Watching Orioles baseball has become a recipe for disaster for most fans of this once proud franchise.
Each and every year, fans are spoon-fed the same old weathered lines like, "They have a lineup that can compete with any team in baseball" or "they're getting younger and should be fun to watch."
Well, six games into the 2010 season and this team's lineup is far from competitive and anything but fun to watch.
So this is one fan shouting out to the Baltimore Orioles that enough is enough. This fan base deserves better.
In the off-season, Andy MacPhail went out and signed a few veterans to help this team push forward and provide stop-gaps while younger players continue to develop in the minors.
Miguel Tejada and Garrett Atkins were brought in to play the corner infield positions, while top hitting prospects Josh Bell and Brandon Snyder hone their skills at Triple-A Norfolk.
In the early going, Tejada does lead the team in RBIs, but he is not the 30-40 home run threat that you look for in the middle of a lineup and any production out of Atkins is a bonus after a dismal 2009 campaign.
Mike Gonzalez was brought in to bolster a bullpen that returned several pitchers from a group that struggled mightily in 2009 and to give more seasoning to future closer hopefuls like Luis Lebron and Kam Mickolio.
All Gonzalez has done is pitch to an 18.00 ERA while blowing two out of three save opportunities, all but losing his closer title until he proves to manager Dave Trembley and pitching coach Rick Kranitz that he has regained his control and ability to get Major League hitters out.
And then there is Kevin Millwood.
Brought in to provide guidance and leadership to a rotation compiled of young, promising pitchers with a great deal of raw talent, he has done what many consider to be an admirable job through two starts.
His current stats for the season read: 12 2/3 IP,six runs, four earned, one BB, 11 K's. But looking closer, he went just five innings in his debut, scattering nine hits while throwing 100 pitches.
That is a formula for a worn out bullpen by season's end. His second start was much better, until he reached the 8th inning and gave up back-to-back home runs, turning a 2-1 lead into a seemingly insurmountable 4-2 deficit for this anemic offense.
The sad thing here is, the pitching, overall, has not been terrible.
The starters, with the exception of Brad Bergeson, have put the team in position to win and even in Bergie's start, they took a lead into the 9th inning.
The problem has been the closer, but also this dreadful offense. Coming into 2010, even the know-it-all's over at MLB Network had the Orioles as a highly touted offense. Six games in, fans have yet to see the reasoning behind the praise.
The team as a whole is batting just .241 overall, and even worse, are batting just .167 (9-54) with runners in scoring position. Without that big bopper in the middle of the lineup, situational hitting is key and these guys just are not getting it done.
Yes, this season is still young being that it is not even a week old yet, but this fanbase needs some kind of reason to have hope, especially with a grueling stretch of games coming up.
There are still 10 games to be played before the first scheduled day off and twenty-six games in twenty-eight days, including twelve straight against the Yankees and Red Sox starting April 23rd.
This is the toughest opening schedule of any team in baseball this season and if they continue to play the way they have been thus far, fans around Baltimore will be clamoring for football season long before training camp opens on July 28th.
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