O's At Sox 17 April Game Thread

[Jimmy Jazz]

Reimold, LF
Hardy, SS
Markakis, RF
Jones, CF
Wieters, C
Reynolds, DH
Betemit, 3B
Davis, 1B
Andino, 2B

Chen, LHP

vs

De Aza, CF
Morel, 3B
Dunn, DH
Konerko, 1B
Pierzynski, C
Rios, RF
Ramirez, SS
Viciedo, LF
Beckham, 2B

Danks, LHP

[funkateer]

another dinger from Reimold~! Hard to believe there were idiots last year calling into the shows saying Pie was as good or better than Reimold, and should get more playing time!

[hampden623]

A Hardy Homa!

[AntiMoon]

Any way we can bottle this?

[boulderterp]

20 HR's in 11 games! Crazy. If they hit for power this year anywhere like this it will be an interesting year.

[funkateer]

NEARLY had the back-to-back-to-back.....damn you 'Kakes!

[funkateer]

I don't want to delve too deeply into the koolaid here, but IF these guys stay (mostly) healthy this year, they might actually win a few games....even in their division. Think about it: last year, they actually played pretty good and won a good number of games for some long stretches there. There were two horrible stretches last season that I remember, and both seemed triggered by key injuries: the stretch there early in the season when Hardy was on the DL and the stretch from when Roberts was gone til when Buck took over. If you took both those out of the equation, I'm pretty sure they were comfortably ABOVE .500. Nearly their entire starting rotation took a step backwards too, at a time when everyone was expecting them to take a step in the other direction....everyone blames the bad season on that but even WITH the pitching, they played really well and won games, excepting those two stretches i mentioned.

In addition, I don't think there was a time last year when so many O's had +.300 averages and getting hot all at the same time. And of course, the pitching was nothing like now, except for that final 3rd of the season when they all must have feared for their jobs! Small sample yeah but they are doing things now that they didn't do all last season, really (impressive pitching and offense at the same time)....maybe Buck finally has them believing in themselves and has chipped away at that "culture of losing" we heard so much about? Christ even of their losses this year, half of them—games 2 and 3 with NY—were totally winnable, and in truth SHOULD have been won (as opposed to the NY game Matusz started; they crushed us in that one, that one really wasn't winnable).

[AntiMoon]

I don't care about wins, I want to see Reimold,Davis,Arrieta and Chen have big enough years that you can pencil them in happily for the future. Not to mention bust out years by Wieters and Jones.

[Aclobat]

They always seem to start April out hot. Then fall apart into July.

[larsanderson]

Os hitting lots of solo homers

[Rob]

Mark Reynolds sucks. Not only is his glove horrible but that bat is growing icicles on it.

14 out of his last 30 at-bats, he has whiffed..... and 0 homers.

[AntiMoon]

They always seem to start April out hot. Then fall apart into July.

Little bit better depth this year. Also alot of our tank jobs in Aug and Sep came after trading away guys at the deadline. But you still have to think we'll have our usual 8-20 month in either June,July or August

[funkateer]

Mark Reynolds sucks. Not only is his glove horrible but that bat is growing icicles on it.

I know....but his hitting used to be kind of streaky last year, didn't it? Maybe not to the extent of a Luke Scott, but close...so maybe the bat will heat up soon. With so many other guys on the team hitting right now, they aren't actually missing his power (yet).

[Mr. Buzzcut]

Phew!

[funkateer]

O's win! O's win! :-) :-) :-)

[AntiMoon]

Had em all the way! If Reynolds is at 3rd that ball is still rolling down I 94

[funkateer]

I don't care about wins, I want to see Reimold,Davis,Arrieta and Chen have big enough years that you can pencil them in happily for the future. Not to mention bust out years by Wieters and Jones.

I thought that's all anybody cared about on here: wins? I'm with you though -- I like to see SOME continuity of players from year to year; after all, if the entire team turned over every year, I don't know that I'd even care anymore, even if they DID win more games. Some of these new guys start to play well (like Hardy did last year, for example) and I start to like them and hope they can hang around. "Orioles" is a brand name but it's also the people who play for the team....I get impatient with people that kept saying "blow the team up, trade away the decent players (Weiters, etc) and get as many prospects as you can for them"....I mean, when you get prospects, you're hoping just one of them will blossom into a player LIKE Matt Weiters.....I therefore didn't see the logic of reversing that equation, because the liklihood of a lot of prospects panning out isn't really high. I'd rather see them supplement the "keepers" on the team as best they can for now and like you, hope to see a few of them have good years. The payroll is low enough now that if this team can get to and finish the season at ~.500, maybe a big signing or two could be justified.

[AntiMoon]

Not about continuity it's about our owner is not going to spend so we need to develop our own talent to fill all our holes

[AntiMoon]

I thought that's all anybody cared about on here: wins? I'm with you though -- I like to see SOME continuity of players from year to year; after all, if the entire team turned over every year, I don't know that I'd even care anymore, even if they DID win more games. Some of these new guys start to play well (like Hardy did last year, for example) and I start to like them and hope they can hang around. "Orioles" is a brand name but it's also the people who play for the team....I get impatient with people that kept saying "blow the team up, trade away the decent players (Weiters, etc) and get as many prospects as you can for them"....I mean, when you get prospects, you're hoping just one of them will blossom into a player LIKE Matt Weiters.....I therefore didn't see the logic of reversing that equation, because the liklihood of a lot of prospects panning out isn't really high. I'd rather see them supplement the "keepers" on the team as best they can for now and like you, hope to see a few of them have good years. The payroll is low enough now that if this team can get to and finish the season at ~.500, maybe a big signing or two could be justified.

I'm in the trade everybody crowd but Wieters was never included in the trade away group. Jones,Hardy,Reynolds,Markakis,JJ and Guthrie were the guys I wanted to trade because by the time we're good again only Jones could still be in his prime. Our core is Arrieta,Britton,Wieters, Matusz(maybe) Bundy,Machado and Schoop. You trade all the vets I mentioned to add to the core.

[dandrews]

I HATE to pull a Moonism out of the bag, but it's kind of funny that Slidemaster tends to disappear after a few wins. His 55 win team proclamation isn't looking promising.