A year ago, the O's were 43-40 after 83 games

[Mackus]

- The team is on pace to allow 74 unearned runs, compared to 59 last year.

All that is disappointing, completely independent of the pitching struggles.

Unearned runs cannot possibly be considered independent of the pitching struggles. About half the blame for those runs still falls squarely on the pitchers shoulders, IMO. The defense hasn't been as good as we'd hoped, but "unearned" runs are a misnomer, IMO. The pitcher is to blame, or at least share in the blame, for most of those.

[Three Run Homer]

You expected to see it in the first half?

We can't keep using this as an excuse. Adam Eaton has been off this team for over two months now. Matt Wieters has been up for a month. Reimold has been up for almost two months. We've made all the changes that we were expecting to see in the first half of the season, and we're still playing badly.

[WebLink21]

Glad to see we're making progress:rolleyes:

Did McPhail take your job when he came in? Are you Mike Flanagan? So bitter towards McPhail! Whenever I go through a thread anymore and see that you posted...I know exactly what it is going to say. Why post it? We get it...McPhail does nothing good and the previous regime (your family members? perhaps :scratchchinhmm:) were great and made all the right moves. Back to reading non biased posts from other posters.

[Mackus]

Did McPhail take your job when he came in? Are you Mike Flanagan? So bitter towards McPhail! Whenever I go through a thread anymore and see that you posted...I know exactly what it is going to say. Why post it? We get it...McPhail does nothing good and the previous regime (your family members? perhaps :scratchchinhmm:) were great and made all the right moves. Back to reading non biased posts from other posters.

Agreed, he's joined Trea and OldFan, IMO, in terms of his redundancy and complete lack of vision. Take the blinders off!

[WebLink21]

Agreed, he's joined Trea and OldFan, IMO, in terms of his redundancy and complete lack of vision. Take the blinders off!

That is crazy. Those are the same names that I was thinking.

[TinCup]

Did McPhail take your job when he came in? Are you Mike Flanagan? So bitter towards McPhail! Whenever I go through a thread anymore and see that you posted...I know exactly what it is going to say. Why post it? We get it...McPhail does nothing good and the previous regime (your family members? perhaps :scratchchinhmm:) were great and made all the right moves. Back to reading non biased posts from other posters.

Well now, if I may, you've kind of done this: to this:

if you know what I mean.....

[ChaosLex]

I wish people would use this .gif more.

[Frobby]

Unearned runs cannot possibly be considered independent of the pitching struggles. About half the blame for those runs still falls squarely on the pitchers shoulders, IMO. The defense hasn't been as good as we'd hoped, but "unearned" runs are a misnomer, IMO. The pitcher is to blame, or at least share in the blame, for most of those.

The larger point is that the fielding has been worse than last year and worse than anticipated. I used unearned runs for purposes of my post, because it shows up as runs in a clear way, but I could have used numerous other defensive measures. I agree pitchers are partially respobsible for unearned runs, but when earned runs are slightly down and unearned runs are significantly up, you have to think the fielders are not doing a good job.

[El Gordo]

The larger point is that the fielding has been worse than last year and worse than anticipated. I used unearned runs for purposes of my post, because it shows up as runs in a clear way, but I could have used numerous other defensive measures. I agree pitchers are partially respobsible for unearned runs, but when earned runs are slightly down and unearned runs are significantly up, you have to think the fielders are not doing a good job.

Ironically I believe the fielding is down from the very postitions we expected improvement; the OF. The IF is improved at SS, 2B and and 1B are about the same as last year, and Melvin has been playing better D than last season. I think Wieters and Zaunn area big upgrade over Ramon, so who does that leave for the bad defense?

[El Gordo]

True, we went 25-53 after the first 83 games last year. Is it a fair comparison to compare the two considering our pitching ERA tends to go up in the latter months?

2008	W  	L  	ERA  April/March 	16	12	4.26May 	11	16	3.86June 	15	12	4.8July 	10	16	6.06August 	11	17	6.2Sept/Oct 	5	20	5.9

2007	W  	L  	ERA  April/March 	12	14	4.33May 	15	13	3.75June 	8	18	5.11July 	15	10	4.13August 	9	19	6.65Sept/Oct 	10	19	6.89

Yes IMO, because our SP the second half usually resembles the likes of Eaton, Hendrickson etc. This year I would expect it to be Guts, Bergy, Tillman, Patton and DH, with Arietta a strong possibility as well.

[WebLink21]

Well now, if I may, you've kind of done this: to this:

if you know what I mean.....

I really did. I think I went a little too "dead horse beating" happy there.

I was just frustrated when I read the comments again.

[Slappy]

Look, Duq/Flanagan did some okay things here. I think hiring Jordan will be their most lasting positive contribution, and it's true that Reimold, Bergesen, Hernandez, Guthrie, even Wieters came on board during their watch. But they also made some rather major mistakes like Mora's $25m deal with NTC, signing Jay Gibbons to a 4/21, and so on. There was no long-term thinking there. I'm willing to be more patient with AM because, if his plan does work, the team should be competitive for 5 years or more instead of scuffling every year to sneak into the wild card chase.

[bigbird]

Look, Duq/Flanagan did some okay things here. I think hiring Jordan will be their most lasting positive contribution, and it's true that Reimold, Bergesen, Hernandez, Guthrie, even Wieters came on board during their watch. But they also made some rather major mistakes like Mora's $25m deal with NTC, signing Jay Gibbons to a 4/21, and so on. There was no long-term thinking there. I'm willing to be more patient with AM because, if his plan does work, the team should be competitive for 5 years or more instead of scuffling every year to sneak into the wild card chase.

Mora wasn't Duq and Flanny's deal... They only wanted a 1 year deal with an option. Here's an old article about Mora meeting with PGA.

http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-14300462_ITM

[wickedwitch]

You expected a seven game regression (to date) from 2008? Why? Would it have been unreasonable to assume we could have at least held our ground?

We played over our heads for the first half of 2008.

[NewMarketSean]

Everyone just needs to admit that we're behind where we thought we'd be at the ASB.

Everyone thought the team would get better after Eaton and Hendrickson were gone. It hasn't.

Everyone thought the team would get better when Hill joined the rotation. It hasn't.

Everyone thought the team would get better when Reimold and Wieters were called up. It hasn't.

Admit it. We're behind schedule.

Now if the O's surge in the second half and finish strong, we're ahead -- or right on schedule. But they'll have to scramble.

The O's are like a kid who got a failing grade on his interim and needs to cram to get the grade up to a B by the time report cards roll around.