We'll give you some numbers. Can anyone draw better conclusions?
The 2010 Orioles are heading for a historic season, one of the worst in baseball history. At their current pace, they will finish 44-118. That’s only one game better than the 2003 Detroit Tigers who went 43-119 or two games better than the infamous 1962 expansion Mets who finished 40-120. There are no other comparisons since baseball went to a 162 game schedule in 1961. With a .271 winning percentage, only eight teams in the history of baseball have done worse. Rest assured, the Orioles will not come close to the futility of the old National League Cleveland Spiders who finished 20-134 in 1899, a .130 percentage. Put in another context, the Orioles would join the 1962 Mets and the 2003 Tigers as the only teams since the 162 game schedule to finish below .300. Considering the 1988 Orioles opened the season with a 21 game losing streak, that team finished with 107 losses. This year’s team is on pace to finish 11 games worse than 1988!
Having just faced the Red Sox and Yankees then enduring a three game sweep at the hands of the New York Mets could surely represent the Orioles facing the toughest competition which would perhaps slightly accentuate the negative. However, they have only played above .300 from May 13th to May 29th (excluding the third day of the season).
The prospects for a turnaround aren’t too promising. Heading out west to face two California National League teams, both the Giants and the Padres have winning records. The Padres are in first place in the National League West. They come home to face the Marlins and the Nationals both teams flirting with the .500 mark. The Marlins have generally had their way with the Orioles and the Orioles lost two of three against the Nationals in Washington before Strasburg hit town. They move on to entertain the Oakland Athletics who own the Orioles, then entering July, they travel to Boston, Detroit, and Texas. Boston and Texas murder them. Of all the teams they face between now and the All Star break, the Tigers are their best hope. The Tigers have a winning record and are in second place in the American League Central.
If we turn the corner after the All-Star hiatus, the Blue Jays, Rays, and Twins come to town. While August might be a little bit easier, the one thing the Orioles have wanted so badly to show for several seasons is some sign of hope in September, a month that has been a total wasteland in Orioles history in the new millennium. Considering they will be playing mostly the Rays, Yankees, and Red Sox, all three of whom will almost certainly be in the thick of the pennant race, color September GONE. Not that the other ten games against the Blue Jays and Tigers would be any pushover, the Tigers could be in a pennant fight of their own.
The unthinkable is thinkable. The Orioles could be the worst team in modern baseball history. Surely, they could surely exceed the team’s worst season by a wide margin.
Clearly, Brian Roberts’ contributions are hurting the team severely. His leadoff skills, ability to hit doubles, and expert fielding at second base being absent set in motion a trickle down effect that influences the whole line up. He is also a valuable presence in the clubhouse as an ever positive outgoing personality. His return is uncertain and there is no sense rushing him along for this abortive season.
Certainly, several players are playing worse than their career averages would indicate, but what would be the catalyst to get them back on track?
The ugly factor is how players who are only getting started have fallen flat on their face this year. Brian Matusz, Adam Jones, Matt Wieters, Chris Tillman, Nolan Riemold, and Brad Bergesen are all examples. Riemold is failing miserably in Norfolk while Bergesen is headed back down the bay. Here’s the future of the Orioles, Baltimore.
Dave Trembley is gone sure to be forgotten as an abysmal footnote, a minor player in the worst stretch of Baltimore Orioles’ history. Juan Samuel has exerted no influence yet, but starting off against the Red Sox and Yankees gave him quite a difficult challenge for starters. It is good to see him go right to players after miscues to help demonstrate they are accountable. Whether Samuel has any true major league management credentials is hard to say. If the Orioles are approaching turning the corner, they truly need a proven major league manager with winning credentials. The clubhouse culture is so toxic, it will take both new management and some from the players themselves to create a single-minded focus on winning. Everything short of winning is secondary and of little value at this point.
With Strasburg-Mania taking off a short drive to the south in Washington, DC, the Baltimore Orioles are now the secondary major league team in the Mid-Atlantic region. Given it’s been thirteen years since their last winning and post-season season, history and tradition are losing their intrinsic value. The Tampa Bay Rays and Arizona Diamondbacks did not exist in 1997, but both teams have made it to the World Series in that span – the D’backs capturing the 2001 World Championship. The Tigers had fallen on a dry spell resembling the Orioles culminating with their horrendous 2003 season. The Tigers made it to the 2006 World Series and are now yearly contenders.
Many observers point to the Rays going from worst to first in 2008 and the Tigers’ reversal from 2003 to 2006 as what could lie in store for the Orioles. We also realize 2010 was supposed to be the year the Orioles would show moving in the right direction after just avoiding a 100 loss season by sweeping their last series last October. Since Andy McPhail became the team’s president, they have gotten worse each year.
While it would be easy to condemn Andy McPhail and it’s not hard to put moves like putting the signing of Garrett Atkins and Mike Gonzalez in his face, the strategy of stockpiling pitching prospects then adding hitters is a good one. The 2009-2010 winter season was devoid of much talent that could help the Orioles. It’s hard to believe hired gun, Kevin Millwood, is winless. His performance stood in stoic defiance to the team’s misery until recently falling into the abyss himself.
The clubhouse chemistry is toxic at 333 West Camden Street. Sadly, the only proven formula for better chemistry is winning. The current team and coaching staff is unlikely to raise the team by its own bootstraps. The Orioles have almost nothing to offer in trade to other teams short of giving up prospects who having had proven little offer little value in return. One would have to ask, why would a first class free agent want to sign with Baltimore unless he was the absolute mercenary? Mercenaries generally aren’t the loyal, team-oriented fellows who help turn teams around, but right now, a couple good stat machines would be a huge benefit particularly in the fat of the lineup and perhaps at the top of the rotation. The bullpen is a disaster once again. Injuries are a part of the story. Dave Trembley’s management accentuated the worst of their problems.
The prospects for 2010 are not good and things could get worse. While the winning or losing percentage could move to something less threatening, If somehow the Orioles could play .500 for the rest of the year, they’d lose 95 games, a three game improvement over last year. If they play 45-54 for the rest of the season, they lose 100 games. If they play 38-61 ball, they’ll equal 1988. A pace of losing one out of three games, a .333 pace, they’ll finish 50 and 112.
Pick your poison, read it and weep. The other numbers slipping away are butts in seats. How pathetic it was seeing the Orioles play the Red Sox and Yankees, usually the ticket to a packed stadium and see so many empty seats – something the MASN cameras carefully try their best not to accentuate. The Ravens open camp on July 29th. The lead sports story on Channel 11’s evening news was the Washington Nationals playing their second game behind Stephen Strasburg.
The task of winning fans back will be as difficult as winning games. How tragic it is considering the Orioles great history from 1960-1997 (forgiving and forgetting 1986-1991 aside from 1989’s “Why Not?” season) and what is still the standard for a fan friendly beautiful ballpark with all the best downtown Baltimore has to offer a short walk away?
Look around sports, in baseball only the Pittsburgh Pirates, the team that beat the Orioles in the World Series in 1971 and 1979 who have not won since 1992, have a longer record of futility. The lowly Kansas City Royals had their lone winning season since 1993 in 2003 perhaps partly feeding off the futility of their divisional rivals the Detroit Tigers in their season of misery. And what of the Washington Nationals/Montreal Expos? They were winners in Montreal in 2002 and 2003 under Frank Robinson.
Add it all up, YES IT REALLY IS THAT BAD FOR BASEBALL IN BALTIMORE. To say fans are groping for some measure of hope would be putting it mildly.
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