The Look of Losing

The manager looks frustrated and confused. The players give the impression of "oh well, just another day at the office." The overall impression is resignation to the unacceptable while just giving faint lipservice to "things will get better."

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This is the same team with a few tweaks, that essentially ended its season after Labor Day last September. This is a team that has become accustomed to and accepting of losing even though so many of them are just beginning their major league careers. To have labored so hard and so long to get to this level and just dog it is hard to figure. While they don't need someone to take a baseball bat to smash a few water coolers to prove there's some real passion on this team, the atmosphere seeps through the television in full view loud and clear.

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They can exchange players with Norfolk and Bowie all they like, but until the clubhouse culture changes, we cannot expect change. Once players accept losing isn't horrible, it's all over. Every one of them has something he needs to prove. It's not the lack of wins that is driving fans away, it's the lack of passion. Why should we fork over the money for tickets or turn on MASN or the radio and commit our time when the team isn't clearly showing their commitment to their job.

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As if we haven't seen enough or it couldn't get any worse, the Orioles play their next twelve games against the Red Sox and Yankees, six games in Baltimore where Orioles Park at Camden Yards will be teaming with out of town fans drowning out what faint whimpers of support their might be from frustrated Orioles fans.

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There's more than a week to go in April, but for the 2010 Orioles, it's already over. The most modest goals will be next to impossible to obtain. Our hopes that this team might hit the .500 mark seems so remote given there is nothing to show they are heading in that direction with such an uncommited culture of going through the motions.

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There is no single answer to the mess the Orioles have created. The Washington Nationals look brilliant by comparison and when they were crashing to record lows last year, they did perk up after a change of managers. On paper, which team would you rather see? On grass, however, the Nationals would clean the Orioles' clock right now.

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Let's go Nats. Three cheers for the Nationals. Hustle boys, hustle. Orioles territory is Nationals territory and Nationals territory is Orioles territory. Who's staking their claim most effectively right now?