When I was a kid my father and/or grandfather always had a boat, so I grew up around them in a sense. I have very fond memories of boating and fishing on the Chesapeake Bay, Susquehanna River, and in the ocean; and I’m very proud to say that I knew how to navigate the water (in an elementary manner) by age five or six. I recall one time when we were boating on the Chesapeake after launching our boat at Sandy Point State Park in Annapolis, and as we were heading in for the day a sea squall suddenly popped up while we were about halfway there. It was a harrowing trip back to the marina that afternoon, which included my sister vomiting overboard. I remember my father saying that when you’re at sea sometimes you have to prepare for the unexpected… The O’s opened the home portion of the season on April 9th against the Toronto Blue Jays. As I entered Camden Yards that day and walked down the lower level aisle way on the first base side towards home plate for the first time in 2010, the underlying feeling was that it was good to be home. While the Orioles had dropped two of three in Tampa to officially start the season, all appeared to be new at that moment, and things looked up for the Oriole franchise. The Orioles dropping the home opener 7-6 to Toronto with Mike Gonzalez blowing the lead in the ninth was a cruel act of foreshadowing for Birdland. The O’s would go on to start the season 2-16, which prompted calls for Dave Trembley’s head right off the bat. Of course the other side of the coin was that this team has been riddled by injuries almost from day one. Brian Roberts was hurt in that April 9th game, and is yet to return. Felix Pie was injured about a week or so later, and he just got back onto the field last week (only to injure himself again, albeit not seriously). The entire back end of the bullpen ended up going to the DL, including Gonzalez, Jim Johnson, Alfredo Simon, et al. Lost in that mix is the fact that Miguel Tejada missed five or six games with a quad injury as well. Within the past few weeks, we’ve seen more of the same. Luke Scott pulled his hamstring running the bases on a home run, and Kevin Millwood was injured last week (strained shoulder). Both players are now enjoying time on the 15-day DL. The biggest problem in my opinion has been the absence of Brian Roberts. The entire offense is streamlined down from there, so with him not being in the lineup everyone appears to be hitting out-of-order. Pie was his “understudy” in terms of leading off, and suddenly he was gone as well. Dave Trembley used a different lineup almost every day for quite some time. Ultimately you’re only as good as your weakest link in the batting order, and with the O’s consistently having to shuffle players around, the bottom of the order had many holes. Eventually the Orioles were able to get Corey Patterson into the lineup, who has acted as the lead off guy, which has streamlined things a bit. Speaking of Dave Trembley, he was relieved of his duties on June 4th. Most Oriole fans probably wanted him gone before that, but I think that the underlying sentiment around Birdland was that people felt bad for the guy. I met Dave Trembley on numerous occasions, and he always came across as one of the classiest people that you could meet in life. I saw how he’d sign autographs for fans for 20-25 minutes before each game (home or away), and in doing so he would pay special attention to kids. While Trembley never thought twice about those encounters once the game started, those kids will remember meeting a big league manager and how kind he was to them for the rest of their lives. As I said at the time, if there were more people like Dave Trembley around, this world would be a better place. In elevating Juan Samuel to the interim manager role, the Orioles cut their losses with Trembley and hoped for a new direction. Since then the team has performed much better, although it appears that Buck Showalter will soon be heading into town to take over as the permanent skipper. The O’s did provide us with a few bright spots in the first half, one of which was the debut of Jake Arrieta. Arrieta had been in the minors for a few years, watching the likes of Brian Matusz, Brad Bergesen, Chris Tillman, etc. get calls to the majors around him. Finally on June 10th he got his chance…against the New York Yankees. Arrieta got the win that night, and looked impressive in doing so. Arrieta’s line that night: 6 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 4 BB, 6 K. That’s a good line for anyone on any night, but in this case it came against the defending champion Yankees. As June has progressed into July, the O’s have still had their ups and downs. However of late, perhaps they’ve turned a corner so to speak. Since June 24th, the Orioles are 10-7; included in that mix, was a three-game sweep of their regional rivals, the Washington Nationals, at Camden Yards. The Orioles trailed in all three games in that series, by six, five, and three runs respectively. Yet they came back and won all three games. That doesn’t appear to be the mark of a team that’s given up in my view. In an echoing sentiment to that series, the Orioles closed out a first have full of temerities by going deep into the heart of Texas and sweeping four games from the Rangers for the first time since 1976. That’s what I would consider to be finishing strong.
I’m a firm believer in omens and foreshadowing. Some would say that the home opener against the Toronto Blue Jays on April 9th foreshadowed the entire season. At the very least, I’d say that it gave a negative omen for the first half. However there’s a lot of baseball to be played yet in 2010, and the Orioles are riding a four-game winning streak into the second-half opener on Friday night. So in finishing the first half in grand fashion, perhaps the Orioles set the table for what’s to come. This franchise has often had halfway decent first halves, only to go into a second-half swoon; perhaps this year we’ll see the opposite. One can only hope I suppose. In keeping with the concept of omens and foreshadowing, we’ll have a better idea I think come Friday night when the Orioles host “opening day” for the second half of the season…in an odd twist of fate, the Toronto Blue Jays are once again the opponent. Perhaps more than anything, the Orioles can right an old wrong starting this coming weekend. Incidentally, that storm that popped up when I was on our family’s boat in the Chesapeake Bay…by the time we returned to the Sandy Point State Park in Annapolis, the seas had calmed, and sun was shining.
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