Everything is awful. Let’s see what the links say…
Breaking Down the Orioles Offensive Woes
This article, by Nick Cicere of Camden Chat, instantly vaulted into my Top 5 O’s posts of the year. Nick uses gifs from the last couple nights to compare and contrast the different offensive styles of the Red Sox (consistently good!) and the Orioles (good…when they’re hitting home runs) and the conclusion is striking. It’s nothing O’s fans won’t already know, having watched this team, but you’ll still be nodding along as you read. Trey Mancini took a pitch the other way for a double last night…how long will he have to hang around the O’s veterans before they convince him that there’s no glory in that? TURN ON EVERYTHING!
O’s Sudden Shift Hurts More This Time Around
In his weekly MASN guest column, Roar from 34’s Matt Taylor reminds us, as history professors tend to do, that this has all happened before. In fact, just last year the O’s had plenty of hope late in the summer before falling more quickly than the leaves. Matt is also questioning his stance on the team letting Nick Markakis and Nelson Cruz go, though he thought he’d long ago made peace with those decisions.
Orioles Present David Ortiz with the Dugout Phone He Destroyed
First off, retirement tours are awful and should go away forever. If we had to participate, this is fine, I suppose. But because I’m petty, I’d have rather the O’s completely scrapped any pre-game ceremony they had planned for Big Sloppy after Boston won the first three games of the series. Especially after he hit two home runs. Just go away, jackass.
Orioles Don’t Have Many Options to Jump-Start Stagnant Offense
Runs scored by the Orioles this homestand: 6, 5, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1, 3. Just horrible. While Chris Tillman not making it out of the second inning last night was bad, the overall problem for this team in the second half has NOT been their suspect starting rotation, but instead the part of the team that was supposed to be rock-solid – the offense. Unfortunately, there’s not much anybody can do, except hope that the players we pay to produce runs start doing that again, like right now.
I can only stomach four of these today. Here’s to a better weekend.
