So, here we are getting ready to head into September and the Orioles suddenly have won eight out of 10 games in a last-ditch attempt to avoid a 100-loss season. What exactly are we to make of this?

Last year, you could be understandably bouyed by the team's big surge after Buck Showalter took the reins, especially with the way the pitching staff seemed to turn the corner. Now, Brian Matusz's impressive 7-1 finish seems like a long, long time ago and there isn't a lot of excitement to be derived from the upcoming roster September roster expansion.

This time, it feels a lot like my golf game, and I know a lot of you out there can identify with this comparison:

I always get off to a good start for a couple of holes, then collapse and abandon all hope of a presentable score and vow never to return to a golf course again unless there's a free meal in it for me. Than, just went I'm almost at peace with my decision to give my golf clubs to the Salvation Army Thrift Store and vow to spend my free afternoons sipping tea and enjoying meaningful conversations with my wonderful wife, I hit a couple of terrific shots on 18 and suddenly think I've finally figured something out.

Doesn't that sound like the O's the past couple of years, except the part where I used the word "meaningful." Just when you think you're out, they drag you back in.

Posted by Peter Schmuck at 1:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (40)
Categories: Just baseball
        

Shockingly, I'm no longer hearing any second-guessing about the Orioles' decision to pull out of the A.J. Burnett auction a few years ago. The book on the guy was that he was erratic and undependable and the book has proven to be gospel.

Funny how things sometimes turn out. Alfredo Simon also has been erratic and undependable the past couple of years -- on a couple of levels -- but he seems to be on the rise as Burnett comes unglued in New York.

In his 10 starts this year, he has pitched through five innings eight times and has a very respectable 3.86 ERA. Who knows what kind of opportunity he would have been afforded at the very start of the season, so it's strangely fortuitous for him that he showed up after the starting rotation began to disintegrate. The circumstances that led to that eventuality are sad and troubling, but Simon has emerged as a seemingly legit candidate to win a place in next year's rotation.

This is a gratuitous comparison that really means nothing, but while Simon has put up solid numbers in his 10 starts (dating back to July 9), Burnett has been awful. He's 1-5 with a 7.79 ERA in his last 10 starts, but he'll get at least one more chance to hold his place in the Yankees rotation on Thursday night.

If he pitches well, he might have to throw some credit to Orioles Hall of Famer Jim Palmer, who recently counseled him to take some pressure off himself.

“He told me to relax,'' Burnett told the New York Post. "He said in the past I looked more relaxed. He said to check my finger pressure because if the grip on the ball is tight, you aren’t as smooth. He also talked about breathing techniques, trying to hear your heartbeat. He said to relax and have fun.”

We'll find out soon enough. His likely start after the big Red Sox series -- if he's still in Joe Girardi's rotation, would be against the Orioles next week at Yankee Stadium.

Posted by Peter Schmuck at 12:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (17)
Categories: Just baseball
        

Everybody knew what the Orioles were getting when Andy MacPhail traded for third baseman Mark Reynolds. The guy can hammer a baseball with the best of them and also provide enough wind power to light the stadium. He's a mixed bag, but I don't see how anyone can question the deal that sent David Hernandez and Kam Mickolio to the Arizona Diamondbacks to acquire him and minor league catcher John Hester.

I realize that Hernandez has found his niche in the Arizona bullpen and is having a terrific season. He's 3-2 with a sparkling 2.67 ERA in 61 games. Yes, if he were pitching like that here he would be a huge asset to a team with some serious relief issues. But it's a lot harder to find 30-homer guys -- even 30 homer guys with major contact issues -- than good middle relievers.

There's going to be a lot of talk over the next couple of months about the legacy of Andy MacPhail, and that's fair enough. The Orioles have stumbled again and fans are as discouraged as they have ever been. But MacPhail's four major trades -- dumping Miguel Tejada and Erik Bedard early in his tenure and acquiring Reynolds and J.J. Hardy last winter -- are pretty much beyond reproach.

Reynolds isn't a perfect player, but he has 30 home runs with five weeks left of his first season in the pitching-rich American League East. He has also improved his batting average over last year and cut down on his strikeouts, though he'll still probably whiff about 180 times.

It'll be interesting to see if he can take another step forward in 2012 after a year of familiarizing himself with American League pitching. Remember, the guy is only 28 years old and he has more home runs over the past three years than everybody except Albert Pujols, Mark Teixeira and Prince Fielder. Not bad company.

Reuters photo

Posted by Peter Schmuck at 10:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (43)
Categories: Just baseball
        

Let's not do this. Let's not spend today trying to figure out things that will never be truly ascertained. Let's not trivialize the tragic death of Mike Flanagan by trying to connect some sad dots to the dismal performance of the Orioles before, during and after he was the team's executive vice president/general manager. That's not fair to him and it's shows a lack of awareness of the more complex issues that always accompany this kind of tragedy.

There were multiple unconfirmed reports -- since confirmed by Sun sources -- that Flanagan's death was a suicide, so it didn't take long for the message boards and some commentators to begin speculating about the reasons that he might take his own life. The police have yet to release an official cause of death, but that hasn't kept the public conversation from turning in a seemingly obvious direction. Flanagan supposedly was despondent after losing his dream front office job and failing -- along with everybody else -- to save the deteriorating Orioles organization.

There's no question that Flanagan was devastated when the Orioles hired Andy MacPhail to replace him. Who wouldn't be? Long-time teammate and MASN broadcast colleague Rick Dempsey was the first to articulate that after the horrible news broke on Wednesday night, but Dempsey didn't draw any conclusion. He simply stated the fact that Flanagan had some trouble dealing with his rejection by the organization,

“I know he has gone through some tough times,’’ Dempsey said. “…I think he was very down about the GM job, but it seemed like he rallied when he got the (MASN) color job again.”

Though it's probably natural to try and find some simple explanation for such a horrible event, it doesn't serve any good purpose other than to confirm some preconceived notion that may or may not be valid.

The thing we know is that a good man is dead -- a good man who made the Orioles better as a player and tried to make them better as a front office executive. That should be how we remember him. We need to recognize that there are no easy answers. There are things we will never know and there are assumptions that we have no right to make.

I can't help but be reminded of the night in Toronto in 1989 when I heard the news that Angels relief pitcher Donnie Moore had shot himself. It was three years after he had given up the dramatic ALCS home run to Dave Henderson in 1986 that kept the Angels from locking up their first-ever trip to the World Series.

There was no question that Moore was damaged by that fateful pitch. He was booed loudly by Angels fans the following year and had just been released by the Kansas City Royals when he shot his wife and turned the gun on himself. There were all sorts of issues that contributed to his death -- both professional and personal -- but the media chose to focus on one bad split-finger fastball three years earlier. To this day, most people believe that Moore killed himself because he lost a baseball game.

I remember that night because I went down to the Angels clubhouse to get reactions from the players and veteran Brian Downing waved me and the other reporters off angrily, claiming that it was the media that was responsible for his death.

“You destroyed a man’s life over one pitch,'' Downing said. "The guy was just not the same after that."

No one could deny that Moore's life unraveled after the 1986 playoffs, but there have been plenty of dramatic moments in the history of sports and plenty of athletes who were on the wrong end of them. There were a lot of roads that led to Moore's tragic demise. Not just one.

Similarly, it's not right to look at the disappointing end of Mike Flanagan's front office career and blame it for what happened on Wednesday. We just look for easy answers when we know that we may never know the real ones.

Sun file photo by Gene Sweeney, Jr.

Posted by Peter Schmuck at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (118)
Categories: News of the day
        

I'll be sitting in front of the television today when the Orioles face the Angels in the series finale from Anaheim, just to see what new form of torture awaits their fans. Last night's 12th-inning collapse wasn't anything we haven't seen before, but it was a devastating loss made even more painful (for the fans) because it was on the west coast and ended in the wee hours of the morning on the east coast.

Manager Buck Showalter tried to put the best face on it afterward, but you just can't dress up a pig like that. Frankly, I don't know why Buck isn't hitch-hiking back to Bristol to beg for his ESPN gig back.

The amazing thing about the Orioles -- from my jaundiced perspective -- is this: It seems like every year, somebody asks me if this is the worst Orioles season since I moved to Baltimore...or if I've ever seen so much bad baseball in a confined time frame. Last year, I was unequivocal when those questions were thrown at me in midseason. The first 100 games of 2010 was the worst stretch I had witnessed up close in my three decades or so of baseball coverage.

Now, I've got to rethink that. This Orioles team isn't playing as ugly as the one that Showalter took over last August, but when you factor in all the circumstances attending to this season, I think this is the most painful season yet.

Why? Let me count the ways.

1. I stubbornly refused to believe that last year's team would lose 100 games, even though it was headed hard in that direction until Buck showed up. Losing 100 is very hard to do, but I now believe this team will accomplish that dubious feat.

2. On paper, this team is better than last year's team -- by a wide margin. That makes it even more discouraging to watch this mess.

3. I now believe there is an Orioles curse. I guess the AL East has to have a curse going at all times and -- once the Red Sox ended the 86-year "Curse of the Bambino" and the Tampa Bay Rays got to the World Series -- where else were the cruel baseball gods going to turn?

4. It has reached the point where I now watch every game with the same sense of anticipation, apprehension and morbid curiosity that I feel just before I pass a particularly nasty accident on I-95.

5. This was the supposed turnaround year in the Andy MacPhail rebuilding project. Nobody expected the Orioles to go to the playoffs, but there were actually some modest expectations, which only makes it all the more painful for the fans who still believed.

6. They have taken losing to a new level. No longer content to just get their keisters kicked all over the ballparks of America, the Orioles have begun a daily dance during which they tease you with a late comeback or an exciting home run or -- in rare cases -- a good performance from the starting rotation. Then they "Godfather" you and pull you back into their swirling downspout of doom.

7. Yes, I have finally been reduced to using the phrase "swirling downspout of doom." Managed to avoid that for about 31 seasons.

8. I can no longer suspend my disbelief and come up with ludicrous year-out scenarios in which the Orioles (a) grow into contention; (b) open the vault and sign enough real free agent talent to compete; or (c) get to the All-Star break with three of their original starters still healthy.

9. Koji Uehara was not only one of the most effective pitchers on the team before he was traded to the Rangers, he was also one of the healthiest.

10. I now believe I will win the Power Ball jackpot before the Orioles reach the playoffs. I realize that the odds of picking all five regular numbers and the Power Ball correctly are 1 in 195 million, yet I still feel more optimistic when I pick up my bi-weekly Quick Pick than when I watch an O's game.

Bonus reason: Could have sworn I saw Jim Hunter in the "A" lot last week trying to scratch the "I (heart) the O's" sticker off his bumper.

Instant update: First pitch is at 3:35.

Postgame update: Though the O's could not match Saturday night's frustration, they exceeded it in futility with one of their worst defensive performances in a long time. The beat, apparently, goes on.

Getty Images

Posted by Peter Schmuck at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (73)
Categories: Just baseball
        

If you just look at the pitching line, it's hard to get too excited about Brian Matusz's return engagement on Tuesday night in Oakland. He gave up six runs on eight hits and took another loss, which may seem consistent with what he was doing when he was sent back to the minor leagues.

Obviously, time will tell, but there were signs of improvement last night. He threw more than 100 pitches, went fairly deep into the game and seemed to have pretty good command of his fastball. His breaking stuff was crisp for much of the evening, though he got hurt deep on a couple of occasions when he missed with his changeup.

He was a little unlucky, too. Several of those eight hits were soft flies that barely cleared the infield.

His velocity is up modestly. There were some 91-mph fastballs, according to the radar reading that posts in the MASN scorebox. That's a step forward. He still has a couple miles to go to get back to where he was at his best, but the progress is the thing. He clearly has gotten stronger during his minor league exile.

Does that mean he'll come back next spring throwing 94 and pitching the way he did the final two months of 2010? That's a lot to ask, but Tuesday night's performance did not dash the hope that he find himself and claim a regular place in the 2012 rotation.

The Orioles need a lot of good things to happen for this pitching staff to rise from the ashes of the past few months. Getting Matusz back to where he once belonged would be a big step in that direction.

Posted by Peter Schmuck at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)
Categories: Just baseball
        

If you haven't already, take a moment to read the two-story package that Jamison Hensley and I teamed up on to analyze the NFL's new kickoff rules. It's at the top of the sports front in the print edition, but you can read my column right here and Jamison's news analysis right here.

We appreciate your business.

Posted by Peter Schmuck at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Just football
        

Tonight's game against the Oakland A's certainly doesn't mean much in the greater context of the American League pennant chase, but it still could be a watershed game for the Orioles organization.

The successful return of Brian Matusz would provide a big late-season boost and dampen some of the fatalism that surrounds this pitching staff, though it will still be hard to get excited about the 2012 season without some pitching upgrades this winter.

Matusz has taken his minor league assignment seriously and returns on a bit of a roll, but that won't mean anything if he gets bounced around by the A's and Twins on this road trip. His velocity has improved, but he's still topping out about three MPH below his best fastball. Hopefully, he'll continue to get stronger, because he remains one of the cornerstones of the Orioles pitching youth movement.

Andy MacPhail has added some depth with the acquisition of Tommy Hunter and JoJo Reyes, but the future is still built around Matusz, Jake Arrieta and Zach Britton. Every one of them has a cloud over his head right now, but all of them should be ready to start fresh next spring. Orioles fans can only hope that means better days are ahead, but they've got a right to be very skeptical.

Posted by Peter Schmuck at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (19)
Categories: Just baseball
        

What a terrific public sendoff for Baltimore Colts Hall of Famer John Mackey. The public memorial service that was held at the Cathredral of Mary Our Queen on North Calvert Street featured eulogies and readings by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, NFLPA chief DeMaurice Smith, Hall of Famer Floyd Little, teammate-turned-minister Joe Ehrmann as well as Mackey's wife (Sylvia) and son (Kevin).

It was pretty cool to hear Goodell (who we all agree is a huge upgrade over former commish Paul Tagliabue) applaud Mackey for his pioneering work as the first president of the NFL players union.

Here's a VIP partial guest list, though I'm sure I'm leaving a lot of people out: Art Donovan, Lenny Moore, Bill Curry, former union director Ed Garvey, Bruce Laird, Tom Matte, Toni Linhart, Sam Havrilak, Marty Domres, Maxie Baughan, Brig Owens and Don McCauley, among others. The Ravens were represented by owner Steve Bisciotti, president Dick Cass and another of the greatest tight ends to ever play the game – general manager Ozzie Newsome. Former NBA star and current Detroit mayor Dave Bing, who met Mackey when bother were at Syracuse, also was among the special guests in attendance.

If you hang around the Web site long enough, you'll be able to read my column on the memorial service, which will be posted soon. If not, drag yourself out of bed in the morning and read it in the Sunday print edition. Don't make me come over to your house and read it to you personally.

Posted by Peter Schmuck at 4:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Just football
        

Who knows how much Thursday night's ragged performance by the Ravens factored into the deal today to acquire Buffalo Bills receiver Lee Evans...and who cares. Evans figures to have a very positive effect on the Ravens offensive attack if he stays healthy, and he probably will, considering that he has missed only three games due to injury over the course of his eight-year career.

Evans suffered an ankle injury in December last year and missed the Bills' final three games of the season, so his career-low 37 receptions are deceptive. He averaged just under three receptions per game, which would project to about 46 over a full season. He totaled 578 receiving yards, which would project to about 710 over 16 games.

Those projections would be pretty much in line with his non-peak seasons. He caught 82 passes for 1,292 in 2006 and caught 63 passes for 1,017 yards in 2008, but has averaged 46 catches over the other six seasons. His 15.6 yards per catch last year were right in line with his career average (15.7), so there's no indication that he's slowing down significantly as he enters his 30s.

In other words, the numbers confirm that it was a pretty good deal. Now, everyone is going to resume clamoring for GM Ozzie Newsome to address the offensive line.

Stay tuned.

Posted by Peter Schmuck at 6:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Just football
        

Which figures to be more interesting -- the first Ravens preseason game of 2011 or the series finale between the Orioles and Chicago White Sox. If I'm voting with my feet, I guess I've already picked the O's.

How can that be?

Well, the first of four preseason games generally features the frontline offensive players for about two possessions. If you want to see the new fullback, for instance, try not to blink.

The Orioles aren't playing for anything, but there's still some intrigue tonight. I'm here to see if Chris Tillman can continue to move in the right direction. He's coming off one of his best efforts of the season and is displaying the velocity that made him one of the top pitching prospects in baseball when the Orioles acquired him from the Seattle Mariners.

I guess you might also be wondering if there's going to be any fallout from the chirping between Adam Jones and White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, but manager Buck Showalter didn't seem too concerned.

"Whatevber he did with Jonesy last night,'' Showalter said, "I hope he does it again."

Posted by Peter Schmuck at 5:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Just baseball, Just football
        

If you haven't checked out my Ravens column yet, you can take a look at my take on the coaching style of John Harbaugh right here.

There has been a lot of talk about the way Harbaugh's reputation as a taskmaster may affect the Ravens' ability to attract (and keep) free agents, but I'm not buying it. If players are going elsewhere because they think they're going to have more fun in practice, then let them go.

I've spent a lot of my career covering teams with tough, no-nonsense coaches and managers, and most of those teams did very well. Gene Mauch wasn't beloved in the clubhouse, but he helped transform a long-suffering Angels organization into a winning franchise in the 1980s. The Rams and Redskins thrived under George Allen, who was a tough customer. Don Shula, who started his great NFL coaching career with the Colts, was no creampuff.

Harbaugh has gotten very good results in his first three seasons as Ravens head coach. That's all that matters.

Posted by Peter Schmuck at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Just football
        

Not surprisingly, there were a lot of No. 86 jerseys in the stands and concourses of M&T Bank Stadium. Those jersey's aren't cheap, but Frank Short of Brooklyn Park said that the price of his Heap jersey had nothing to do with it.

"I've got lots of jerseys,'' he said. " The reason why I'm wearing is it, 10 years is a long time for a tight end to stay with one team. It's to honor him, and I'll also be wearing it to the opening game."

Posted by Peter Schmuck at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Categories: Just football
        

The fans are still pouring into M&T Bank Stadium as the Ravens begin their only public workout of training camp. the lower bowl of the stadium is filling up and the team is hoping for a crowd of about 25,000. Still no word on whether it will make sense -- from a security standpoint -- to hold a mass autograph session at the end of practice.

Meanwhile, the team is choreographing the practice to make it as entertaining as possible for the fans. WBAL play-by-play guy Jerry Sandusky is on the sidelines calling the action over the PA system along with broadcast partners Stan White and Qadry Ismail.

Outside in the parking lots, fans spent the morning "cold tailgating." Cooking was not permitted, for logistical reasons, but the workout gave fans a chance to "walk through" their regular season tailgating routine.

It's not particularly surprising that fans would get up early on a Saturday to watch practice in the absence of a normal Westminster training camp. Even though there was no real delay in the opening of camps, the lockout created the feeling among fans that they were being denied football, perhaps creating an added sense of urgency about the new season.

Posted by Peter Schmuck at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Just football
        

Did anyone seriously think we'd get through a week of the NFL preseason without a few Brett Favre comeback rumors? I didn't think so.

Farve, as far as we know, has no intention of coming out of retirement again, but that didn't keep Miami Dolphins coach Tony Sparano from leaving the door open when he was asked whether Favre might be a solution to his quarterback problems.

Sparano said he wouldn't rule out anything when he was asked about Favre, whose name also came up in Philadelphia (for about a millisecond) recently. Agent Bus Cook continues to insist that Favre is retired, and I think we ought to believe him this time, but this definitely isn't the last you're going to hear about him.

Posted by Peter Schmuck at 3:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Just football
        

The Ravens originally were scheduled to take the field at The Castle at 1:30 for today's first full-squad practice, but the process of recertifying the players union and voting to approve the new collective bargaining agreement has dragged into the afternoon.

Looks like practice will start after 4 p.m. and end sometime before dark. Don't know why you would care one way or the other -- since there is no public access to practice until Saturday's workout at M&T Bank Stadium -- but I just thought I'd give you an update.

When the CBA is finalized, all of the players who signed free agent contracts will be able to start practicing. The rookies and players already under contract have been on the field for a week.

The only news so far today is the signing of safety Bernard Pollard, who agreed to a two-year deal, but that was no surprise after Pollard tipped off a Houston radio station on Wednesday.

Posted by Peter Schmuck at 3:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Just football
        

While the Orioles are on the road, I've been spending some quality time over at The Castle watching Ravens training camp. My column on new defensive coordinator Chuck Pagano is in today's print edition, but you can also read it right here.

Though I lot of people are comparing Pagano to Rex Ryan, I think he's probably somewhere between Rex and Greg Mattison on the coaching spectrum. Look for him to shoot from the hip more than Mattison, but not quite as much as Rex.

Posted by Peter Schmuck at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Just football
        

I'm going to jump into the conversation about the Orioles' moves over the weekend with heavily mixed feelings. I'll give Andy MacPhail props for getting a decent return for Koji Uehara and moving Derrek Lee, but I have some serious reservations about where that leaves the organization.

The acquisition of a major-league-ready-but-unproven first baseman and a minor league first base prospect should send a message to fans that the Orioles will not be very interested in Prince Fielder this winter.

Obviously, there's no comparison between Chris Davis and Fielder, but the fact that the Orioles have shored up their organizational depth at first base will make it impossible -- in my opinion -- to convince Peter Angelos to spend more than $100 million to bring in another one, even if Fielder has left open the possibility of moving into a full-time designated hitter role.

It's not my money, and even I wouldn't pay that much for a DH who's weight issues probably would get worse if he isn't on the field every day. The message seems to have been sent that the Orioles are now set at first and will look to fill needs elsewhere.

Perhaps the Orioles finally recognize that they will have to buy some arms instead of some bats, but this is going to be a very tough winter to find anybody who will really solidify the starting rotation. Maybe that's why Jeremy Guthrie is still here.

Though I felt that the Orioles should try to deal Jeremy for his own good, I'll defer to MacPhail on the value he required to make a deal. There's no doubt Guthrie has the potential to have a breakout season in 2012, so the Orioles had to get pitching in return to forego that possibility.

Posted by Peter Schmuck at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (97)
Categories: Just baseball