We need to win these games

[LookitsPuck]

It's obvious, I know.

4 games against the Yankees. We're 0-4 against them. Hammel battled his arse off, and we come out with a loss due to 3 key plays:

1. A poor call by the 1st base umpire
2. A terrible at bat by Chris Davis
3. A poor decision by Nick Markakis/3rd base coach

It's maddening. The only real positives out of these 4 games are that we took them to extras twice, and lost tonight 2-1.

But we need to win these games against the Yankees if we're going to contend/make a run. No excuses. I feel good about Hammel/bullpen, but this game just stunk.

Let's win these next 2 games and feel good going into Boston.

[Ross]

The way Davis and Reimold are hitting right now, I thought for sure that one of them were going to get us back in the game.

[Frobby]

Davis' AB made me ill. He swung at two terrible pitches in that AB. The play at the plate is one you have to try, with two out. And it's not like they get a lot of time to think about it. See the ball bounce away, and react.

I am tired of finding ways to lose to the Yankees.

[oriole]

I think its worth a look

0-3 Min - bad team
4-0 NYY - good team
5-1 TOR - ok team
3-1 Chi - bad team
2-1 LAA - good team
2-1 OAK - bad team

They do poorly against good teams and pretty good against bad teams. Sounds like the makings of a .500 club but not a contending club. I guess that was the goal all along wasn't it??

[Lucky Jim]

I think its worth a look

0-3 Min - bad team
4-0 NYY - good team
5-1 TOR - ok team
3-1 Chi - bad team
2-1 LAA - good team
2-1 OAK - bad team

They do poorly against good teams and pretty good against bad teams. Sounds like the makings of a .500 club but not a contending club. I guess that was the goal all along wasn't it??

What does this even say? Are these records? What do we have 16 of? How are you defining "good" and "bad" other than whatever's convenient to your argument?

[jofalfa]

Davis' AB made me ill.

It was just horrible. It just shows how even guys that are going really well at the plate get overanxious in big situations......or it seems against the MFY.

Their 0-4 record against them is a nasty black cloud hanging over their otherwise good record. It's just not going to feel right until they beat them down.

[clapdiddy]

I think its worth a look

0-3 Min - bad team
4-0 NYY - good team
5-1 TOR - ok team
3-1 Chi - bad team
2-1 LAA - good team
2-1 OAK - bad team

They do poorly against good teams and pretty good against bad teams. Sounds like the makings of a .500 club but not a contending club. I guess that was the goal all along wasn't it??

I'm not quite sure what records you are trying to do there, but it's not working. You've got us 0-3 against Minnesota and 4-0 against the Yankees.

[Lucky Jim]

Davis' AB made me ill. He swung at two terrible pitches in that AB. The play at the plate is one you have to try, with two out. And it's not like they get a lot of time to think about it. See the ball bounce away, and react.

I am tired of finding ways to lose to the Yankees.

If there's only a guy at 3rd, I agree. Down 1 in a tie game w/ 2 outs and a 2-0 count on Betemit, I need to be a lot more sure than that. I get the logic, just disagree.

With two outs and runners on second and third, Betemit has a .316 lifetime average.
With a 2-0 count, Betemit has a slash line of .439/.419/.635.

[Don Quixote]

I'm tired of "Welp, they were close." To hell with that. The Orioles have nine losses this year, and four are against the First National Bank! It's the same thing, time after time. Like I said in the game thread, that team is not actually ten times as good as the Orioles. The Orioles just find ceaselessly frustrating ways to lose these games, and it has to stop. I haven't often had occasion this year, if I have yet, to just stop watching and not resume. I did tonight. Maybe that's poor form, but for me to stay engaged when they're playing the Yankees, they have to stop screwing the pooch. It's a damned shame for Hammel, as he had a pretty good game.

[LookitsPuck]

The Davis at bat is what stands out the most to me. He's been really locked in, but he was overly anxious. You could tell from the first pitch. It's situational, as always. Pitcher struggling? Take some pitches. Wait for something belt high. Don't go up swinging.

[temp19]

As long as we have worthless scrubs like Mark Reynolds in our lineup we will not beat them. Their lineup has no easy outs, he cannot field and now he cannot hit. I say dump him and pick up Inge, at least he can play third base.

[The Rick]

We had won these games... 57 times in a row, before tonight. I like that average.

[Scrat1]

Davis' AB made me ill. He swung at two terrible pitches in that AB. The play at the plate is one you have to try, with two out. And it's not like they get a lot of time to think about it. See the ball bounce away, and react.

I am tired of finding ways to lose to the Yankees.

If there's only a guy at 3rd, I agree. Down 1 in a tie game w/ 2 outs and a 2-0 count on Betemit, I need to be a lot more sure than that. I get the logic, just disagree.

I can go either way on this. I think numerically speaking, it's a better decision to remain at third and have Betemit take a crack at it, especially since this could result in more than one run, while Markakis is taking a lot of risk to score just one. As Frobby said, however, that's a lot of information to process in a split second. The ball bounces away, you run. But the ball seemed to die and the Yankees reacted quickly and we were left with a sour taste in our mouths. Maybe not the absolute best play in that situation, but not an awful one either. Just another bad break against the Yankees.

[JayThomas]

The Davis at bat is what stands out the most to me. He's been really locked in, but he was overly anxious. You could tell from the first pitch. It's situational, as always. Pitcher struggling? Take some pitches. Wait for something belt high. Don't go up swinging.

Davis' at-bat was abysmal. He was clearly trying to drive in the runs rather than focus on the more fundamental/important getting on base. I want him to be aggressive in the strike zone there because we really did need to drive those runs in. (But) you simply can not give at-bats away. He swung at two pitches not remotely close to the strike zone. It was as if Kuroda was trying to give him 1st base to pitch to Betemit.

Also, Hammel was not sharp for the first 3 innings. He was behind almost every batter 2-0. You simply can not do that with a team as disciplined as the Yankees. Unlike the Orioles, the Yankees do not often swing at balls and once they are ahead in the count they really seem to control the strike zone. I believe that through the first 3 innings he threw 56 pitches, only 31 for strikes (and that's assuming that everything that the Yankees put in play was a strike).

Let's hope for Matusz to show us, and the Skankees, how it's done tomorrow.

[El Gordo]

I don't know, 3 moments that are questionable are very few, considering how many moments there are in a game. What about all the balls hit hard off Kuroda that were right at someone. Wieters just missing a HR by inches. Reimold missing one just foul, or Davis sac fly that would have left the building on a warmer night. I don't think you can just focus on a poor AB or a marginal decision by Markakis. Seems to me we played the MFY tough, and the ball bounced the wrong way a few times.