Tha Crossroads

 

I feel like this needs to be discussed with all the Jeff Samardzija talk flying around lately, are the Orioles buyers or sellers this year and more importantly which one should they be? As you can probably tell, I think the O’s are at a crossroads as an organization and how they answer the above question (both in words and even more so in actions) will have a huge impact on the teams we see in the next 4-5 years.

Obviously the short term view depends a lot on

Mid-season Report on Mid-season Reports

The first half of the season is over. So, for some reason, everyone wants to put together their mid-season report cards.

Mid-season reports are as insane and worthless as pre-season predictions.  Does Punxsutawney Phil come tell us how the transition from spring to winter is going, months after he told us we had to freeze our asses off another 6 weeks?  No.  So I don’t need to hear everyone talk about the “silver lining” in the storm cloud over the Orioles.

So here’s our report card on mid-season report cards.  Enjoy.

Schmuck #1

Obviously O’s-centric.  Player by player though?  Is that really necessary?  It’s fairly plain to see who’s fat (Wigginton and Sherrill), who’s old (Melvin and Zaun), and who’s awesome (Reimold and Wieters).  Getting into who is fatter, older, and awesomer is really unnecessary.

Grade – D

Schmuck #2

Okay, Pete. You did a team breakdown instead of player by player…touché.  I was too drained after reading a report on every player, though, to read your next report card.  You get downgraded for the amount of work the reader has to do.

Grade – F

Roch #1

First problem is: you talk about things you do at your house way too often.  We’re here to read get infuriated by your mid-season report card.  Get to it already.

Here’s where you lose me:  that’s a really long list of stuff to read and it’s all good stuff.  We’re not a good team and you are giving people false hope.

What can you expect from a guy who gets paid by an Angelos though, right?

Grade – C

Roch #2

Several hours later, Roch threw up another blog about all the bad stuff the O’s did this season.  You get an F for rubbing it in and an F for tardiness but since you dropped Old Mill’s name, I’ll bump you up to a D.

By the way, the reason you almost blew up the lab is because you weren’t using the Malek Method.

Grade – D

Paul Folk from Orioles Hangout

It’s hard to get excited to read something that looks like a wall of text from some dude in a forum.  Not to mention this: “When Rich Hill starts at Camden Yards, great things happen. For the Orioles, if not so much for Hill. So make sure to buy tickets next time you see his name on the schedule!” Are you getting paid by Angelos, too?  Read that whole graf and tell me it’s not the most convoluted way to say how shitty a player is.  Just be blunt.  Like this:

Rich Hill – he sucks.  No letter grade.  He throws a straight BP fastball and hitters just wait to mash the curve out of the park.  Done.

Grade – F

“Nasty” Nester Aparicio

He tweeted that he was going to do a mid-season report card, but I didn’t see anything in writing on his site.  He must have done it on air, and thus, no one heard it.

In all fairness though, he probably spent the whole time he was supposed to be grading the O’s praising himself for how accurate his predictions were…and how great his haircut is.  Note – Spiked hair is cool if you are 8 or heavy into punk rock.

Grade – Incomplete

Danny Knobler – CBS

Danny starts his report with “It’s not fair to judge the Orioles on wins and losses…” Then why did you?  You gave us two C’s and a D.  But that’s based on the same scale that you judge all the other teams, and you said yourself, that’s not fair.  The only reason you didn’t get an F after that really misleading intro is because you didn’t add to the shit pile that other national writers have shoveled on us.

Grade – D

Moral of the story is, when you have a shitty team that everyone thought would be shitty…be brief, don’t sugar coat it, but don’t pile on either. Don’t say things that contradict each other. Basically, just hope the time between now and contention flies by without drawing attention to how bad the Orioles are.  You all failed.

~Kevin Lomax

Redding Got Wietersed

June 17, 2009. Jones bobble heads in hand, we headed to the bleachers in center. Strangely, that didn’t last long as we were given the boot by a small group…of 53…from Oregon. Apparently, the Mets snuck out of New York the night the Yankees were dominated and let Swisher pitch. Too embarrassed to be in the same state, I suppose. More embarrassing, however, is Gabe Kapler struck out with Swisher on the mound throwing his ‘changeup.’ I digress.

Like circus folk, we moved on to right field, practically on Ryan Church, a perfect spot to unleash…the homo-heckle. I told Church he looked great in his pants and he should pray I don’t jump the rail. Hot and bothered, he moved closer. I loudly whispered he was so close I could feel his heart beat. Then, the unexpected occurred. Through the art of mime, he placed his hand in his jersey and gestured his heart beating! Well played, sir.

On a side note, Wieters hit the first homerun of his Major League career. No big deal.

Ha!

No big deal?! That shit was awesome! Redding got wietersed. It gave me and the soft-skinned gentlemen alongside me goose bumps. Oh, and we won. Boing. Mets 4. Orioles 6. W

Johnny Utah

Wieters’ Start

I’ve heard a lot about the “struggles” of Matt Wieters and his adjustment to the big leagues.  I’ve also heard a call for patience when evaluating him.  I’m here to shed some light and perspective on the topic.

Since his debut on May 29, 2009 he is boasting a robust batting average of .143.  To some this may seem low but take into account that the Orioles have probably faced their toughest pitching opponents in that time period (proven by the fact that they have been held to 2.2 runs per game in that stretch). Out of all Orioles with at least 25 at bats in that time, our boy ranks 6th in batting average on the team.  In that same period of time he is tied for 3rd in doubles, leads the team in triples and is also tied for 3rd in home runs.

In fact there is only one person playing up to the bar we have set for Wieters.  His name is Luke Scott, and he carries a gun.

Luke packs major heat

Give it some time…the offense and the chosen one will turn it up a notch and if all else fails, we can heckle from the safety and security of pulling an O’s floppy hat down over our eyes.

Until then, welcome the homestand.

~Jjaks Clayton

And So it Begins (Still under construction)

It’s been a busy few weeks in O’s land.

Wieters is up. Eaton is gone. Walker is on his way out. Young pitchers are contributing. Exciting times.

We also decided it was time to take the ESH movement one step further. This is quite a task for lazy, slack-asses like us. But we’re trying.

It’s easy to see the light at the end of the Ft. McHenry tunnel but that bitch is long. We’re making progress but we’re still not a .500 team so lets not put the horse in front of the carriage.

We have a lot of work to do. And we’re going to do our part. We’ve got a lot of old time Oriole fans that need to be won back.

We’ve also got a lot of bandwagon Sox and Yankee fans to eradicate from our ball park. We’ll heckle the shit out of them until they think Baltimore is so bad they will stop making trips down from Boston up from Virginia. We’ll heckle their unborn children if we have to.

We’re not going to be able to do it without all of the other die hard fans out there so join the movement.

~Kevin Lomax