Matthew Taylor: Showalter has changed his own script in Baltimore

The Orioles haven't been doing much according to script since Buck Showalter arrived in town. Now, amid the euphoria of three consecutive winning seasons and what's turning into a runaway division title, the team's first since 1997, it's worth noting that Showalter himself is off script. He was supposed to have worn out his welcome by now; instead, his team is having its best year under his discerning watch. Showalter built three winners prior to his arrival in Baltimore, two of them turnaround jobs, but he never lasted more than four seasons in any one place before now. This is his fourth full season in Baltimore plus the 57 games he managed in 2010. He's won more games here than any place else. He currently has 367 wins, nearly 50 more than the 319 he compiled in Texas. His .533 winning percentage with the Orioles is second only to the .539 winning percentage he had in New York. And in this, a season when past history would suggest his team would be regressing, he's working toward his best record as the O's skipper. The Showalter cycle upon his arrival in Charm City had been to build a winner within a couple of seasons - first in New York, then in Arizona and finally in Texas - only to watch his teams' win totals drop and his fortunes to follow. This led to the perception that he possessed a great baseball mind, but an overly meticulous manner. Pat Jordan explained it as follows in a Sports On Earth column this past April: "For the owners who hire him, Showalter is like a trophy wife. Desired at first blush, and for the same reasons divorced later. His meticulous attention to detail makes him incredibly attractive at the outset, but after three years, that same quality is viewed as obsessive micromanaging." Then there's this Baltimore Magazine profile from 2010: "While Showalter has established himself as a bona fide franchise fixer, he hasn't mastered the art of happy endings. Twice he's been named Manager of the Year, and twice he's been fired. What's more, two of his teams won the World Series the year after he was sent packing." A familiar narrative as the Orioles struggled through the tail end of their 14-year spiral was that the team lacked leadership. The thinking was that neither Brian Roberts nor Nick Markakis was willing to shake up the clubhouse internally and to serve as the face of the franchise externally. Then along came Buck. Showalter is the Orioles' new identity. The 2012 Orioles became the BUCKle Up Birds, and it seems like each utterance from the manager down the stretch this year, including his recent talk of grinding it out, could end up as a team slogan. Things weren't supposed to end up like this in Baltimore, not so soon after all that losing, but the team and the manager changed the narrative. Both are being redeemed this season. Matthew Taylor blogs about the Orioles at Roar from 34. Follow him on Twitter: @RoarFrom34. His ruminations about the Birds appear as part of MASNsports.com's season-long initiative of welcoming guest bloggers to our site. All opinions expressed are those of the guest bloggers, who are not employed by MASNsports.com but are just as passionate about their baseball as our roster of writers.