eaton (who sucks) way too much for their own good.
Posted by: Nate | March 30, 2009 2:52 PM
Funny how the disappearing announcers are making big news (at least during slow baseball times).
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/Whoops-O-s-announcers-assume-game-is-canceled-?urn=mlb,151405
Only 98 and counting comments over there.
Posted by: rich | March 30, 2009 2:53 PM
Hopefully Simon will post numbers similar to his career averages and make it easy for the Orioles to cut him before they head north.
It would be a tremendous mistake to base the decision to keep him on three spring starts when his career stats speak loud and clear about his, um ... "potential."
Keep Penn and Bass for now. Someone will have to go when Hill recovers anyway.
Posted by: malbie | March 30, 2009 3:08 PM
I understand your concern Pete, but as has already been said a) our regular position players are young and can handle the workload and b) that 13th pitcher could get a lot of work.
Our bullpen got HUGELY burned out last year. Even though that 13th man "couldn't crack a 12-man pitching staff", he doesn't need to. He just needs to go out and do mop up work and absorb innings in blowouts so we can save our productive relievers for close games.
I'm not a major league manager by any means, but it seems like a no brainer to go with 13.
Posted by: Christopher Mills | March 30, 2009 3:22 PM
Well I agree with you Pete. Who plays short when Izturis needs a day off? If he gets hurt that's one thing, but if he needs a day off there is no one to spell him.
Posted by: Daniel | March 30, 2009 4:08 PM