Gausman’s Heroics Could Make O’s Duquette Hire Look Even Smarter

So Kevin Gausman, it’s now your turn.

After two horrible outings to start the young pitcher’s career with a whopping 11 earned runs allowed vs. the Toronto Blue Jays and Washington Nationals, Gausman’s first home start was nothing but a gem with just one earned run allowed in six innings against the hottest-hitting team in baseball. That this gem took place against said team featuring some guy named Miguel Cabrera who one day before launched a grand slam into the left field seats, adding to his MLB-leading RBI totals, is even more amazing.

So Dan Duquette, the wizard from out-of-nowhere, the long-given-up-for-dead relic from the 90’s and early 2000’s turned genius again, may have his latest roll of 11 on the dice.

And this one didn’t take place anywhere near Maryland Live, but out of a revived O’s farm system that, based on the last two years, seems like one of the best in baseball. (What a far cry that is from the days of the early 90’s and 2000’s when the Orioles specialized in trading away anything resembling talent for has-been and declining stars and what became utter flops.)

It is too early to be exalting Gausman’s future stardom just yet. He’s still learning the big leagues and has only pitched in three starts (as of Sunday), and he still hasn’t earned his first Major League win.

But if Sunday’s game was a promising look at what could be, and if 3B Manny Machado’s success is any guide, the Orioles should be feeling pretty good about the future.

Their GM Duquette was of course the architect of the Montreal Expos and then the Boston Red Sox just before that erased 86 years of history with the only three-game playoff comeback in the modern or Dead Ball-era history of Major League Baseball.

It was largely Duquette, not whiz kid Theo Epstein, who laid the foundation for the 2004 Sox team that could, with acquisitions through trade or free agency of key players like Tim Wakefield, Pedro Martinez, Jason Varitek, and Manny Ramirez.

Duquette originally acquired Martinez when he was the Expos GM, and left just before that club’s 1994 team would earn the best record in baseball before a strike prevented the possibility of a first (and only ever) Expos appearance in the World Series.

At Duquette’s 2013 preseason appearance at the monthly Press Box luncheon event, he spoke on why the Orioles hadn’t made much of a splash in free agency by naming some of the young pitchers the O’s already had, including Miguel Gonzalez and Wei-Yin Chen. He didn’t feel they needed anyone else because those players were already on the roster.

As WJZ-FM morning show host Steve Davis regularly likes to say, Duquette “hasn’t made any bad moves” since arriving in Baltimore in November, 2011.

In his time with the O’s (with help from Orioles scouts) Duquette has found Gonzalez out of the Mexican Leagues, Chen out of Taiwan, Jason Hammel in an acquisition from Colorado, Tommy Hunter and Chris Davis from Texas (ED. Note – this was an Andy MacPhail deal. We apologize for the error.), and he helped guide a farm system that has produced Machado, Gausman, and soon, the Orioles hope, a consistent Dylan Bundy who has only so far tasted the wine of the Majors, but whom the Orioles are hoping can return for champagne celebrations his next time around.

Duquette for his part has been very low-key, often praising manager Buck Showalter and his players and giving credit to Orioles ownership for giving him another chance.

It is the last part that is particularly impressive about Duquette, considering the anger, frustration, and bitterness that fans have felt from 1998 – 2011 of the Orioles having losing seasons in all of those years toward owner Peter Angelos (and of course one broadcaster’s short-lived campaign demanding the sale of the team).

Duquette, like Peter Angelos, can share in the success and vindication that winning brings. Duquette was out of MLB baseball for more than 10 years before Angelos gave him a chance. Angelos, who just saw the opening of new University of Baltimore School of Law he helped to build, made it through those 14 years of losing, despite the ignominy of being booed on Cal Ripken’s “2131” night, and being trashed on the radio and in print, both locally and nationally on a regular basis.

While some of the criticism of both men may have been very deserved over those years, especially towards Angelos, vindication is nonetheless a beautiful thing. The O’s are consistently winning again, proving doubters, computers, and experts all wrong that 2012 indeed was not some fluke or fancy.

The Orioles and Peter Angelos have Dan Duquette largely to thank for that.