I don't know what the answer is as to why they are suddenly performing so much better. We've all made many guesses and apparently even Buck and the players themselves don't really know, but you have to admit that those of us who were calling for Trembley to be let go after last season are looking pretty good right now.

I think that the change in the team since Buck took over has been amazing. Yes, we are going to have yet again another losing season, but about a month and a half ago, I figured we were going to have the dubious distinction of having the worst record in baseball. Now, we will be better than some, and should finish with a respectable showing.
I think that the change was needed and welcomed and has provided Orioles fans with something they haven't had in a long time: hope. While I am not going to anoint Buck the second coming of Christ, I think that he is definitely putting the guys on the right path to improvement. You can see it in the pitching and the confidence some of these young guys now have. They are playing small ball again and went back to fundamentals. It is good to see and it gives hope that next year is not a complete loss either, provided Angelos sticks a crowbar in his wallet and goes out and obtains the homerun hitter they need.

What is amazing to me is how joyous a team can be when they are 35 games under.500. This is not like one of those NFL running backs who jumps up and down and gesticulates wildly when they get a first down late in a game they are losing by 35 points.

Obviously, this is not your run- of-the-mill 35 games under .500 team. It's almost as if they know that their record before August 3rd was an aberration. And it's as if they know that next season, with the proper moves, they can be, if not contenders, then at least consistent winners.

Roy - agreed. I am not saying Buck would have us to 90 wins if he started this year as our coach but it's becoming pretty obvious that Trembley had a little more impact on our wins and losses than we thought. I agree that Dave didn't have Brob or Pie in the lineup but then explain why the pitching has improved the way it has over the past month or so?

I'm wondering how many manager of the year (or half year as it may be) Buck will get... :)

Hendrickson, no way back. And all you Lugo bashers, he is Rod carew with the bat compared to Izzy!

Roy is dead on... Remember all of those who cried about how unfairly Trembley was being judged? He doesn't have a good team, he wasn't given anything to work with... blah, blah, blah. Dave T was a very nice guy and a long time minor league manager. He served his purpose as a fill in manager while this team developed. The problem started because there is no way he should have been retained after last year's late season swoon. You can't have a fresh start and new direction to a season when you bring back a manager that everyone knew was not the long term answer. Dave T is in no way shape or form a major league manager... I am just glad that this team got it right... regardless of whether he was the first choice, 2nd choice, or 5th choice; Buck was the RIGHT choice. I strongly believe that this team would have played .500 ball this season had we had Buck in place from the beginning. That being said, I am a big believer in "things happen for a reason"...if we had not kept Dave T, we might never have hired Buck. I am ok with the way things went now because it got us to where we needed to be: rebuilding with a real major league manager.
Now that we have moved on...Let's have a winning September to follow up that winning August! Let's put a dent in the AL East playoff picture! GO O's!

Dave T, perfect example of "nice guys finish last!"

Agree Roy you can try to point to personnel changes but to me its way deeper than that.

on the other hand, i bet Trembley sure wishes he had a healthy Koji and Gonzalez all year, and now Johnson's back.

Of course Trembley himself probably contributed to Johnson's injury through overuse - didn't he go 3 plus innings just before he was dl'd? And apparently DT did a poor job in the spring of monitoring the aforementioned other two relievers.

Doesn't anyone shake hands anymore?

Meso, You're right my man......

I for one didn't think a manager would make much of a difference on this team. Fact is though, Buck has made all the difference.

My only concern now is that PA will have a false sense of security by thinking they don't need to severely upgrade the talent.

I'll also continue to hope that AM steps aside (like he had to do with the hiring of Buck), and allow Buck to make the player personnel decisions moving forward.

And ken,

We need to figure out when you're making good on your bet my friend. I'll gladly give you a chance to redeem yourself in 2011.

AM Move Over - Buck's Starting Over

I'm no Trembley apologist, but to give Showalter most if not all the credit for the young pitching seems unrealistic to me. Is it not possible that maybe the young guys, including Wieters and his game calling, are just maturing? Don't young players normally struggle at first? And don't the good ones eventually improve? I hope that is the case here.

Let us hope PA realizes that August is a glimpse of what can be if he opens up his wallet and allows the teams needs to be addressed.

Read some of these comments and the Sox angle... funny.

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2010/09/01/sox_scuffle_along/?comments=all#readerComm

No, Chris V, that's impossible. Showalter can't just be an excellent manager who provides a strong foundation for players to rise to their excellent potential. What's REALLY happening--and you can check with wayne and Meso--is this:

1) MacPhail has carefully constructed a team full of hopelessly talentless players who could never possibly mature in the major leagues. Matusz? Pie? Uehara? Forget about it. According to wayne back in May, MacPhail's only solid acquisition was Kevin Millwood, and even a consistently perfect stud like that can't be expected to carry the whole team.

2) Showalter has recognized this, and has actually gone into overtime work. He's not just the manager. He's more. Our trolls think that he's actually becoming the GM, but they've got it backwards...:

3) Buck Showalter is actually playing all of the positions FROM THE ORIOLE DUGOUT.

Another Matusz K? Chalk it up to Buckusz.
Another Luuuuke HR? The Buck Scott's here.
Another clutch RBI double? Buckakis.
Another outstanding play at short--Izturis? Nope. Buck-turis.

Buck Showalter is actually pulling invisible strings attached to every Oriole player, because Buck knows (like we all do) that they don't have any talent on their own. Obviously!

"Meso, You're right my man......

I for one didn't think a manager would make much of a difference on this team. Fact is though, Buck has made all the difference."

Posted by: wayne | September 1, 2010 10:56 AM

Wayne and Meso: you two definitely win Cutest Couple of the 2010 Season award!

Re: Red Sox comments. Ah, so GM conspiracy theorists show up for every MLB team, huh? Hilarious!

I heard the "Mike & Mike" boys debating this morning as to how the O's could have turned it around so dramatically thus far & now be one of those teams other teams in the hunt do not want to play.
Their answer..."each & every one of those players has to look in the mirror & ask if they were playing to their ability for their other managers".
Something to think about.

I think it is pretty clear why this team is winning, Buck scared the pants off these guys. Not by his actions, but merely by his reputation. He is perceived as a no nonsense guy, and the players must really believe it. Either consciously or subconsciously, the players are responding to having a strong leader with a little fear thrown in for good measure.

How come it always has to boil down to "one" thing. Buck has been great, he clearly has the players attention, and I'm not sure Dave ever had it. At least, not like Buck. But that's as much about the players and their attention as it as about who's getting the attention and why.

It is also the players that are preforming. I've gone on-and-on about Innings Pitched and At Bat's as the real metric to see progress, and sure enough, like the majority of Baseball players, the O's guys are learning, adjusting, and developing. It's clear that the talent of the players is showing itself, and Andy deserves credit for assembling the players and the coach together. Like the guy who put peanut butter and chocolate together.

Chicken. Egg.

wayne, refresh my memory, what do I owe you? I forget. I know you won't try to rip me off. Of course, we should wait until the end of the season, never know, they could go on a 30-10 run.

Or we could go double or nothing on next year...are you willing to take that bet? Just that they'll finish above .500 next year?

Guess we know why Samuel did not want to stick around! If buck went 0-24, he would have the same record!

I like "Mike & Mike" but too often they want or offer an either-or for an answer. Perhaps the players gave varying degrees of effort under the three managers. Perhaps the three managers put these players in varying degrees of chances for success.

Some people will believe the manager offers little since they do not hit, catch, throw or run no matter what. Quite often this even seems true since quite often mediocre managers are replaced by mediocre managers.

People who are locked into this belief are rarely swayed by evidence so I will discontinue.

Trembley 15-39
Samuel 17-34
Showalter 17-10

Obviously, the Orioles didn't keep Trembley long enough so he could get his 17th win. Obviously, it is time for the Orioles to find another manager now that Showalter got his 17th win.

Speaking of 17, the Orioles are 17-13 in their last 30 games -- tied with the Yankees and the Rays. Boston and Toronto are 16-14 in their last 30. The only AL team better than 17-13 is Minnesota (20-10). In fact, the other eight AL teams are sub-.500 over their last 30.

On August 3, the Orioles were 34 games behind. They are now 33 games behind. The Orioles are doing much better. The Orioles still need better players to compliment what they have (and weed out what they don't need).

The Orioles have played 13 straight games in under three hours. Only three games since Showalter took over as manager have gone longer than three hours. One was an 11-inning win over Seattle.

MASN showed a stat showing Luke Scott's production over the past three seasons. They were amazingly consistent. Mike Flanagan offered that these stats showed Scott was consistent and not streaky. This incorrect analysis is why people will say you can make stats say anything. In truth, poor analysis can lead to people say anything.

Scott is a streaky player. He just ends up with consistent end results.

By the way, Scott is the Oriole leading DH. The Orioles for all of their flaws are batting .289 at DH with 29 HRs (mostly by Scott). The AL batting average at DH is .250 with 17.7 HRs. (The NL batting average at DH is .211. Yikes!)

Luke Scott is batting .295 in the last 28 days (under Showalter), and .289 for the year. He is also batting .231 over the last 14 days and .235 over the last seven days. Both of those subsets are also under Showalter and prove a degree of streakiness.

Scott is batting .351 at home and .222 away from Camden Yards. Scott's batting average is significantly better at DH (.305) than at 1B (.264) or at LF (.233).

Scott has batted fourth in 41 games, fifth in 46 games, and elsewhere in 19 games. He has batted fifth in only five games under Showalter. The rest (except for a PH appearance in one game) has been batting fourth. Scott is batting .295 with 13 HRs batting fourth but only .262 with six HRs batting fifth.

Is this success Scott or Showalter batting him mostly fourth? The correct answer is both.

By the way, I believe (a) Scott is surrounded more intelligently when he is batting fourth than the fourth position having a magical dynamic for him, and (b) Scott is the best player the Orioles currently have to bat fourth. If the Orioles improve their offense during the offseason, maybe Scott should no longer bat fourth in 2011. The point is Showalter gets it when it comes to assembling this roster such as it is. Many players have responded.

The credit should be shared without assessing further blame to the past.

ken,

I'm not 100% sure. I thought it was over/under 81 wins. And we know who took which. It was just a beer though and we can let it ride for 2011.

I'd love NOTHING more than to lose that bet....

yeah waspman

they also didn't point out that Scott's ab's this year are still about 75 short of last year and 100 short of '08.

His much higher slugging pct. is a function of both the higher batting average AND more xbh per ab.

I think he's progressed to being a guy whose slumps are not nearly as bad as they used to be.

I don't care at all about the discussion of Luke Scott's streakiness or consistency, but after about the hundredth time hearing it I looked it up. Batting average for each of the 5 months completed: 194/324/293/306/314. Slugging: 638/1.024/915/1.018/996. So this year, at lest, he had a slow start and then four months of amazing consistency. About a 10 percent difference between his highest and lowest BA, which is so consistent it doesn't seem real.Markakis, by comparison, has a high/low of 327/257 for those four months. Wiggington, 276/209. Jones, 304/257. Wieters, 289/211. So there's no everyday player on the team who's been nearly as consistently good at the plate as Scott. If someone out there has even more time to waste than I do, I'd like to hear about how Scott stacks up against. the most consistent hitters in MLB.

Pete, after Luuuke scored the run yesterday via the errant throw on AJ's grounder, Buck had an ongoing conversation with him in the dugout. Any idea what was said? I thought it may have had something to do with his slide into 2nd base. Any clues? thanks

..............................................................................................
Pete's reply: We asked Buck about that last night and he said he would tell us after the season series with the Red Sox is over, so it must have been something strategic.

In addition to the players having fun, so is this fan! Seeing one of my most detested players-Big Papi-go down swinging three times last night at the hands of Matusz made my night. I especially loved him doing the combination lumber/waddle down to 1st on the passed ball strike 3. That was priceless...the big slug ran for naught as there was already a man on 1b so save your energy Papi.

Buck has done this before with the Yankees and Rangers.

Questions about having the talent on the Orioles' team is quickly being answered as well as MacPhail's evaluation of player talent.

I have consistently stated that the problems with the O's are between the ears, and not between the white lines on the field.

Many of us have said the same thing for well over a year: Managers cannot hit for the player, but they can instill the desire for winning, motivate the players to reach team goals, and enforce accountability among coaches and players.

This winning attitude will do more to attract premium free agents than just money alone.

There seems to be a lot of head scratching on the part of the media that had previously told us in a condescending matter that changing the manager won't change the results. It's high time they stop scratching and man up once and for all and admit that they were WRONG. There is no way around it, this team was obviously playing well below their capabilities and when they finally have a manager that they care to play for you see the results.

I will agree that there were issues that were not Trembley's fault, and I don't claim that the team would have had a .600 winning % this year. There were devastating injuries and the young players were not going to be perfect every time out. That having been said I believe this team would be around .500 had Showalter been the manager from day one.

I am not a McPhail hater but I have always said that his biggest mistake was keeping Trembly when it was clear that the team quit on him in August and September of last year.

..............................................................................................
Pete's reply: Mike, I'll man up when you sober up. If you think anybody could have been .500 with this team in the first half of the season, you weren't paying attention. You can blame Trembley all you want, but Roberts got hurt during the offseason (hard to pin on Trembley), Pie had a muscle tear in his back (I guess that could be the manager's fault), Michael Gonzalez fell apart and went on the 60-day DL four days into the season, and Nolan Reimold was a total no-show. If Buck had started the season, you'd be complaining about him right now.

I had two points with Scott's stats -- one, just because the end results are similar (and, I agree, getting better assuming his September isn't total dog-doo), doesn't negate his streakiness -- the Flanagan assertion -- and, two, the improvement he has shown may be him getting better AND him being used better.

I do not indict him for being streaky. I simply point out that will probably always be his tendency. If he can minimize the downswing when it happens, great. If he can be put in a position to have the downswings minimized, great.

Boog Powell was a streaky player, and a great Oriole. Rick Dempsey was a streaky player. His stats were not so great. Fortunately with Dempsey, he was an above-average catcher for much of his career and he chose the '83 WS to have a hot streak. If Section 8 at Memorial Stadium was fair, he would have had 50 HRs year after year.

One last thing on Trembley -- we all know he wasn't given a very good team with which to work. However, if a manager keeps doing the same thing over and over again without success, it is hard to blame the players four months into a season to be thinking, "Here we go again," as soon as things get dicey.

It would be nice if they didn't succumb to human nature. It is nicer, though, to have a manager that recognizes human nature and accounts for it up front.

Who knows? Maybe Trembley could have managed the '27 Yankees to 90 wins.

Pete--And with Buck it's clear that we have a gifted, observant leader who also keeps the mental in fundamentals.

i think it says something to the team when you hire an mlb winner instead of promoting a bullpen coach. as fans we know that the o's mickey mouse operation will have to change or buck'll be gone. for once, the field boss will have a little power. i hardly ever have nightmares about flanagan, duquette, mazilli and helling sny more. thanks, peeder!

Another great trade by the Ravens.

Also,

Anyone see the latest ESPN The Magazine, where the Ravens were picked to win the SB?

Sure, it's pure fantasy at this point, especially since anything can and does happen in the NFL...... but isn't it nice when a Baltimore sports team is actually respected?

AMMO - BISTO

you mean when You respect a team. That's called band-wagon.

The definition of insanity; doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Oh Dave Trembley I didn't know.! My bad!!