Why didn't Sherrill come in!? I don't care if it isn't a save situation. Johnson hasn't pitched in a while and this game was all but wrapped up. I would normally be confident with Johnson but I was thinking Sherrill is the only option today. Hopefully they hang on, this would be crushing to lose and start up all the naysayers again.

What in the heck is wrong with Trembley. Bergesen was mowing down the Redsox and he replaces him?

This is reminiscent of Perlozzo replacing Guthrie in the 9th and the O's blowing a 5 run lead.

Trembley can't manage. FIRE him already!

Nils

Oh well, start up the comeback team again. Sherrill should have been in earlier.

Man what a tough break… I was hoping the O’s would get it in the 9th so we wouldn’t have to go back and discuss Pie’s base running mistake at 2nd earlier in the game but it might have been a critical point.

and here comes all the posts questioning DT for pulling Bergy.

Ugh. Again. Ugh. Hold it Baez and bring in it home in the bottom of the 9th.

Nils, you're an idiot. Its really unfortunate that the O's blew this game for Bergesen because he's been amazing, but he can't go out and throw complete games all the time. You have to have some faith in your bullpen, especially going with Johnson and Sherrill to close it out. You can't blame Trembley. He went with the lights out pitchers and they blew it. Not his fault. Any manager would have done the same thing, Bergesen is a rookie pitcher.

Why risk ruining a career for a couple pointless wins in a pointless season? If pitched properly he will have plenty of opportunities in a long career to get those complete games. But then again maybe you're a big Dusty Baker fan, who knows?

When will the Orioles get some relief pitching that can get somebody out when you need them to......what an awful organization in getting a winning team. Great effort by Bergesen wasted!!

Way too much managing. Trembley pulled this same stunt last year in Minnesota. Sarfate was mowing down the Twins and Mauer was coming up. Trembley brings in Jamie Walker for that stupid lefty/lefty nonsense and Mauer hits one 400 feet. No reason for Bergesen to not come out for the 9th.

Say what you want about bringing in Sherrill instead of Johnson -- but it wasn't a save situation and Johnson has been pretty dependable this year. I don't have a problem with which pitcher to bring in, once Trembley decided to go to the 'pen.

The big problem to my mind is why did Trembley go to the 'pen at all?!? I don't know what Bergesen's pitch count was, but the Sox clearly couldn't hit him ... I like Trembley, but he should have given Brad a chance to finish the game. I doubt he gives up the HR like Johnson did.

What a shame ....

Yeah you cant blame DT yet at least wait until the game is over hahaha

Trembley does it again. There was absolutely no reason to pull Bergesen after 103 pitches. Pitch count managing is beyond stupid.

You have to feel bad for Bergesen. He pitched his butt off and the bullpen implodes. Looked to me like Varitek swung at that last pitch, and that would have ended it. Let's just hope Baez can keep it tied.

I'm not upset at all over pulling Bergy. The kid threw 8 great innings and yeah he was only at 103. But if cannot go to your 2 best arms out of the pen to get 3 outs up 4 you do not even deserve to win. Nice outing Brad.

Wow! What a fine performance by Bergy only to be wasted. I'm just disgusted. In reality Bergeson should be like 7-2.

Bergy's pitch count was 102 I believe. I wasn't at the game so I can't tell if he looked tired or not but I have to believe that a major league pitcher has more than 102 pitches in him. Still, a bullpen is suppose to hold a 4 run lead going into the 9th....

Bergeson had his A game, and just over 100 pitches (103) and with a 4-run lead.

Pete - Did you see anything that would make you think he should come out? Why not save Johnson and a gassed Sherrill for the west coast road trip? Why not pull him after he allowed just 1 baserunner? Thoughts??

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Pete's reply: He could have stayed out there, but I'd kind of like to have him healthy at the end of the season. If I had to choose between that and him having two complete games instead of one, I'll go for healthy.

why not start Bergesen in the ninth, see what he has?......this would easily ruin all the positive vibes after last night to blow this one, what a shame the kid does not get the victory on this one.......bad call on the managers part.........

Ridiculous to take out Bergerson the way he was pitching! You at least let him come out for the ninth and pull him if someone gets on. It is time for Jim Johnson to get off of this team. He is terrible. This bullpen is horrendous and has cost Bergeson 2 wins. The baserunning is a joke,. It's time for Trembley to be fired.

After what DT and the birds did last night give the poor guy some slack! The umps today were terrible Tek was out in the 9th!!!

Pete - Were you at the game? Did Bergy look done after the 8th? Keep up the good work!

Fire Trembley...just get him out of here

This is really a shame for Bergesen, he pitched quite a game. This is a must win game as far as I'm concerned to get this team on track back to .500. Hopefully the O's can pull off another late inning win.

Trembley blew this game completely how can you not give a guy a chance to finish..and why are you going to Sherril after a late night the night before???

Dave I like you but you gotta go!

Despite the disaster of the ninth inning, I just love the way Bergeson is pitching.

I understand not letting Bergeson go a complete game - let's all remember he started the year off in triple A and will be pitching more this year than any year of his life.

Bottom line, Sherrill sucks at closing. I don't care about how many saves he has because personally it's a BS stat to begin with (game 1 of this series Papelbon goes in for the sox when the Os have a couple runners on base in a 4-0 game and he gets a save for it?). The bulk of Sherrill's outings are like this, put a couple guys on and then some how pull the "save" out.

Seriously though, a reliever has to throw strikes, bottom line. These are professional athletes, if they can't throw strikes on command pull them out of the game.

Trade him, get rid of him, make him a regular bullpen guy, whatever, no more 9th innings.

Chris,

There is no need to be "tough" guy behind the keyboard. I could probably squash you like a bug.

I'm one of the fans that stayed for through what had the makings of a miserable loss and yelled my lungs out to support the O's come back to win last night's game.

The pitch count was not that high, and why not learn from past history and let a stellar starter finish the game. That's all I was saying. Trembley should not be fired because of this game only. He has made way too many questionable calls throughout this season that have cost us dearly.

18 straight Orioles have gone down. Cruise control, baby. Since when does throwing 120-130 pitches ruin a pitcher's arm? Show me the evidence.

Really, why would firing Trembley make anyone a better baserunner? These are all veterans making the mistakes. I mean what are you going to do with Pie today? Going for 2nd was a good decision in my opinion if you saw where the ball was hit. I just think he wasn't hustling out of the box like he should have been. You aren't pulling him out for that when Jones is getting rest for being injured. So what would YOUR perfect manager do? What are you going to do about Wiggington? He's on fire with the bat. You can hold all of the meetings you want, these aren't players you can just bench for extended periods.

I really don't want Trembley to get fired, I think he's better than whatever our other options were and will be. Maybe at the end of the year you reevaluate. There's no reason to do it in the middle of a throwaway season unless things really fall apart. He's doing great with the young guys. But part of me would kinda like to see him go so another guy can come in and deal with all of the same problems so the Sheep can call for his head too.

Now if Salazar pinch hits and homers to end this game Trembley will be a god for the night again. Its beyond annoying.

Alright we still got a chance to win this thing get it together people

And these games are not meaningless. When the bullpen keeps blowing games for a pitcher, it makes that pitcher feel like he has to be absolutley perfect, which often leads to bad results.

yeah, why not pinch hit salazar for zaun?

The DT haters on this Blog are terrible. One moment he’s the man next he’s an idiot. At least wait until the game is over before you grill the guy he did beat the sox last night..

I've never been a Trembley supporter. He's a nice guy, but he's been in over his head since day 1. Now that the team is a little more competitive, that point is glaringly apparent.

Oh gawd!!!!!!!!!!!1 Chris Ray is coming in!!

I swear, being an O's fan is slowly killing me. Game is not over at 6-5, but GOD, this is so frustrating.

strike three check swing to Vtek, O's win 5-3.

Did Ellsbury's double look foul?

The move Trembley made to replace Bergeson would not be bad if he had brought in a Mariano Rivera/Trevor Hoffman caliber closer.

The difference between a good manager and a bad one is to know the capabilities of your players and to know when to bring them into the game.

I any other situation JJ would have been the perfect guy to bring up. He is a long-man. He is not a 9th inning pitcher. And Sherril, despite his recent success is not a lights out pitcher.

Yes it is easy to be a Monday morning quarterback, but with Trembley you tend to be right 9/10 when you critique him.

There is way to much talent on this team to be wasted by Trembley's ways.

DEVASTATING loss for this young club. There's plenty of blame to go around.

PNC

All right time to take down Jonathan Pappelsuck again

Dave Brought in the #2 Relief Pitcher on the Staff. Johnson Failed, Not Trembly. Dave Brought in the #1 Relief Pitcher, Sherrill Failed. NOT Dave.

If they do there jobs game over.

I may have hit Wieters for Zaun in the 10th, but its not like Weiters has been hitting all that well.

PLayers Fault, Not Dave.

Does Dave get credit for last night? Pinch Hitter gets 3 run homer.. Nope the player does.

If JJ and Sherrill do there jobs, as they are paid to do, there is no Dave discussion.

Are we trying to win games or "protect" starting pitchers? Did anyone actually think we had a better chance of winning today pulling Bergesen after 103 pitches and handing the lead over to the pen? The Red Sox hitters must have been relieved to see Brad leave. Thanks, Dave.

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Pete's reply: I would answer your question by saying that they are trying to "protect" pitchers and win. If it comes down to hurting a pitcher or lose a game, I think they'll choose to lose, at least until they are in contention.

I think Varitek struck out in the ninth as well, but the Red Sox are the Steelers of baseball when it comes to the umps/refs giving them every call.

Exactly Doug,
Dave just about did all he could. He didn’t sign these guys, he’s not out there playing.. Remember this Sox team is one of the best teams in baseball and the O’s are a rebuilding project. Don’t get carried away by the sweet taste of winning last night.

Bunt Pie over? or let Markakis hit away?

"Pete's reply: He could have stayed out there, but I'd kind of like to have him healthy at the end of the season. If I had to choose between that and him having two complete games instead of one, I'll go for healthy."

Pete - The same logic applies to Sherrill. After a late night save (and considering his arm issues 2nd half last year), shouldn't Trembley be protecting Sherrill's arm? Could care less about CG - much more concerned about the win and keeping ALL pitchers arms intact. The move to put in Sherrill was just as surprising as pulling Bergesen.

There is a reason ALL managers go for matchups in the late innings. Seriously. If you went through the league and fired every manager who pulled a guy who fans thought should stay in to finish in favor of a matchup that should work percentage wise then you'd have 32 new managers every year. It's not Trembley's ways. It's Major League Baseball ways! Watch any 5 teams for 162 games and see how many times they do the same thing. If you want to look into Orioles history, forget just one game where Perlozzo hooked Guthrie and ask Ben McDonald how getting overworked your first year in the majors works out.

Like Pete said, it's July 1st not October 1st.

I was at the Mothersday Massacre in Fenway in 2007 when Sammy P. took Guthrie out and the team imploded in the 9th. I have "fond" memories of sitting in Fenway, watching Ramon drop a simple pop-up, Chris Ray fail to cover the bag, etc.
What gets me about this one is that Bergy was pitching similarly to Guthrie that day - if not better. And Trembley pulled a Perlozzo and took him out, all because his pitch count was a little above 100.
In full disclosure, I am "watching" this on gamecast so I don't have the same feel for what is going on as everyone in the stands or the dugout. All I can say is that I hope Bergesen told Trembley he was done. Otherwise, the decision is a classically risk averse move made someone who strikes me as slave to baseball orthodoxy.

Don’t get mad at the O’s today they played hard get mad at these idiot umps!! They give the Sox any call they want!

Jason Varitek is not a baseball player he is a conman.

Exruciating loss. Ugh.

Well stated, Os Fan in NY.

I have to agree with a lot of the other comments, why take out a pitcher that was nearly unhittable all game, just because he goes over the 100 pitch mark. It's the starter's game to lose, and I'm a big believer that you don't fix something that isn't broken. Hindsight is 20/20, but the bullpen move today was a boneheaded call, very much like the Guthrie/Red Sox disaster on Mother's day a year or two back. Oh how it hurts...

I probably would've pulled Bergesen for the ninth, used JJ and then gone with Sherrill after the homer, but man I feel bad for Brad. He deserved that win. Send Sherrill to the All-Star game and trade him for a couple of quality left-handed reliever prospects.

Do you think the Orioles will be out of last place on Oct 1st?

At 103 pitches, there's no reason to pull Bergesen. Why not stay with the hot hand and at the same time save your bullpen?
I'm sure we lead the league in innings pitched by relievers so this might have been an opportunity to prevent our 'go to' guys from pitching 3 more innings.
Of course, it's easy to 2nd guess and the other side of the argument is that Johnson and Sherill should be able to hold a 4 run lead. The maddening part is that on 2 or 3 occasions we were one strke away from winning 5-3.

Bergy pitched great but nobody thought that the O’s best 2 RPs would give up 4 runs.. It seemed like a decent move most managers would have done the same.

If anything talk about Pie getting thrown out at 2nd… They might have been able to put on some more runs

it was dave trembley's fault for the o'loss today. brad bergeson was pitcihg a heck of a game. so he was up to a pitch count of 102.when he took him out of the game. he still looked good when he finished the 8th inning. dave trembly should have left him in the game.

Two games like this raises several little red flags in my brain. It just isn't natural.

it was dave trembley's fault for the o'loss today. brad bergeson was pitcihg a heck of a game. so he was up to a pitch count of 102.when he took him out of the game. he still looked good when he finished the 8th inning. dave trembly should have left him in the game.

Does anyone comlaining know if Bergesen told Trembley if he was done or if he was fine to go back out there in ithe 9th??? None of you actually know how Bergesen was feeling.

Also, did it ever occur to any of you that there might is an organizational plan between McPhail and company to limit these young pitchers??

bergesen said he had enough to get one more out. you are all morons. 103 pitches can be easy, or tough when they are against the sox

doesnt help when the Sox get 4 outs in the 9th

That was dissapointing. It looked like Sherrill got the third out on the check swing, but what are you going to do when the officiating seems biased in favor of the larger market teams...

Give Bergeson a chance to finish the game, and have Sherrill ready to come in if he runs in to trouble. What is this idea of having to use JJ just because he is on the payroll? Give me baseball the way it use to be played! I'm glad I'm not going to bed on this one. Being an O's fan can really tear you up.u

Shamrock14,

It does not matter what Bergesen said. Jim Palmer when paraphrasing Earl Weaver says that he used to say: "You're done when I say you're done."

Bergy pitched a great game, but nor him or anyone other pitcher should tell the manager when they're done.

A good manager does not need a pitcher to tell them how to manage. Earl never did.

Time after time the birds fall to good teams in the late innings because they lack poise and we put future considerations before winning .

There is good news. Bergesen is steadily establishing himself as the best control pitcher to come along since McNally! He can be our #1 starter if all the morons stop focusing on power alone. When Tillman and Matusz arrive next year the O's will be in a genuine position to compete. I can't wait for 2010, but I just can't see Trembley being around for that. Who do you all think will be our next manager?

Sherrill has been lights out for a month, so stop all of the posts killing Trembley for bringing him in after Brad's gem and Johnson couldn't get an out in the 9th. The complete game is a lost art, and Johnson and Sherrill should have been able to hold a 4-run lead. The O's bats should have also been able to push a hit in the last 7 innings of the game, too.

Loved Trembley's decision last night to pinch hit Wiggy for Mora with a runner in scoring position - think that sent a message to Melvin and others on the team?

Once again we witness the sheer foolishness of adhering to the idiotic 100-pitch limit for starting pitchers. Bergesen had been averaging only 13 pitches per inning and had dominated the Red Sox for 8 innings. Does anyone believe he couldn't have thrown another 13-15 pitches in the 9th inning?

Nolan Ryan has it right. It's not just being "old school." Until a pitcher shows evidence he is tiring or losing effectiveness, you let him keep pitching. Bergesen probably would have had a complete game victory.

Another unnecessary loss for the O's.

Pete,

I think today, Bradley earned the word LEGITIMATE in describing his very young major league career. Between today and pitching through a lack of control in his last outing, I'm very impressed!

Pete,

The subject of pulling pitchers is always a two edged sword and always won by a Monday morning (or in this case a Wed evening) QB. But in my 17 years of managing various levels of organized baseball, even your best guy has a bad day and there are those days where a lessor guy is better. The decision point is not if but when to pull the current guy! In todays case, the roll Brad was on against one of the best hitting line-ups should have led DaveT to let Brad start the inning! Despite the recent success of Johnson and Sherrill, these two guys are NOT Mariano Rivera in his prime, they are NOT lights out guys, so after seeing 8 strong innings of Bergensen, there is no way I wouldn't have left him start the 9th!

This is just another reason why Trembley should be selling Chevys. First of all, Brad was going great guns so he should have been allowed to sart off the 9th. The he decides to bring in Johnson who seemed nervous from the start. He's just NOT a prime time pitcher yet. And then Sherrill puts an exclamation on Trembley's bad decision by imploding. The O's need a leader in the infield to walk in at times like this and help the pitchers regain their composure. They haven't had one since Cal retired. They all seem so comfortable losing game after game.

Brad Bergerson is 23 years old. HE'S ALL GROWN UP NOW! He's a big boy. Let him pitch. Their are certain intangibles in sport, and you let the artist finish the painting. He has a 4 run cushion. Impossible for him to lose. Yup. 23 years old.

Jim Palmer was 20 years old when he started game 2 of the 1966 World Series. He had already made 30 starts that year and thrown over 200 innings.

First off I stumbled on this website and I am impressed about all the Great O's fans talking on here. Anyway I Don't think Trembley is too blame for today's loss, Bergy pitched well and he had to feel comfortable having his best relievers close the game, if anything I would of left JJ in after the homer it didn't even seem like Sherill was warmed up . Trembleys job should be safe unless were bringing Davey Johnson back or Cal Ripken is looking for a job.

First off I stumbled on this website and I am impressed about all the Great O's fans talking on here. Anyway I Don't think Trembley is too blame for today's loss, Bergy pitched well and he had to feel comfortable having his best relievers close the game, if anything I would of left JJ in after the homer it didn't even seem like Sherill was warmed up . Trembleys job should be safe unless were bringing Davey Johnson back or Cal Ripken is looking for a job.

When Trembly came out to get Bergersen, I started screaming at my TV stating: "Please don't take him out." Even I could sense that it was a fatal move. Why does Trembly make such poor decisions regarding his pitchers. I guess successful managing is an art and not a science.

Also we can take solace in the fact that we probably have a Bonafide Yankee and red sox killer pitching on our staff. I remember the pitching duel between Bergessen and Sabathia earlier this year and of course we saw what Bergy could do against the red sox today .

I find it comical Pete, how you grill fans for being monday morning quarterbacks, but your wise and prophetic answer to everything is "oh that will change when they are in contention." I like the fact that you assume it's going to happen quite easily but I have some serious doubts about your course of logic.

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Pete's reply: I don't assume it's going to happen, I am optimistic things will improve, because I see signs of it everywhere. If you are not, then I would think you'd direct your interests and energy toward something you enjoy -- unless you really enjoy being hopeless.

When Trembley removed Bergessen I had a bad feeling that something was about to go wrong. Bergessen had thrown 103 pitches under very little duress. He got through the 8th inning easily. We are playing the best team in baseball. We have the momentum. We just won an unbelievable game. Why take any chance on ruining a great performance, give our best pitcher the opportunity to close out the game and make a complete game statement not only to the Red Sox but to our lame starting staff. Trembley blew that because he has no feel for the game and thats why he will be gone soon.

As usual, what separates a "good" managerial decision from a "bad" managerial decision is his plyaers' ability to execute. Perhaps Bergy could have finished up his own game in the ninth without suffering adverse effects carrying over to his next start but surely our two best, and most consistently reliable releivers should be able to protect a 4 run lead for one inning. In the moment there is no right or wrong, merely execution or failure. And the quality, experience and proven performance of the opponent just might have something to do with the outcome as well.