Matchups: Toronto Blue Jays

Baltimore Orioles (9-9, 3rd -1.5) vs. Toronto Blue Jays (10-9, 2nd -1.0)

Trends

Baltimore: +1
Toronto: -1

Game 1 (7:05)

(QS=1)Miguel Gonzalez (1-1) 6.28 (1.67/.333), 10/5 (*L2: (1-0) 2.45 (1.27), 9/4)
vs.
(QS=1)R.A. Dickey (1-3) 6.26 (1.65/.264), 18/15

Miguel Gonzalez: Gonzalez has pitched better than his numbers. Most of it was due to his start in Detroit, but as you can see, his last two starts have been solid. He's given up only three runs over his last 11 IP, but even still, five innings isn't going to cut it especially when we know Gonzalez can pitch well enough to go seven innings.

R.A. Dickey: Through Dickey's four starts, he has given up five runs or more in three of them and has a whopping 15 walks through 23 IP. He has walked five or more in two of his starts thus far.

We were fortunate to come out of Fenway with a split after blowing one game and nearly blowing another one. Britton and O'Day were major factors in both games, but that's why I hate playing against Boston because they can do this stuff at will at any time. I'm glad to be out of Boston and heading to Toronto, but the Jays showed they can hammer bad pitching with the best of them and we really do have a heap of revenge to deal to the Jays firstly for taking the series in Camden Yards and secondly for making players run around on that astroturf crap. We will likely be without Hardy again. It doesn't appear to be too serious for him, but Buck will probably err on the side of caution considering his back woes before which probably contributed to this injury. I think we will get a solid start from Gonzalez and if memory serves correctly, we have had plenty of success against Dickey in the past. I'd say we have the advantage on paper, but anything can happen... including, and hopefully, the revival of the power bats but only ours, not theirs. Theirs should be shot, killed and buried under the outfield grass.. err artificial carpet.

On a completely unrelated note, does anyone remember back when Jay Gibbons was on the team and Dempsey was doing the play-by-play commentary and said something to the effect of domestically abusing Jay Gibbons? lol That just popped in my head for no reason.

 

Hey, can we somehow offer Santana the 4 - $48 mill contract and send Ubaldo to Atl??

 

He'd probably pitch well in Atlanta.

 

Clevenger taking advantage of every opportunity when he plays.

Good to see the hometown kid do well.

He played little league ball with my son and I know his family well......good people.

 

This is not the easiest division to play in.....remember, he's a second half pitcher.

 

F'n ridiculous that they can't score with bases loaded and 1 out and then Meek gives up a 3-run jack to a guy barely hitting .120. Just smdh...

 

Mostly because they are the most impatient bunch of hitters....they sometimes seem like they have someplace to be.

Even though he is not in the game tonight Weiters is probably the worst followed closely by Jones.

 

And Jones showed it tonight. Striking out on 3 pitches with the bases loaded and 1 out. It's uncalled for.

 

I ended up falling asleep around the fourth inning and missed most of the game, but I see I only missed bad stuff. They still have amnesia with the bases loaded, huh? It's so frustrating when we get into a good situation with runners on base and then we completely forget what got us there in the first place and swing at everything. Meh...

I'll do the next matchup tomorrow.

 

.........and yet another starter who cannot go 6 innings. Just plain ridiculous!!

 

And the bad thing is - what do we really do. Ubaldo is not being pulled out of the lineup. He's getting paid way too much. Chen, Gonzo, Norris all could be moved - I really think it is a coin flip between Chen and Gonzo. I see Gausman getting a chance sooner than later. I'd also say maybe Britton (but that is pushing it). I actually like Britton in the pen.

This whole "its early" has gone far enough. ERAs hoovering around 5 at the end of April is completely uncalled for.

 

Taking Tillman out of the equation, the O's have 1 start out of 15 to go 7 innings, and ONLY 2 that have gone 6 innings. Something HAS to be done, because this is a huge problem.

And dont think I'm giving the offense a pass in this one either. In the fifth inning, Schoop comes up with bases loaded, 2 outs. Now I will be a little easy on him because he is young. However, before Schoop got to the plate, RA had walked, hit a batter, and walked a batter. So the first thing that Schoop needs to be is PATIENT!! I didn't see it, but I heard he swung at 3 bad pitches out of the strikezone.

Then, in the 7th, Jones pulled one of his good ole bad habits. Bases loaded, 1 out - and he strikes out swinging. And its not that he struck out, but I heard the pitches he swung at were just horrible!!

All I can do is shake my head at this team. I know they were "laid back" in spring training, but maybe that is the wrong mentality. I just dont see any urgency with this team. I know they all try their hardest every night............blah blah blah. But I dont see any emotion out there. Its like they expect that "light" to just flick on, and things will change.

 

They brought up a good point on the fan - only 3 weeks into the season, Buck had to drop Pearce to bring up a bullpen guy because he had "3 pitchers who were unavailable" last night. 1.) WAY too early to have that many bullpen arms "unavailable". 2.) Pearce may not be a great player, but he was a good bench player, and could be missed if we lose someone to injury.

 

skeet, something is very wrong with this team at times. Sometimes, we see emotion and other times, we see none at all. Damn it, now I need to rant.

It is utterly laughable that this team as it is honestly believes they are a championship team. LAUGHABLE! We look more like the 90 loss team than we do the 90 win team at this point. Dave Wallace has NOT done a good job with this pitching staff AT ALL! Even during years we have been bad, we almost always got off to a fast start in April, then sucked until September. THis year, we're bad in April and listen; I know the teams we are facing are good teams, but the way we are losing these games is such that we are just giving away wins like we used to do. We can't be patient with the bases loaded, we have only FIVE quality starts from our starters in 19 f'in games and our bullpen can't hold anyone down on a consistent basis. We're blowing five and six run leads, we are showing no power after leading the league in HR's last season and we're leaving the bases loaded at least once a game without scoring. WTF is wrong with these idiots? We are NOT this bad a team, yet we're playing like a team full of rookies (Tillman aside, he has been brilliant.)

Another thing that pisses me off about this is that guys like Tom Davis, Dempsey, Dave Johnson, Mike Bordick and everyone that does play-by-play or commentary keeps putting on the kiddie gloves when criticizing this team. When is someone just gonna say it; we SUCK and there is a huge problem within this team right now. I hate this PC bull S these guys continually spout. I firmly believe you can not be politically correct without being a liar because you can't say what you really feel when you are trying not to offend anyone by being PC. Screw that! This team sucks right now, S-U-C-K-S! When is one of these idiots going to say it? Take off the kiddie gloves and to hell with worrying about pissing off the team because they NEED to get pissed off about something. There is no emotion consistently with this team and I can't figure out what's going on? It has to be a coaching issue. Dave Wallace shoulders some of the blame and so does Buck. This team was not and still isn't prepared for the season and we're almost one month in. Unacceptable! If it was just a few guys, that's different, but this is the whole F'in team! Get your head out of your asses and act like you plan on backing up your words of wanting to win a championship! I thought we were "all in" this year, but apparently the memo didn't get to the rest of the team. Sounds like a bunch of lip service to me at this point. Get to work!! Do your job and act like you have some passion for what you're doing or this team is going to finish last and if that happens, heads should roll including Buck's and Dave Wallaces. This is UN-ACCEPTABLE!

 

Baltimore Orioles (9-10, 4th -2.5) vs. Toronto Blue Jays (11-9, 2nd -1.0)

Trends

Baltimore: -1
Toronto: +1

Game 2 (7:05)

(QS=2)Chris Tillman (2-1) 1.71 (1.10/.216), 20/7
vs.
(QS=1)Dustin McGowan: (1-1) 4.85 (1.92/.333), 8/6

Chris Tillman: Tillman has been by far the best (and only) pitcher that has shown up this season. He can't do it alone and eventually, he's going to hit a rut like all pitchers do and that will be the first lengthy losing streak we have. It's coming, but hopefully not yet.

Dustin McGowan: It should be no surprise that the only good start McGowan has had was against us. His other two starts, he has pitched a grand total of 6.2 innings and given up seven runs. Against us, six innings and zero runs.

I am so disgusted with this team right now. I think my above comment sums it up. It's times like this that I have to talk myself into doing these matchups, but I keep telling myself it's still only April. We need to get our heads out of our asses and start playing like we actually want to play in October because right now, we don't seem to give an S one way or the other.

 

Until this team gets Hardy and/or Machado back it's going to struggle. The rotation is never going to go deep into games and the bullpen will have to save the day.

Things will get better. Davis is going to start hitting. Machado and Hardy coming back will be huge. The rotation may never go more than six innings but at least they'll give a good 5-6 innings per outing.

It'll be ok.

 

Glad you could make it, odawg.

We will not be in the playoffs if our starters can't go more than five or six innings and our bullpen will be dead at the break. We won't even sniff the post season if that's the best our starters can do. It's unacceptable and not characteristic of a championship (or even playoff) team. If our starters truly can never get past the fifth inning 70% of the time, this will be a long, miserable season.

Also, while I do generally agree about Machado's return and the impact on the team it will have, his (and Hardy's) absence have nothing to do with the complete lack of plate discipline in run scoring situations to the point that we are stranding the bases loaded once per game and sit under .500.

 

.. and behold! The O's have changed their strategy. They will now get blown out in the first two innings so they don't have to be burdened with blowing the lead later on.

 

Davis goes yard in the 1st and it looked like Tillman was going to get rocked but he stayed the course and now has a 9-6 lead and is in line for the win if things continue. He will probably pitch into the 6th at least as he has 81 pitches through 5.

The big dog so far is Nelson Cruz who has a solo dinger and a grand slam.

Hardy is back in the lineup and Manny is going to go to A ball to get things started with his rehab stint. Hopefully we see Manny back in town in 2-3 weeks barring any setbacks.

 

Tom Davis will never say anything negative about the Orioles, neither will wanna be manager Dempsey. Dave Johnson is a jack off. The only reason they keep him around is probably because he will work for pennies. The guy was a sub par pitcher and won't bad mouth the O's simply because his kid is with the team. Bordick is a patsy and has a cushy color guy job behind Gary Thorne.

They all remember what happened to John Miller when he bad mouthed the team.