After 9 starts, Guthrie is 3-4 with an 5.37 ERA. When Guthrie struggles, the long ball is primarily to blame. He has given up 14 HRs through the first month and a half this season. Last year, he gave up 24 over the course of the entire season.
Since injuring his shoulder last August, Jeremy has not been able to regain the consistency and reliability he showed during the bulk of 2007 and 2008. Guthrie does not maintain the ability to stop, or at the least, mend the bleeding by the Orioles pitching staff, the primary objective of a staff ace.
I've tried to stay fairly contempt in this blog when discussing the Orioles. But I can't any longer. What is wrong with the Orioles baserunning?! As I sit here an write this entry, I am subjected to watching the Orioles squash their own rallies by being overly agg
ressive and flat out stupid on the basepaths. In this game alone (Orioles @ Yankees 5/20), Brian Roberts was caught stealing second with a runner on 3rd for the third out and Melvin Mora was thrown out at second trying to extend a clear cut single. Back on April 12th, I wrote about my concern with the Orioles baserunning. I mentioned that the Orioles offense is potent enough to stay conservative on the basepaths. The same rings true today. I understand that the O's need to spark rallies by being aggressive especially with such a weak pitching staff. But be aggressive at the plate where they excel, not on the basepaths where they are 22nd in the majors in stolen base success rate (65%).
first off, jeremy guthrie is a douche bag. he signed some idiot yankee fan's glove, after he said he would only sign it if he was an oriole fan. then i asked him for a photo but he said he had to go [stretch]. he proceeded to walk over and talk with the other pitchers for a solid five minutes before he needed to actually go over and stretch. and the kid didn't even know his name. when he was on his cell phone talking with his dad he said "yeah. i got an autograph... i don't know. some pitcher..." what the fuck. seriously? so that pissed me off.
ReplyDeletesecondly, the game was a joke. honestly, after being unnecessarily ditched for a photo that would have been extremely easy and quick to take, i thought it was pretty funny watching guthrie basically throw batting practice. also, it was rather ammusing watching nick markakis turn and stop two steps into his full field sprint, because even he realized those balls were going way out before they got anywhere near him.
thirdly, melvin mora's baserunning blunder was just sad. how old is he?! i mean i know he's currently the longest tenured oriole, and that he's getting some years under his belt. but on that slide into second, he didn't look a day under seventy-five.