A few fun facts
Nick Markakis is tied for the American League lead with eight outfield assists.
Who else has eight? And no fair checking.
Adam Jones is tied for seventh with five. As a team, the O's are tied with Tampa Bay for the AL lead with 18 outfield assists. Felix Pie has chipped in three assists and Nolan Reimold has two.
Oh, there's more:
The Orioles have thrown out six runners at the plate, nine at third base and three at second base. Markakis' 38 outfield assists since the start of the 2007 season are second in the majors behind Jeff Francouer's 39
With David Hernandez back in the majors, submarine-stylist Andy Mitchell has rejoined Triple-A Norfolk's rotation.
Tonight's starter, Chris Tillman, began the season 5-0 with a 2.13 ERA, and Norfolk was 8-0 in his first eight starts. The Tides averaged 7.6 runs a game in his outings. However, Tillman has lost his last five decisions despite posting a 3.89 ERA with 31 strikeouts, eight walks and 29 hits allowed over his last six starts. Norfolk has scored 10 runs over that span (1.7 runs a game).
Joey Gathright has hit safely in 20 of his last 25 games, batting .379 (36-for-95) with 14 runs scored and 10 stolen bases over that stretch. Melvin Dorta has hit safely in 10 of his last 15 games, batting .375 (18-for-48) with a home run and nine RBIs. Outfielder Justin Christian has hit safely in 13 of his last 14 games, batting .389 (21-for-54) with three RBIs and nine stolen bases. Jolbert Cabrera has hit safely in 16 of his last 18 starts, batting .324 (23-for-71) with a home run and 10 RBIs.
I won't keep you in suspense any longer. Cleveland's Shin-Shoo Choo also has eight outfield assists.
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Categories (click for archive)Roch Kubatko | Roch Kubatko Orioles |
Say his name fast w/o screwing up wins you a prize.
What and OF rotation the O's have with Reimold, Jones, Markakis, Pie and even Scott...those are 5 decent guys-- even Pie to me. Tillman is a good pitcher for so young an age for AAA. To bad some of those good position player numbers are in the minors...even though we all see the young postion players that are coming to the O's playing well..besides Berggy the O's need some young starters to learn how to pitch better. Until that happens we will stay the same no matter how good our position player team plays.
Another fun fact:
I will be at the game this evening. Yay me!
Hey Roch - As the Orioles jetted off to the west coast, it got me to thinking about how a road trip works. Do you, or did you when you were with the Sun, travel with the team? Is the team's charter plane like a small 50-seater jet? Do Trembley and the coaches sit together and discuss the upcoming series? Do you notice which players like to sit together? I am assuming they just play cards or read on the plane? Any interesting stories in having traveled with the team? Maybe you could address it in a blog entry or something. Or then again, maybe I am the only one that finds this trivial stuff interesting.
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The beat guys don't travel with the team. However, MASN's personnel does. I haven't been on the charter and can't describe what it's like. I definitely wouldn't tell any stories. That's the last thing the players want. Whatever happens there is off the record. - Roch
I was going to say Shinn-Soo Choo (the Big League Choo) before I got to the end of your post. Does that count?
Roch,
A couple of questions:
Do you have a vote in the baseball awards?
And how come the guys at the Sun don't have votes? Or has that policy changed? I thought each city had a certain number of writers who got a vote in the awards.
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I do have a vote. The Sun didn't allow it while I was there, and I assume that hasn't changed. - Roch
Nick the Stick is one of the most underrated players in all of baseball. I guarantee he will not win a Gold Glove this year, even though he is more than deserving. That stuff is mostly politics, anyway.
Little known fact...Shin-Shoo Choo's nickname is "splints" and his cousin is former Mets catcher Choo Choo Coleman. I don't think Tillman losing 5 straight is anything to be concerned about considering his e.r.a.
For all the (appropriate) emphasis one hears being put on starting pitching, it continues to be underrated by the average fan. Witness those totally inane Player of the Game votes on MASN where the guy who hit the random homer gets 80% of the vote and the starting pitcher who held the other team to 1 run in 7 innings gets 16%. I’m sure it serves MASN’s purposes because it gets people involved, but IMO it just perpetuates stupidity, which is a shame.
Roch, when you wrote about Reimold getting the Rookie of the Month award, I had the strong impression that Bergesen deserved the award over Reimold. So I tallied up Bergy's numbers, only to find that the wonderful Mark C in So Pa (where in So Pa, Mark?) had beaten me to it. Thanks, Mark!
So, Roch, I pose this question: Projecting Nolan and Brad’s numbers out for a full year, you’ve got a left fielder who hit .320 with 54 RBI in ~500 ABs and a pitcher who went 18-0 with a 2.23 ERA in 218 innings. I know it's hard to compare hitters and pitchers, and a .320 BA with walks and power is terrific. But wouldn’t you give the ROY award to the pitcher? I sure would. Every time. In fact, I’d award a pitcher who went 6-15 with a 2.23 ERA in 218 innings, because that pitcher did what he has control over even more magnificently than that outfielder did.
Roch, I know you don’t do math and that you have many more important things to worry about ROM votes. But I think your vote illustrates a bias toward offense that’s very common. Maybe at the end of July you can throw the ROM vote out to the Rocheteers and see what we come up with. Whaddaya say?
Does the outfield assists offset the least amount of steals in the AL? Oh and at this time last year the Orioles were 2 games above .500.....this year they are 8 games below .500
Saw today that Cubs just released Ryan Freel. Good trade - again.
Is Tillman still on a pitch/innings count or can he air it out? Reasoning is his innings pitched. His last 6 games since Jun 2nd; 5.0, 5.0, 6.0, 6.0, 6.0, 6.2.
JUST WANT TO SAY HAPPY 4TH OF JULY, ESPECIALLY TO THOSE PEOPLE WHO HAVE SERVED IN THE MILITARY, ALSO TO THOSE WHO ARE SERVING IN AFGHANASTAN, AND IRAQ, APPREICIATE THIER HARD WORK AND SACRAFICE. ALSO CONGRATS GOES OUT TO NOLAN FOR ROM, WELL DESERVED.I WISH HERNANDEZ WELL HOPE HE PITCHES GOOD TONIGHT, FANS HAVE TO BE PATIENT AS THESE YOUNG PLAYERS DEVELOP HAVE TO GIVE THEM TIME TO LEARN HOW TO PLAY IN THE BIGS. I AM GLAD THEIR HERE AND HOPE THE OTHER YOUNG PLAYERS COME UP SOON. B ROBERTS, MORA AND OTHER VETERANS NEED TO SET EXAMPLES AND HELP THESE YOUNG KIDS DEVELOP INTO GOOD BALL PLAYERS. THANKS ROCH
Glad to know Jeff Francouer is good for something. He's the guy who never walks, and pooh-poohs the whole idea of on-base percentage. In other words, an idiot. I mentioned before that, earlier this year, Francouer actually managed the incredible feat of having an OBP *lower* than his batting average, by virtue of no walks and one sacrifice fly (which counts against OBP but not BA). Impressive guy. Sure glad he's not an Oriole.
I know there has already been a lot written here about the amazing Baltimore Beatdown on Tuesday, but I went back and re-watched that game (and watched the next one too, which I had missed, in condensed form -- another perk of MLB.com video, which I highly recommend) because it was so much fun, and came away with some impressions.
First, those games against Boston tell us a great deal about the state of the Orioles rebuilding. Simply put, the Sox are the best, setting the standard for everyone else, changing the way the game is played, even, if some here are to be believed, swaying the umpires along with the national media in a huge tsunami of influence. Clearly they’re the team we’re measuring our progress against. And they’ve absolutely dominated us, for years, to an extent that is almost impossible:
Over the last four years, since 2006, the Sox are playing .738 ball against us.
.738.
And that figure would be over .750 if we hadn’t come back from nine runs down Tuesday in what I’ve seen quoted as the greatest comeback of a last place team over a first place team in major league history.
Hey, that was fun! Let me say it again: Tuesday was the greatest comeback of a last place team over a first place team *in major league history*.
Some impressions from the later innings:
First, there were a couple of instances where the Sox played things safe and ended up burned. Remember the chopper to Pedroia in the seventh? He started to throw to second, but decided to take the safe play, maybe because they still had a five-run lead and maybe because the grounder pulled him in so he was throwing into the runner. He got the out at first, but the runner advanced to second, and Pie knocked him in with a two-out single, making it 10-6. Big run.
Then there was Salazar’s squibbler in front of the plate in the 8th. Kotteras grabbed the ball and looked like he had time to make the play, then inexplicably held the ball, maybe again because he was afraid of throwing into the runner (Oscar was cheating inside the baseline), or maybe because he thought Oscar was faster than he is (I listened to the Sox announcers the second time around, and they were very surprised he didn’t throw). That move cost them an out and a run in what became a second consecutive five-run inning. Huge play.
Finally, Nick’s double, a fantastic piece of hitting. The key, though, was that it short-hopped the wall and went way up in the air, which is what allowed Brian to score all the way from first. Otherwise that great relay nails him. Huge, huge hit with a helpful dash of good luck thrown in.
The O’s will have to do some things differently than the Sox do because of their smaller fan base and revenue stream, and unfortunately there are three other very strong teams with their own dreams of success that we have to leapfrog. Losing in such horrible fashion 15 hours later definitely took some wind out of the sails. But the Baltimore Beatdown was truly an amazing, truly historic game. Let’s give it its due.
When do the fun facts start?
It sure would be nice to wake up one day and not have the minor leagues be a better read than the O's.
We've been duped. These aren't fun facts at all. They're financially sound facts!
If those individual stats are so impressive, why do we exist in this sub-.500 universe?
Pie is starting to hit and play better all around- but he's not going to start. Gathright, Christian or Montanez can fill the 5th outfielder slot. Maybe we can get something of need in return? Perhaps the Royals will give up on of their 3B prospects- Alex Gordon; Mark Teahan; or Mike Moustakis?