What is the matter with you people?

[webbrick2010]

The relief core looks bad right now. They were the strength of the team last year. Maybe the luck is not happening this year like last year. And we will play to what we have. A .500 team isn't so bad. At least the games have been interesting until the end. And the defense is pretty solid.

I am not concerned. I enjoy the games as long as they aren't getting blown-out, making bad defensive plays, walking everyone. Although on Saturday they did walk a bunch of people and made some bad defensive plays.

People on here are very reactive. They were saying Machado was the best player on the team even though he hasn't even come close to even playing a full season yet. And keep slobbering over Mark Reynolds numbers even though the season was a month old. Now the guy is hitting .250 and falling back to his normal horrible numbers no one is posting about him.

Mark Reynolds:

Avg : .253

OBP: .345 (would be 4th on O's)

Slg : .548 ( wolld be 2nd on O's)

OPS: .893 ( would be 2nd on O's)

HR : 12 (second in Majors, would be 2nd on O's)

RBI : 37 (4th in Majors, would be 2nd on O's)

"Normal horrible numbers", he has a career OPS of .811, better than every career O's hitter except Nick Markakis

Sorry I will continue to slobber over Mark Reynolds numbers.

[Don Quixote]

It's certainly a bad week-ish. It seems like when the offense has been there, the pitching has been horrific, and when the pitching has been there, the offense has struggled to put them on top and score enough to keep them there. Like probably most of us, I see pitching as the bigger overall problem, though I'm not satisfied with the lineup in a 1-9 sense. I don't believe they'll play .300 baseball the rest of the way, but they're not in a good place at the moment. I try to limit my kvetching, but most of us will have some momentary explosions (some more ill-advised than others).

[NickM21]

Well it's a message board. You can't really expect fans to be gushing about a team that's on a 6 game losing streak, blowing three saves including one against the Yankees.

[Can_of_corn]

Good God, one awesome season and it's like Sons of Sam Horn around here when the slightest bit of adversity comes our way. This is how you deal with a losing streak? This is how you react?

If anything, this fan base should have an iron stomach after getting kicked in the nuts repeatedly for the previous 14 years leading up to the 2012 season. And this is how we're reacting?

One losing streak doesn't wash away everything that was built over the past year. Yes, the starting pitching is depleted but if you want to look at something positive from yesterday, at least Freddy Garcia gave us a strong start. Davis is still mashing. Nick looks like he could be heating up again.

Sack up and remember how things used to be. This is how you react when JJ has lost his groove? Man, I know who I'd want in my corner if I was in some trouble and it's not many of you.

Sorry to offend but I have an agenda to push!

Hard to make hay with my views on RP when JJ is saving 35 in a row.

[OrangeJerseys]

Early POTY candidate?

This is not SOSH or the MLB forums. The game threads have become bastions of futility and pure misery. People outright insulting a player who was the best at his position last year.

Guess I'm not a "What have you done for me lately" baseball fan.

[24fps]

The fanbase enjoyed the 2012 season so much and now' date=' after 6 straight losses and 3 blown saves in one week by their closer, are starting to envision a return to the endless dismal "out of it by summer" seasons fresh in all our memories. [b']You can't blame anyone for not wanting a return visit to that place.[/b]

No, but you can blame them for interpreting a six-game losing streak at the quarter-point by a team that still has a winning record as a meaningful basis for predicting the outcome of the entire season. There's plenty to talk about, much less to worry about IMO. If this trend keeps up to the AS break, then it's time to worry. And if DD suddenly turns into Andy MacPhail, then it's really time to worry.

[atomic]

Mark Reynolds:

Avg : .253

OBP: .345 (would be 4th on O's)

Slg : .548 ( wolld be 2nd on O's)

OPS: .893 ( would be 2nd on O's)

HR : 12 (second in Majors, would be 2nd on O's)

RBI : 37 (4th in Majors, would be 2nd on O's)

"Normal horrible numbers", he has a career OPS of .811, better than every career O's hitter except Nick Markakis

Sorry I will continue to slobber over Mark Reynolds numbers.

His numbers are free-falling. You are reactionary. His numbers over the last 3 seasons were absoutely horrible. His numbers this season will be absolutely horrible. One hot month doesn't make him good. Last year he had one hot month as well. just this year it was at the begining of the year.

[webbrick2010]

His numbers are free-falling. You are reactionary. His numbers over the last 3 seasons were absoutely horrible. His numbers this season will be absolutely horrible. One hot month doesn't make him good. Last year he had one hot month as well. just this year it was at the begining of the year.

You can keep saying his numbers are horrible if it makes you feel better. If you want to cherry pick his 2010-2012 three years his OPS was .775, which is still better than every Oriole in that 3 year period except Nick Markakis. Go figure.

[callahan09]

The pitching is in dire shape right now. According to MLB.com for all of these stats (all of Majors):

Late/Close*:

*The seventh inning or later with the batting team ahead by one, tied, or has the tying run on base, at bat or on deck.

AVG: .244 (19-T)

OBP: .344 (22-T)

SLG: .358 (15)

OPS: .701 (18-T)

ERA: 4.33 (24)

WHIP: 1.35 (20)

RUNS: 30 (29)

9th Inning Or Later:

AVG: .277 (30)

OBP: .359 (30)

SLG: .415 (27)

OPS: .774 (29)

ERA: 4.07 (25)

WHIP: 1.45 (28)

RUNS: 21 (28-T)

May:

AVG: .276 (25)

OBP: .341 (24-T)

SLG: .463 (27)

OPS: .804 (27)

ERA: 5.18 (27)

WHIP: 1.43 (24-T)

RUNS: 89 (24)

And you know what's the worst thing about this? We have the 2nd best defense based on FPCT and our offense is #1 in runs scored in the Late/Close split with 42 runs, and 2nd in OPS with .839.

In the 9th inning or later, we are 6th with 23 runs (but 15th in OPS with a .665 mark).

In May we are T-13th in runs (79) but 7th in OPS (.769).

The offense and defense have done enough to win games, but the pitching is in shambles and is currently easily one of the worst units in the majors.

Oh, and for a comparison, here is the pitching rankings for the same splits, O's of 2012:

Late/Close*:

*The seventh inning or later with the batting team ahead by one, tied, or has the tying run on base, at bat or on deck.

AVG: .220 (5)

OBP: .286 (4)

SLG: .302 (2)

OPS: .587 (1)

ERA: 2.16 (1)

WHIP: 1.12 (3-T)

RUNS: 51 (3)

9th Inning Or Later:

AVG: .220 (9-T)

OBP: .281 (4)

SLG: .317 (7)

OPS: .597 (4)

ERA: 2.07 ERA (3)

WHIP: 1.06 (2)

RUNS: 52 (9)

That's an insane drop-off. Team ERA in late/close situations is more than double last year's at the moment.

[webbrick2010]

Last year there were no expectations and baseball was easy/fun

This year some people (not me) expected them to continue to win and have another 90+ win season.

The bullpen was due to regress, it won' be as bad as it has been the last week but it will be considerably worse than last year.

Needed to drastically improve the starting rotation and chose not to... so back to last place.

[Tony-OH]

So people are upset during a six-game losing streak that included three blown saves by the closer, a sweep by a Divisional opponent, and a meltdown against the hated Yankees at home that allowed the Stankees fans to start their ridiculously obnoxious chants? Wow, who da thunk it?

I said all along this was a 85 win team so I'm not too surprised that the Orioles are going through a bit of a funk. It stinks, but as the old saying goes, a team is never as bad as they look during losing streak like this and never as good as they are during the winning streaks.

When Chen and Gonzalez return our rotation will be strengthened and our bullpen should settle down a bit (at least I hope). Saying that, I'm not sure why anyone thought they would repeat the year they had last year, especially with a rotation that was going to need a lot of help.

Fans are fans. Some are going to get upset and say things they don't mean and then you have the other extreme type of fan who could watch ten blown saves in a row and stand up and tell everyone things will be ok, the O's will win tomorrow.

This team is not going to implode and there is a lot of season left, but let's not convince ourselves that this is some juggernaut team that's just going through some bad luck, talent for talent the Orioles are not one of best teams in baseball like they were playing before this streak. But they also are not the Astros either.

Now if someone could get Jim Johnson to remember he has more than one pitch then maybe he would get a few guys out more often.

[NickM21]

The thing that worries me the most is I'm not sure this team has quite enough talent to overcome huge losing streaks and bad breaks. I just get the feeling that in late September we will be a few games out of the wild card race and not be able to catch up. I'm thinking like an 87 win team.

[Blizzard1090]

While we shouldn't turn into SOSH the frustration is understandable when it comes to losing six in a row,especially since three of the games we had the lead going into the ninth.

Last night's game was also frustrating in the fact we could have blown them out of the water..and failed to do so.

[TiredofLosing20]

So people are upset during a six-game losing streak that included three blown saves by the closer, a sweep by a Divisional opponent, and a meltdown against the hated Yankees at home that allowed the Stankees fans to start their ridiculously obnoxious chants? Wow, who da thunk it?

I said all along this was a 85 win team so I'm not too surprised that the Orioles are going through a bit of a funk. It stinks, but as the old saying goes, a team is never as bad as they look during losing streak like this and never as good as they are during the winning streaks.

When Chen and Gonzalez return our rotation will be strengthened and our bullpen should settle down a bit (at least I hope). Saying that, I'm not sure why anyone thought they would repeat the year they had last year, especially with a rotation that was going to need a lot of help.

Fans are fans. Some are going to get upset and say things they don't mean and then you have the other extreme type of fan who could watch ten blown saves in a row and stand up and tell everyone things will be ok, the O's will win tomorrow.

This team is not going to implode and there is a lot of season left, but let's not convince ourselves that this is some juggernaut team that's just going through some bad luck, talent for talent the Orioles are not one of best teams in baseball like they were playing before this streak. But they also are not the Astros either.

Now if someone could get Jim Johnson to remember he has more than one pitch then maybe he would get a few guys out more often.

You know if this team would have won 85 games last year (which I think is more representative of the talent they had), that would have been an increase of 16 wins over 2011. That is huge. And virtually everyone on the hangout would have been giddy about it. Winning 93 games just seems to have made logic and rational thought go out the window. I guess that is normal for fanatics...Given their lack of activity in the offseason it seems to me that the expectations on this site were way overblown.

I am not willing to say that they can't achieve what they did last year, I am just not going to be surprised if they don't. I thought they were a 82-85 win team this year with a ceiling of about 87 wins and a floor of about 78. I was hopeful that they would be more aggressive in the offseason and I think they had that intention. It didn't happen and if anything they got worse (Reynolds, Saunders).

[Tx Oriole]

His numbers are free-falling. You are reactionary. His numbers over the last 3 seasons were absoutely horrible. His numbers this season will be absolutely horrible. One hot month doesn't make him good. Last year he had one hot month as well. just this year it was at the begining of the year.

But you will never get him agree about Reyn