c'mOn, sammy

streaky. temperamental. nO dh. still a good fightin' squad tho.



hOw come the manager didn't know the rules last nite?

(quoting AP:)

Indians outfielder Grady Sizemore made a diving catch. Markakis tagged up, headed for home and appeared to cross the plate before Tejada doubled off first. Plate umpire Marvin Hudson waved off the run.

Orioles bench coach Tom Trebelhorn disputed Hudson's call before the start of the fourth, and Hudson then conferred with Montague and the other umpires.

(...)

Baltimore manager Sam Perlozzo said Trebelhorn alerted him that the run should count.

"I told Sammy it's never too late," Trebelhorn said. "That's our run. I've seen runs put on the board after the game."

there you have it. if the evil one wants a reason. he has it. the young savior was nearly denied a run!!!!!! :(

chernObyl

wayward O feels great exhaustion at watching Orioles last two days vs As because As were all, "here, please win," and Os were all, "no. you. i insist." in fact, play was so poor, wayward O feels he can say little when NY and RedSox fanZ smirk smugly and say, "ha, Orioles." just like that. wayward O wishes to purge the following images from last two losses:

· tejada standing near, not stepping on, second to force out runner
· roberts not taking easy out at first
· mora bunting w/ man on 3rd and one out
· corey not running from 2nd on base hit
· walking in runner
· shitty at-bats; first-pitch grounderZ
· mora booting EZ groundballZ and then not covering 3rd
· Jim Palmer's shmoozy little takes

As DL'd their ace and then also lost their Swishy Swisher today and Os ... are giving Wayward O an existential meltdown not unlike when Raskolnikov almost blew up Death Star but realized he forgot proper ID and he was naked and failed his midterm exams because he was being chased by crocodiles and kept slipping in mud and couldn't run away...

an april pOem

wayward O confesses he did not watch yesterday's game but when his text alert hit his cellphone he felt such excitement!! a 7-3 meant that trachsel didn't melt down and team offense continued. it was not easy going outside and enjoying weather when wayward O knew he should have been watching team dismantle canadian rivalz.

shOw toronto the door. don't get lost on the JFX!! blue jays are now angry and will go to boston and teach red sox that not all is cake and candy. you don't get to play old, beat-up yankees every single day!! blue jays manager is getting close to an elia rant.

"they're really really behind ya around here"

wayward O knows the feeling! like when you sit in section 80 at camden and there's angry red sox fans who act like you're in their house!! that's why now blue jays will get hot!

this is not a time to talk about how Os are doing it. this is a time to enjoy, and wayward O offers the following mantra for fanz to chat before drifting off into dreamland:

dear baseball godz...
let bedard strike out crisp
and let markakis come to bat with RISP
let payton play left
and of hits let cOrey not be bereft
let tejada's streak grow long
and let aubrey hit 30 dongs
let perlozzo avoid the Evil One's Fury
and let Os escape in-Jury
oh and a little something for the kids in china too.

cOmebacks & cOrey

who's got the most comeback wins in beisbol? say it with me ... Os!

last night they came back twice and held jays in the ninth ... setting the table for the yOung savior. wayward O doesn't understand why jays brought infield in, however. that was dumb. with bases loaded and one out in a tie game, wayward O says ... bring the outfield in but leave infield at regular depth or double play depth. had jays' manager done this, jays would have easily turned a DP on the young savior's ground ball. instead, the Os get an easy win (relatively speaking....)

wayward O is hearing more crazy talk. there are some who say: take cOrey out of of CF vs lefties and let jay payton play CF. stop smoking crack! corey is a terror on the bases and i hope everyone saw his sick catch in early part of last night's game, robbing lyle overbay of a home run trotsky.

patterson is the center fielder. vs. lefties. vs. righties. vs. ambidextries too.

a day Off

Orioles -- sans ramOn and cOrey and paytOn --- three big Os as you can see :) :) :) get a day off today to consider what they've achieved so far. after being swept in three games by twins (who happen to be the best team in the AL at least at this point) this was a team looking down the barrel of a trebuchet loaded with cow poop.

but then they went 3 up and 3 down vs. detroit and yankees (giving up two grand slams in the process) and feasted on KC and tampa, winning 5 of 6.

not a huge set of data but we are seeing the early makings of a pattern: the depleted Os team currently on the feld -- jon knott? freddy bynum? -- struggles against top teams and easily beats bad teams.

it seems strange, but this is a really positive sign. cOrey of course wasn't injured. he was at a family funeral. paytOn appears to be ready to suit up for friday's tilt. ramOn seems to have an injury reminiscent of Bedard 05: i'm fine i'm fine i just can't play is all.

the season will hinge on whether the team can stay healthy -- or in the case of ramOn -- GET healthy.

shOwing a little fight

Os come from six runs down and beat tampa bay fish tacos by a score of 9-7. since the early massacre at twins, Os are 7 wins with 3 losses and pitching is looking good; bullpen is on lockdown tighter than at Jessup Correctional Facility. adam lOewen pitched ok and if Os didn't bungle in the field like a gaggle of mitten-wearing humptys it probably wouldn't have been as close as it was.

Wayward O says Aubrey Huff must have been nervous returning to the um Hallowed Confines of the Tropical Juice Stadium and that's why he committed more errors in one play than Dumbya has over six years as the Resident of the Wizzo Hizzo.

Os need to feast on Rays, Royals, Nats and hopefully also Texas and Cleveland. And that's just what they're doing right now; at least with respect to Rays and Royals.

memo to kevin millar: slow down on the chow buddy. you're getting awful damn fat.

diaspOra, part. 1

Name: Dude at San Franscico airport deli counter

Status: Os fan

Quote: 'I was supposed to play for the Dodgers...' Wayward O wasn't sure what that meant but it sounded sad.

Cap Choice: New-style Os cap, fitted with flattened brim. Ears not tucked in.

Wayward O Says: It was a great week of skiing and hanging out in San Fantastic and Lake Tahoe but it was hard to get Os info along the way. ESPN is awful damn stingy with the Os highlights. But the Hyatt Casino had the Os-Royals extra-inning game on the satellite on Thursday night. Wayward O watched the last three innings as he participated in a Texas Hold 'Em Tourney and watching the game made him relaxed and a better player. He finished 13th out of 40 players. It was neat to see a suffering fellow fan at the airport gate; it was a sign that Wayward O's ten-day blogging lapse is over!!!

finally Off the shnide

wayward O is pretty sure Orioles would have given last night's lead back without the free-agent cavalry in the bull-pen. danys baez's 1-2-3 eighth inning lasted about 3 minutes.

we have a twisted relationship with jay gibbons. on the one hand, we can't help think he's bound to end up out of baseball any nanOsecond. then after we've cursed his name and felt bad about it because he's such damn likeable person he hits a 2-ribby double and Os win by two. here's how he described his double:

"Hanging curveball. First pitch. Ambush. I don't have a clue at the plate, and I was looking for anything up. And he threw it."

well he popped up a curveball weakly in the prior at-bat so i'm sure mike mussina was going back to the well again.

jay, you're not supposed to admit you don't have a clue at the plate. and stop going around saying "ambush" --- it's not right.

adam loewen hit a-rod and i'm 87% sure it was on purpose. giambi is an easier out.

wayward O is off to ski in the sierras this week but he will have a laptop. he may go see dodgers visit giants at pac bell candlestick whatever it's called nowadays park. wayward o would probably say "blogging will be light" but he is so nerded out about baseball it would probably be a lie.

see you Out there. :)

we'd be 1-2 if we had our catcher

ramon ramon why must you be such a sickday diva? please, stop messing with our heads and play beisbol...

Entering Wednesday's game, both of Hernandez's replacements (Paul Bako and
Alberto Castillo) were hitless. [wash. post].

ok, ok. so bakO got a hit on wednesday nite. two catchers + three games = one hit and i won't even get into the defensive impotence.

two dead endZ

two days. two blown leads. oh and two. twos are wild! daniel cabrera looked good last night. but there wasn't any clutch hitting.

orioles really really need ramOn behind the plate and in the lineup.

comment update: yesterday we cavalierly promised to abandon google comments and install haloscan. but aytch-scan's blogger install wizard goes off the rails right at step one and there's no satifsying answer to the problem in haloscan's forums.

on the blogger forums, wayward O spies this warning:

Just letting everyone know, the auto Installer for the New Blogger that Haloscan
has, is BROKE and The guy that runs Haloscan, doesn't seem to be interested in
fixing it either. I've e-mailed him, tried leaving feedback in the forums, he
even went as far as to put my postings on moderate, so, I couldn't post that it
was broke. So, the word to the wise... Don't use Haloscan, unless you know how
to manually make it work with the new blogger!!!!

wayward O is either:

• one of several newbie jackasses who can't figure out how to make it past a screwed up install wizard or
• just bystander in a war of passive aggression between google and haloscan

either way he isn't going near any massive template changes until he's sure he'll be able to back out of things go badly. (wayward O wishes he could say same for 2007 Os but there's no backing up now.)

so for now we stick with google's lumbering, crappy comments system.

oh and One

so we lost to twinks last night ... wayward o just took a spin around the BaltoSphere and what he sees is a bunch of despondent fans ready to fall on their swords already.

relax. it's hard to beat the twins in the metrodome ... especially behind their ace.

erik bedard had a shaky outing but the bullpen surrendered only one run in 3+ innings.

wayward O was excited to see gibbons seeing the ball well (two doubles) and the Cake throwing out runners from right field.

wayward O was sad to see ramOn out of the lineup ... paul bako played hard but he was clearly shook after his collision with morneau and somehow we think the critical passed-ball later in the game was a result of the collision.

wayward O didn't know this: the devil rays do not have a left-hander in their bullpen! maybe Os can send todd williams over there, he's a righty too!

a programming nOte: Wayward O is dumping google comment as soon as there is time and going to haloscan.

win tOtal

yes. there are like 5 million season previews. they all say Os are going to stink. let's focus on two of them:

peter schmuck of baltimore sun, he of shooing away pesky parrots and whatnot, says Os will win 78 gameZ. but he allows for more, or fewer. t.w.O. likes p.schmuck.

murray chass, a very nasty man who writes for the new york times, says:

The Baltimore Orioles have fortified their bullpen with the addition of Danys Báez, Jamie Walker, Chad Bradford and Scott Williamson, but the additions to their starting rotation are New York castoffs, Jaret Wright from the Yankees and Steve Trachsel from the Mets. Little wonder that the Orioles are headed for their 10th consecutive losing season, a period the franchise last experienced when it primarily played as the St. Louis Browns.

no link for you! murray chass hates orioles with a bitterness that only belies his age; he clearly remembers the most recent bygone era and fears its return.

wayward O finds his "preview" insulting because it's not a "preview"; it's a perfunctary dismissal Os offseason signings -- some of 'em -- followed by a nasty remark. wasn't trachsel like 15-8 last year? didn't Os get wright straight up in a trade for chris britton? seems like a steal where we sit. just to save you the time: britton doesn't appear on janquis opening day roster. it's a wonder the murray chasses of the world still have work; even great papers forgive laziness after a while t.w.O. guesses.

wayward O says maybe Os win total will be around 78 (he thinks it will be higher) but entire AL East will be a grindhouse this season. division winner may have a low 90s win tote. in 2005 a weaker Os squad had its way with division until injuries hit (hard, damn hard) in june. it might happen again.

in the meantime, please help wayward O think of a nickname for murray chass...