When do you consider benching Markakis?

[jjnono]

You don't think the offense has cost us any games? Easy to blame JJ and the bullpen when they give up a lead late. You can also look back to earlier in the game at lost opportunites to tack on runs so the bullpen has more room to play with. Example, O'Day didn't cost us the game today. The offense scoring one run helped us lose the game.

Did I say the offense hasn't cost us games? NO., I didn't. But didn't it save our ass against the As just a night ago? Sometimes you just get beat. Seriously, over the entirety of the season, the offense bailed out our earlier ineffectual starting pitching on numerous occasions. Bag on the hitters all you want, but we are on our way to have historic performances by Davis, Machado and Jones. What about the bullpen would you like to support as balance to our hitting "woes?"

[jjnono]

Did I say the offense hasn't cost us games? NO., I didn't. But didn't it save our ass against the As just a night ago? Sometimes you just get beat. Seriously, over the entirety of the season, the offense bailed out our earlier ineffectual starting pitching on numerous occasions. Bag on the hitters all you want, but we are on our way to have historic performances by Davis, Machado and Jones. What about the bullpen would you like to support as balance to our hitting "woes?"

And by the way, do you dispute my 7-8 games lost figure? Because I can cite them for you.

[Norfolk orioles]

I'm not suggesting its the truth, I am merely postulating a reason for physical decline. It could also be injury, conditioning, something like valley fever. I don't know, but he is a lot smaller and came into the league on a team with a lot of known users.

I definitely don't think he is phoning it in either. He has a lot of pride in winning, that's shown in the past.

It's sad when valley fever could actually be considered a reason for his drastic falloff.

But what's more important is showalter gets paid to make the tough moves. He needs to sack up and take markakis out of the lineup because what he is "giving us" is completely unacceptable.

Play Pearce for crying out loud.

Kind of wish we had LJ hoes back now, Norris looks like a 5 and we need a RF.

Ahh well.

[Norfolk orioles]

Hoes is batting .321, ops .855 and has 6 stolen bases for Houston thus far.

He's also a better defender than nick.

Oops.

[jjnono]

Hoes is batting .321, ops .855 and has 6 stolen bases for Houston thus far.

He's also a better defender than nick.

Oops.

Small sample size, but yes, hmmmm...

[claudecat]

FWIW, I recently had a conversation an usher at the park who told me that Nick routinely hits the flag court during BP. I'm no expert, but that tells me that he can at least drive the ball if he's given a meatball to hit. There's obviously something going on with him, but speculation is futile without inside knowledge.

[Malike]

Small sample size, but yes, hmmmm...

Yep, and Arrieta was 2-0 with a 0.69 ERA for the cubs until he got blasted last time out. 78AB for Hoes, I'm not buying it just yet.

[olehippi]

If Markakis doesn't quickly snap out of whatever funk he is in, I think we might start seeing some platooning in RF against LH pitching. But who? Pierce is the only RH hitting OF on the bench, and with Hoes gone, every OF'er at Norfolk hits lefty. Same at Bowie....all the regular OF'er s are lefties, except for Trayvon Martin who's a switch hitter, and a ancient relic, Lew Ford. All LH hitters in the OF......how whacked out is that?!!

[wildcard]

If Markakis doesn't quickly snap out of whatever funk he is in, I think we might start seeing some platooning in RF against LH pitching. But who? Pierce is the only RH hitting OF on the bench, and with Hoes gone, every OF'er at Norfolk hits lefty. Same at Bowie....all the regular OF'er s are lefties, except for Trayvon Martin who's a switch hitter, and a ancient relic, Lew Ford. All LH hitters in the OF......how whacked out is that?!!

You might want to change the to Trayvon Robinson.

[ExileAngelos]

If Markakis doesn't quickly snap out of whatever funk he is in, I think we might start seeing some platooning in RF against LH pitching. But who? Pierce is the only RH hitting OF on the bench, and with Hoes gone, every OF'er at Norfolk hits lefty. Same at Bowie....all the regular OF'er s are lefties, except for Trayvon Martin who's a switch hitter, and a ancient relic, Lew Ford. All LH hitters in the OF......how whacked out is that?!!

What good would a platoon do? He hits lefties just as good (or bad lol) as righties.

[wildcard]

Nick has to be injured. Just because we don't know what his injury is doesn't mean that Buck doesn't know. He hit for a nice average in July. But his doubles power just hasn't been there.

It's completely in Nick's character to play through an injury. And his past few years has shown him to come up with several injuries. I am not believing the PED speculation. There is no reason to think that.

After the season is over, it will probably become clear why Nick isn't performing like the Nick we know.

[tntoriole]

I don't think it is a "funk" or something he is going to "snap out of" with a few days off. I think that it is more likely that Nick has residual nerve damage from the herniated disc he was out with in the spring. This was once again downplayed at the time as anything major, however, I am telling you, that even minor herniations can create numbness, tingling, weakness just enough to make it so you cannot perform at the highest level. I believe Nick has a lesser version of the Nolan Reimold neuropathy. I would not be surprised to see offseason surgery announced at some point in the winter.

[TouchemAll]

You'll get no arguments from me I think it high time Nick sat down a couple of games.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk 2

[isestrex]

They were saying a few weeks ago that Nick was putting a lot of extra time in the cages with Presley and Crow. I think Hunter specifically said he'll snap out of it any moment now.

...well, it's been a few weeks and he hasn't. I think giving him a rest would be valuable.

[Spoonless]

I am simply making the point that Markakis is stinking up the joint while collecting 15 million.

If that's your intended point, you're obfuscating it with the inflammatory characterization of Markakis "laughing all the way to the bank". There are better ways to make your point without clouding the issue.