Brian Roberts, Jim Johnson and Grant Balfour watch.

[scOtt]

Jim is a rock on one of my fantasy teams. GO JJ!!!

[Billy Button]

Mods, can we please move to the thread:

http://forum.orioleshangout.com/forums/showthread.php/139579-Brian-Robert-Jim-Johnson-and-Grant-Balfour-watch

Thread is just fine where it is.

[Frobby]

Sorry to hear JJ is off to a rough start in Oakland. If he was still on the O's we'd have a thread 100 pages long about this. As it is, I'm not going to comment every single time JJ has a bad outing, or a good one. Especially not on the Orioles board, because he's not an Oriole. I wish him well.

[scOtt]

Jim will be a ROCK in that stadium! Closing machine.

[Bahama O's Fan]

Down negative 21 points for my fantasy team. Jim, I had faith in you, in Oakland, in that big stadium; don't let me down.

[weams]

Down negative 21 points for my fantasy team. Jim' date=' I had faith in you, in Oakland, in that big stadium; don't let me down.[/quote']

But Johnson, owner of 101 saves in his previous two seasons in Baltimore, quickly loaded the bases and proceeded to allow three runs.

That's five total in a combined one inning of work for the $10 million right-hander, acquired in the offseason from the Orioles for Jemile Weeks to replace the departed Grant Balfour.

"Tonight I missed a couple locations," Johnson said. "I don't know. I mean, trust me, I left everything I had out there, and sometimes you don't have answers. The only thing I can do is just keep trying to improve every time I go out and correct this as quickly as possible.

"I'll try to sleep it off tonight. I'm not going to be doing anyone any favors if I hang my head. These guys are playing their butts off. I gotta be me, I gotta trust in what I'm doing. It's going to get better, I gotta prove that to the guys, and be one of the 25 guys that is going to help us win."

Manager Bob Melvin plans to give Johnson every opportunity to do so.

If he's not pitching in the ninth inning come Thursday, it's only because he threw 29 pitches in Wednesday's meltdown. But the job remains his.

"It's been two games," said Melvin. "We traded for him for a reason. He does have a terrific track record and is obviously off to a slow start."

"He's had a couple hiccups, and I think, especially coming to a new ball club, he wanted to make a great first impression," said Norris. "I think [Grant] Balfour was a fan favorite. They got to do the Balfour rage, but he's putting a lot of pressure on his shoulders.

http://oakland.athletics.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/index.jsp?c_id=oak&gid=2014_04_02_clemlb_oakmlb_2&lang=en&mode=wrap#gid=2014_04_02_clemlb_oakmlb_2&mode=recap&c_id=oak

[TonySoprano]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Jim Johnson has a blown save and two losses for the A's this season. 45.00 ERA.</p>— Brittany Ghiroli (@Britt_Ghiroli) <a href="

">April 3, 2014</a></blockquote>

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[wildcard]

Jim better than that. We have seem him go through this before. He will come out of it and pitch well again.

Jim a good guy. Sorry to see him go through this.

[weams]

Jim better than that. We have seem him go through this before. He will come out of it and pitch well again.

Jim a good guy. Sorry to see him go through this.

Not a way to start out a highly paid one year job.

[mark_beckens]

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Jim Johnson has a blown save and two losses for the A's this season. 45.00 ERA.

? Brittany Ghiroli (@Britt_Ghiroli)

April 3, 2014

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Thinking of what this place would be like if he had done that for us. This place would be nuclear.:angryfire:

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[Tx Oriole]

Sorry to hear JJ is off to a rough start in Oakland. If he was still on the O's we'd have a thread 100 pages long about this. As it is, I'm not going to comment every single time JJ has a bad outing, or a good one. Especially not on the Orioles board, because he's not an Oriole. I wish him well.

I like JJ too. I think this should be moved since this player is not an Oriole. IMO

[clapdiddy]

I like JJ too. I think this should be moved since this player is not an Oriole. IMO

Agree with these sentiments. It's a long season and Jim Johnson will be just fine.

[Number5]

Boo'd off the mound for the second time in as many outings. The guy has totally, totally lost any confidence he once had.

Totally? After 2 bad outings? I doubt that.

[PeteU]

I don't think there's any reason to Schadenfreude this one up.

He was traded by our front office to a non-divisional opponent.

It's not as if he was a free agent who spurned our own offer to go to, say, the Yankees because he thought it meant a quick ring. Unlike a certain starting pitcher's decision twelve and a half years ago.

And yes, I still relish the Schadenfreude on that one, especially given that the Yanks won the Series the year before Mussina joined them and the year after he retired but never in between.

[Whammer]

Agree with these sentiments. It's a long season and Jim Johnson will be just fine.

I don't know. I think perhaps the book is out on JJ. He obviously has issues consistenly throwing the sinker for strikes. Batters wait until he's behind in the count and jump on the fastball.

I'm sure he'll bounce back and have some success this year (can't get much worse) but he's definitely not an elite closer worthy of the $10M he's making.