The morning after
Not a great night for Orioles pitcher Jeremy Guthrie, who struggled in his first appearance in the World Baseball Classic. Guthrie got hit around in a middle-inning relief appearance and the United States team lost for the first time, but Team USA had already qualified for the second stage of the tournament. Next up: Puerto Rico on Saturday.
The Orioles have a soft day today. No exhibition game is scheduled, so the team will play an intrasquad game at 11. I hope nobody minds, but I'm going to take part of the day off to see how many times I have to swing a golf club to get through 18 holes. I know all of you are curious about that.
Don't be surprised, however, if I pop back in once or twice with an update. I am, as you know, a multi-talented individual, though I'm not good at anything anybody gives a damn about.
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Comments
First hole....KFC
Second hole....Papa Johns
Third hole....Taco Bell
Fourth hole....Burger King
Fith hole.... Nearest Lounge
General consensus.... You won't make it past the 5th hole.
Posted by: A Fan with Visions of Grandeur | March 12, 2009 8:27 AM
If Guthrie pitches like this and his last game of last season, it's going to be a long year. A bad Guthrie and 4 unproven starters makes for a disaster of a season. You may see 37 different pitchers by the end of the season. But we will see how patient the O's really are, with the young pitchers they say they don't want to rush to the majors.
Posted by: Ron | March 12, 2009 8:54 AM
The current pitching situation is the culmination of of incompetent ownership and direction by the Angelos family. I believe that the franchise turned the corner with the hiring of Andy Macphail, however, pitching will be the last thing to be fixed. Oriole fans are going to have to hold their nose this year and look to the future.
Meanwhile, this may be one of the worst starting staffs assembled since the original Washington Senators used to trot out Camilo Pascual followed by a bunch of bums in the rotation.
The risk on waiting for the young pitchers is that the Orioles seem to have an inexplicable rate of attrition through injuries with their top pitching prospects.
As fans we need to enter this season with very low expectations. I'm afraid that by late July things will be getting ugly in Birdland.
Posted by: Gil Jr | March 12, 2009 9:47 AM
On the bright side, the guys who got hits off of Guthrie, play for the O's.
Posted by: Josh | March 12, 2009 9:52 AM
Better increase the discussion about Pedro!
K is for ... need it be said? Strikeout
Posted by: Doug | March 12, 2009 11:48 AM
Hey Pete,
You take your day off. You deserve it. Spend it with your wife (and kids if you have any), or not. You've been a great columnist for us Os fans. As a blogger, you're schedule seems to have turned into a 24/7, 7 day a week affair, so in my book, you've certainly earned it and then some ;)
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Pete's reply: Thanks, I appreciate that. I just got back to the ballpark, but the short day is about over.
Posted by: Basemonkey | March 12, 2009 12:22 PM
I always hear modern day players are
better athletes then in the past, but
when I was a kid the Orioles had a
4 man rotation and most times pitched into the 7th ining,and seemed to never get hurt, now the O's bring 37 pitchers to camp and can't get 5 to stay healthy to pitch.In your opinion are the pitchers babied to much in the minors with pitch counts that they can't handle the work load in the majors?
Posted by: BRIAN SHEARER | March 12, 2009 12:59 PM