OT - How bout dem O's hon!!!!!

[ballhawk]

Agreed.

I did take the wife to a game when we were in Bmore last year. She isn't from Baltimore but wanted to see Camden Yards.

It took us getting free tickets from a family member in order to get me to go and once there, I didn't buy one beer or one bite of food.

As long as Angelos is the owner, not a dime of my money goes to that team.

I am assuming you took the same stance against ole Bob Irsay, and im going to go out on a limb and guess that you were pissed when baltimore wandered through the nfl desert for a dozen years.

Sports fans are fickle...most want to have their cake and eat it too. How many losing seasons in a row would it take before you turned your back on the ravens?

[HoustonRaven]

I am assuming you took the same stance against ole Bob Irsay, and im going to go out on a limb and guess that you were pissed when baltimore wandered through the nfl desert for a dozen years.

Sports fans are fickle...most want to have their cake and eat it too. How many losing seasons in a row would it take before you turned your back on the ravens?

Won't happen, so long as Bisciotti owns them.

My stance has nothing to do with them losing and everything to do with that evil asshole who owns them.

[ballhawk]

Well...Adam Jones just smashed the go ahead homerun in the 15th inning of a 4-3 ballgame...

You guys are missing out...

BELIEVE

[blacknpurplepain]

Well...Adam Jones just smashed the go ahead homerun in the 15th inning of a 4-3 ballgame...

You guys are missing out...

BELIEVE

Jones is having a great year. Most game tying or game winning Hrs. Think he has 12 total hrs

Sent from my BlackBerry 9810 using Tapatalk

[rpcfball]

the most exciting thing about this success is that it seems to be sustainable. we just went 9-6 in a murderous fifteen game stretch and our pitching is still doing extremely well despite somewhat coming back to earth (at least in the texas series). im not going to get my hopes overly high because it would not surprise me at all if we completely collapsed, but imagine how good we could be if markakis or reynolds or hardy start hitting. what if we get a healthy brian roberts back? what if tillman or britton get healthy, can they make an impact?

i have no freakin clue if the orioles can keep this up but i sure as hell CANT WAIT to find out. i had yet to turn 4 the last time the orioles had a winning season. i dont even know what the excitement of a pennant race feels like so i'll enjoy this while it lasts

[HoustonRaven]

Well...Adam Jones just smashed the go ahead homerun in the 15th inning of a 4-3 ballgame...

You guys are missing out...

BELIEVE

I didn't miss a thing. Go back a page.

[Cj34]

Bhcforlife and TheJoeFlaccoShow...you guys are both right.

"This franchise's problems run WAY deeper than winning or losing, WAY deeper my friend." ...

This is 100% correct and there are too many problems for me to even address all them. However, that being said, Bhcforlife is correct also. No matter how many problems there are IF (and it's still a big if) this team is either in first or still in serious contention after the all-star break and into late July you will see attendance numbers jumping up to 30-35k during the week and 40k+ on weekends. If they keep it up into late August they will sell out. When winning enters the picture people forget their objectivity and become sheep. In all honesty as much as I dislike Angelos I would probably be one of those people as well.

[callahan09]

Bhcforlife and TheJoeFlaccoShow...you guys are both right.

"This franchise's problems run WAY deeper than winning or losing, WAY deeper my friend." ...

This is 100% correct and there are too many problems for me to even address all them. However, that being said, Bhcforlife is correct also. No matter how many problems there are IF (and it's still a big if) this team is either in first or still in serious contention after the all-star break and into late July you will see attendance numbers jumping up to 30-35k during the week and 40k+ on weekends. If they keep it up into late August they will sell out. When winning enters the picture people forget their objectivity and become sheep. In all honesty as much as I dislike Angelos I would probably be one of those people as well.

What exactly does a sports franchise owner owe the fans other than a winning team? Why does it make us sheep if we support a winning product? As far as I can figure, fielding a winning product is the primary objective for a sports franchise, and if the product is winning, then the franchise is succeeding, and there is no reason for the fans not to be happy about it.

[Cj34]

What exactly does a sports franchise owner owe the fans other than a winning team? Why does it make us sheep if we support a winning product? As far as I can figure, fielding a winning product is the primary objective for a sports franchise, and if the product is winning, then the franchise is succeeding, and there is no reason for the fans not to be happy about it.

Supporting a winning product on its own does not make us sheep. When people choose to ignore the problems because of the winning then they become sheep. If they win this year that's great, but if it's a temporary thing and they go back to being terrible because of their problems what does it accomplish? Their farm system is still barren (other then Machado and Bundy). Again I could go through a big rant about how the Orioles have only produced 3 solid position players in 25 yrs out of their farm system, or how many pitchers have ended their careers because of arm problems, Angelos ignoring Gillick then ignoring his other GM's, etc. but it wouldn't do any good. Everyone has their opinion on Angelos one way or another and nothing I type is gonna change that. This teams long term success IMO rides with where Matusz and Britton go from here (I guess you can throw Arrieta in there as well). If they don't pan out or get injured or whatever the Orioles in the future will continue to have a hard time getting any quality FA's to come here and eventually even resigning their own guys like Jones, Markakis, and Weiters. If those three do pan out then things could become rosier especially with Bundy a year or two away. I consider Chen an unknown quantity until he goes through the American League a second time. There have been a lot of rookies or unknowns look like Walter Johnson the first time through.

[myfavoriteboxer]

I've been watching this team pretty much every night for about a month. I think they've officially won me over. I care about the outcome and I get upset when they lose. This has not been the case with this team since I was in elementary school.

I recognize that they're playing over their heads, but that's almost so obvious it doesn't really bear mentioning. (Currently they have the best record in the entire league, 0.5 ahead of Tampa and 1.0 ahead of Texas. And head-to-head they're clearly not better than Texas, at the very least.) What'll be interesting to see is whether the team can play through the inevitable setbacks and avoid losing streaks and finally break the streak of losing seasons. I mean, already this month they're playing very well (the Texas series is the exception) vs. some tough opponents, while losing a bunch of players to injuries. I don't see the '05 hot-start-then-collapse as an obvious parallel, because this team is quite different from that one.

[Llamablaster]

I've been watching this team pretty much every night for about a month. I think they've officially won me over. I care about the outcome and I get upset when they lose. This has not been the case with this team since I was in elementary school.

I recognize that they're playing over their heads, but that's almost so obvious it doesn't really bear mentioning. (Currently they have the best record in the entire league, 0.5 ahead of Tampa and 1.0 ahead of Texas. And head-to-head they're clearly not better than Texas, at the very least.) What'll be interesting to see is whether the team can play through the inevitable setbacks and avoid losing streaks and finally break the streak of losing seasons. I mean, already this month they're playing very well (the Texas series is the exception) vs. some tough opponents, while losing a bunch of players to injuries. I don't see the '05 hot-start-then-collapse as an obvious parallel, because this team is quite different from that one.

Honestly, if Josh Hamilton doesn't turn into Superman the Texas series might have been a LOT different.

I know you can't really do this, but we just took 2 from the Royals at home right after they swept Texas in Arlington.

Not that I think we're actually better than Texas... just that I don't know that it's as bad is at seemed from the series we played against them.

[Corvus Corax]

The big questions are, of course:

Q1. Will they finally put an end to 14 consecutive losing seasons (i.e., win 81 games at least)?

Q2. Will they legitimately contend in September for a postseason berth?

Here are my qualified (conditional) answers:

A1. The 2012 Orioles will win at least 81 games IF they have won 55 percent (.550) of their games by August 1 AND, at that time, they are not in a rapid or steady decline in their outcomes.

A2. The 2012 Orioles will legitimately contend in September IF:

(1) They have won 55 percent (.550) of their games by August 1 AND, at that time, they are not in a rapid or steady decline in their outcomes AND
(2) By August 1 they have ended the Yankees' domination of them (especially at home) AND
(3) By August 1 they still have a combined winning record against AL East opponents AND
(4) Their team ERA remains below 4.00 throughout the season.

In order to accomplish all of this they also need to:

- stay healthy (avoid critical injuries to key players)
- continue to get consecutive quality pitching starts (essential to their bullpen's success)
- continue to win consecutive SERIES (avoid the extra long winning streaks immediately followed by long losing streaks).

BUT my greatest concern is a lack of leadership inside the clubhouse. Those 162 games do make a LONG season. Virtually no team can avoid adversity. And when it comes - and very likely it will - how the team handles it will tell us all if they are truly for real this time. Look and listen for a closed-door meeting of the players. (Hasn't happened in years.) THAT is an indication of a leader stepping forward to handle the difficult responsibility of constructively criticizing his teammates in private (i.e, commanding their respect in getting them to 'pull together').

Otherwise, I don't see this team's success surviving a 162-game stretch.

CC

[myfavoriteboxer]

Honestly, if Josh Hamilton doesn't turn into Superman the Texas series might have been a LOT different.

I know you can't really do this, but we just took 2 from the Royals at home right after they swept Texas in Arlington.

Not that I think we're actually better than Texas... just that I don't know that it's as bad is at seemed from the series we played against them.

Well, they have gone 3-4 in the week since they played us, and are 8-9 in the month of May (O's for comparison: 5-2, 11-5). So they've definitely cooled off. They're only a game behind us in the AL mostly as a result of an exceptionally good April.

We had come off a weekend series in Boston with games of 13 innings and 17 innings. So that explains our inability to really try to win the first game when Matusz had a crap start. Then again, they did cause him to have a crap start by being very good...

Game 2, hell, if I'd been there, it's probably more memorable to witness the first 4-homer game in nearly a decade than to see your team win. I didn't watch this one on TV because I was put off by the first game. When I checked to see what had happened after it was over and saw the headline to the story, my reaction was pretty much "Gee whiz, well, ok."

So if we explain away the first two games then we got a split doubleheader, although one where our shutdown closer had a four-run lead that became a one-run lead (the homer he gave up is his only run given up of the season! - the two baserunners were put on 2nd and 3rd with no outs by Ayala). Then in the second a manageable game goes to shit when a reliever gives up 3 extra runs then heads to the DL.

It's interesting to compare the two teams because we picked up three pretty important players from them last year for basically nothing:

Three key members of Baltimore's resurgence — Davis, Strop, and O'Day (along with Hunter, who has a 5.14 ERA, but at least he's given the Orioles innings in the rotation) — were acquired from Texas in the second half of 2011, either on waivers or for expendable middle relief.

[thebird7689]

Mr. Jones keeps tearing the cover off of the ball. We need to give him a deal sooner rather than later. I would give him 6 years between 85-90 million. We do not want that guy to go. Hardy is coming around also. Coming up with some big hits. "Just win baby" - Al Davis

[Mwjergs]

Mr. Jones keeps tearing the cover off of the ball. We need to give him a deal sooner rather than later. I would give him 6 years between 85-90 million. We do not want that guy to go. Hardy is coming around also. Coming up with some big hits. "Just win baby" - Al Davis

That's going to be the real test for the fan base. At this stage they need to extend Jones. He's having a tremendous few months. But to see him walk away due to not opening the checkbook would be a terrible blow.

[alienrace]

I think, maybe, that I'm finally believing. However, we've seen this dog and pony show before, particuarly this decade. The O's start off solid, then fall apart in the second half.

That said, this feels a little different. They are beating on the AL east, and the hitting looks legit. The bullpen is playing WAY over it's head, and that is my real worry, that they won't keep it up. Maybe this year instead of the usual fire sale after the Allstar break, they can get some pieces added. I'm getting real sick of the annual fire sales...

[goodandfast]

I think, maybe, that I'm finally believing. However, we've seen this dog and pony show before, particuarly this decade. The O's start off solid, then fall apart in the second half.

That said, this feels a little different. They are beating on the AL east, and the hitting looks legit. The bullpen is playing WAY over it's head, and that is my real worry, that they won't keep it up. Maybe this year instead of the usual fire sale after the Allstar break, they can get some pieces added. I'm getting real sick of the annual fire sales...

I actually think that the bullpen has been playing to their ability. Strop and Johnson have nasty stuff, and Gregg has shown the ability to dominate in the past. The starters, on the other hand, have been surprising to me. With the exception of Matusz, they've all been pretty solid. Tommy Hunter has had some stinkers, but I think that once Britton gets healthy, either he or Matusz go down to AAA.

I'm with you on the team needing to add pieces at the trade-deadline. Scooping a starter might be the difference between contending and the annual midseason collapse.

[wickedsolo]

I think, maybe, that I'm finally believing. However, we've seen this dog and pony show before, particuarly this decade. The O's start off solid, then fall apart in the second half.

That said, this feels a little different. They are beating on the AL east, and the hitting looks legit. The bullpen is playing WAY over it's head, and that is my real worry, that they won't keep it up. Maybe this year instead of the usual fire sale after the Allstar break, they can get some pieces added. I'm getting real sick of the annual fire sales...

My thoughts exactly.

If they can continue this level of play through the all-star break, I'll be a true believer. It is nice to see them doing work against the Yanks and Sox though.

[wickedsolo]

To me the most impressive pitcher has been Wei-Yin Chen. 4-0, 2.45 ERA...it's nice to have a solid lefty in the rotation. He has the ability to eventually become an ace or something close to it.

[pslholder96]

Just like everybody else I'm going to enjoy this run. I remain cautiously optimistic. I'll wait until the All star break to decide whether to get really excited or not. Adam Jones is hot. Memo to Peter Angelos, strike while it's hot. Sign him to a contract extension.