The Good and Bad from the Orioles-Red Sox series (April 17-20)

Hard to imagine that we are about a week from the end of the first month of the season.  It feels like you wait forever for a season to start and before you know it, it just flies by.  So I'm requesting that Major League Baseball slow the season down so we can enjoy it more.  Before I even begin let me just say i mention Adam Jones now because he just keeps mashing the ball.  Adam Jones is on another level when it comes to hitting, so he gets honorable mention before I even begin my post.

GOOD: Jimmy Paredes
Jimmy Paredes made his season debut on Saturday coming off the disabled list and he looked great.  In 3 games, Paredes went 7 for 13 and scored 4 runs.  Paredes can be a nice little utility player filling in when needed, and if keeps hitting like this he'll find his way in the lineup more and more.  Now of course you cant expect Paredes to continue hitting at this pace but, for someone coming off the DL it's nice to see him making an impact immediately.

BAD: Alejandro De Aza
As refreshing as Paredes performance was, De Aza's was a little disappointing.  I might of jinxed De Aza, a few posts back I praised De Aza's strong start to the 2015 season.  Well, De Aza might be the happiest Oriole to be leaving Fenway Park.  De Aza played in 3 of the 4 games in the series and he went 0 for 11.  Not exactly what you want or expect from your lead off hitter.  I'll chalk this up to a minor slump and hopefully De Aza rebounds in Toronto.

GOOD: Ryan Flaherty
I may be one of this guy's biggest critics.  I'll put it bluntly, I'm not a fan of Ryan Flaherty, I believe he's an average hitter and fielder, not special at either.  However, when the guy plays well you have to give credit where credit is due.  Flaherty stepped in for the injured Jonathan Schoop and had at least 2 hits in every game.  Flaherty went 6 for 11 had 1 home run and 2 RBIs.  My biggest problem with Flaherty is consistency, now with Schoop out for the foreseeable future it will be interesting to see how Flaherty plays as the Orioles every day second baseman.

BAD: Orioles defense
Year after year the Orioles routinely have one of the best defenses in baseball.  In fact the last time the Orioles didn't have multiple gold glove winners was in 2010.  This weekend in Boston wasn't their best defensively.  Although most of the damage was done in one game.  Wei-Yin Chen gave up 5 runs in their rain shortened loss on Monday, all 5 were unearned due to 3 errors.  This is much more of an anomaly than anything ill ever post, but the Orioles did end the series with 5 errors in 4 games.  That's never good to have more errors than games played.

Orioles are now 7-6 after 13 games, all against AL East opponents and they make their first trip north of the border to tangle with the Blue Jays for the second time this season.

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Brett Lawrie vs. Kansas City Royals

What a very interesting and unfortunate weekend it was at Kaufman stadium over the weekend.  A lot of early season excitement for the defending American League Champions as they started the season 7-0.  Then this past weekend they played the team they beat in last year's wild card game to start their improbable run to the World Series.  What should have been a weekend series promoting great baseball between two very good squads, it was marred in injured players, throwing at hitters and bench clearing incidents.

It all started Friday night at second base.  There was a ground ball to third baseman Mike Moustakas and he flipped it to second for the out.  Brett Lawrie came in hard and took out Royals SS Alcides Escobar.  After watching the replay, Lawrie went in hard, really hard and he had his spikes up, it wasnt a good slide.  Even though I feel that it was a bad slide, I'm a little hesitant to call it dirty.  Calling a play or player dirty to me is kind of a slippery slope.  No doubt about it Lawrie showed poor technique on his slide, but I'm not convinced that it was done on purpose or that he had any malicious intent to injure Escobar, if he did then it would constitute a dirty play to me.  Lawrie seemed apologetic after the slide, realizing that he had hurt Escobar.  Needless to say Kansas City was none to pleased with the slide and it set into motion a chain of events that hung over the entire weekend series.

It was to no one's surprise that the very next day Kansas City would retaliate.  Even Lawrie himself had to expect to be hit at some point, it's part of the game whether you like it or not.  So Oakland was ahead 5-0 in the fourth inning and Yordano Ventura felt this was as good a time as any to retaliate, oh and Ventura can hit triple digits on the radar gun.  The most interesting part of this situation to me was the reactions after Ventura hit Lawrie.  Ventura seemed anxious for a fight, after he hit Lawrie he walked right up to Lawrie almost begging him to make a move so he could start a brawl, I found that odd.  It seemed like Ventura felt like he had to teach Lawrie a lesson for what he did, it was extremely childish.  Lawrie however kept his composure stared straight ahead and calmly walked to first base.  So most people would logically think it's over right? wrong.

The next night another Royals pitcher who flirts with triple digits on the radar gun felt Lawrie hadn't paid
enough for his sins.  Kelvin Herrera decided to throw a 100 MPH fastball behind Bret Lawrie causing an immediate ejection.  As Herrera was walking off the field he pointed to his head, indicating that's where the next pitch to Lawrie would be.  This is taking it a little too far.  Throwing a baseball that fast is dangerous if it's in the strike zone but trying to hit someone in the head, it's completely inexcusable.  Herrera should be suspended for those actions.  Royals players wanted to respond to their teammate getting injured and I understand that, but to me they lost focus and decided to head hunt Brett Lawrie.  There is no room in baseball for those type of actions.  Lawrie was just playing the game, and we could argue if the slide was dirty or not but it was still done in the flow of the game.  Kansas City pitchers made it a point to throw at Lawrie not once but twice with two of the hardest throwers in Major League Baseball.  The Royals in my opinion should be ashamed of how they acted this weekend and I'd be shocked if some suspensions weren't handed out because of this display.

These two teams don't meet again until June, however I seriously doubt either will forget this weekend.  It will make their next series one of the most anticipated matches but for all the wrong reasons.  Oh and if anyone cares Kansas City took 2 out of 3 in this series.

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The Good and Bad from the Orioles-Yankees Series (April 13-15)

I think we can officially say we are in the baseball season.  Three series under most teams belts, before you know the end of April will be here and we will start separating the contenders and pretenders.  The Orioles have had an OK start to the 2015 season, like I've said many times before, not getting too excited not getting too worried about anything happening on the field.  That being said let me overly dissect this past series where the Orioles took 2 out of 3 against the hated Yankees.

GOOD: Miguel Gonzalez

Wow, what else can you say about Miguel's performance on Tuesday night.  Miguel pitched 7 strong innings giving up just 1 run on 4 hits and struck out a career high 10.  Gonzalez always seems to perform well against the Bronx bombers and Tuesday was no different.  Gonzalez after just two starts has an ERA of 1.42.  It was also nice to see him get through seven innings, that needs to happen more form the Orioles pitching staff.

BAD: Tommy Hunter

Mr. Hunter did not have a very good series against the Yankees.  Hunter only pitched 2 innings in the series but in those 2 innings he gave up 5 hits and 6 earned runs.  In game 1 of the series he gave up a grand slam that proved to be the difference.  In game 3 he turned a Orioles 4 run lead into a 2 run lead, even the outs he was recording in game 3 were hit hard.  Again too early to panic but if Tommy Hunter wants to stay in the late inning role he's been a custom to, 6 earned runs in 2 innings wont cut it.

GOOD: Caleb Joseph

Let's give some love to the catcher for the Baltimore Orioles.  One of the main topic of discussions for Orioles fans is when is Matt Wieters coming back.  Well if Joseph keeps playing like he did against the Yankees, fans wont be so quick to rush Wieters back.  Caleb Joseph registered 7 hits in 11 at bats scored a run and drove in 2 in the 3 game set.  Now Joseph isn't as good at throwing guys out like Wieters is but, cant complain with how Joseph is holding his own while the all star backstop gets healthy.

BAD: Inconsistent Chris Davis

Oh Chris Davis what are we going to do with you.  Chris Davis for me might be turning into one of the most frustrating players on the ball club.  The first 2 games of the series Davis went 0 for 7 with 6 strike outs, and some of those strike outs he looked really, really bad.  Then Wednesday comes around and he drives in 3 runs including a huge 2 run double that gave the Orioles the cushion they needed for the win.  Even with the 2 hits and 3 RBIs last night, he still struck out 3 times.  I'm not asking for 2-3 hits every night from Davis but it would be nice to see him be a little more productive, you can still make an out and have it help your ball club, not much help can come from striking out 9 times in three games.

GOOD: Adam Jones staying hot

I mentioned Adam Jones in my last post about how he played in the Blue Jays series.  Well he continued hitting the ball extremely well hitting home runs in games 1 and 2 and having at least 1 hit in every game of the series.  It's tough to argue that anyone in baseball right now is seeing the ball better than Adam Jones.  Oh yea, and he's playing gold glove caliber defense as well, Tommy Hunter should thank him for Wednesday night.

Up next for the birds is a 4 game series in Boston against the Red Sox.

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The Good and Bad from the Orioles-Blue Jays series (April 10-12)

The Orioles start the season with 19 consecutive games against AL East opponents.  It's hard to say that the first 19 games are one of the most important stretches in the season, but it would also be nice as defending division champs to make a strong statement to start the 2015 campaign.  This past weekend the Toronto Blue Jays came to Oriole Park and showed that maybe just maybe, they might be able to make some noise in the east.

GOOD: Ubaldo Jimenez
After last season I never though i would say this, Ubaldo Jimenez looked great.  Ubaldo has been the target of a lot of criticism since he signed a 4 year $50 million deal, and then posted a 4.81 ERA his first season in Baltimore.  We kept hearing the Jimenez had a very good spring, sometimes you have to take that with a grain of salt because of some of the lineups you face in March.  Well, at least for start number 1, Ubaldo was great.  He pitched 7 innings only giving up 1 hit, 8 strikeouts and more importantly only 1 walk.  I don't expect Ubaldo to pitch like this every start, but if he can be more consistent it will be a huge boost for the pitching staff.

BAD: The Rest of the pitching staff
When you take away Ubaldo's performance and a couple relief appearances here and there, it wasn't a good weekend for Orioles pitchers.  Take away the 7 scoreless Ubaldo threw Saturday night, Orioles pitchers gave up 23 runs in 20 innings, that's not good.  Bud Norris might have had the most disappointing performance of all.  Norris only lasted 3 innings giving up 8 runs on seven hits on his Friday start.  Chris Tillman who looked so good opening day, couldn't get through 3 innings on Sunday.  Now it wasn't all bad, there was one point on Sunday where 12 straight Blue Jays were retired, but all in all a bad weekend for Orioles pitchers.

GOOD: Adam Jones
The only way to describe Adam Jones this weekend is impressive.  Jones was the Orioles main offensive weapon, he went 7 for 10 scored 5 runs, hit 2 home runs and drove in 5.  Adam has been a model of consistency during his entire time here in Baltimore, which is why I scratch my head when fans give him so much grief.  He's a multiple time all star and gold glove winner, and barring any kind of injury you can pencil him right now to bat .280, hit 25-35 home runs and drive in 85-100.  As much as we talk about other players, this Orioles team runs through Adam Jones, 2015 should not be any different.

BAD: Manny Machado
Manny is one of my favorite Orioles, but doesn't mean he is exempt from any criticism.  The start of the 2015 season has been a tough one for Machado.  He did go 1 for 4 in Sunday's loss and he even had a stolen base.  Unfortunately, that one hit on Sunday was so far his only of the season.  Manny has started the season 1 for 19, not very good.  There is one positive from Machado however, his defense seems as strong as ever.  Machado is a great young talent and while the 1 for 19 start is concerning, I'm willing to chalk this up as just an early season slump.

The Orioles tour around the AL east continues tonight when the last place New York Yankees (yes I know it's only 6 games, it just feels nice to say) travel to Baltimore to start a 3 game series.  Be sure to check out my good and bad from this series as well.

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The Good and Bad from the Orioles-Rays series (April 6-8)

Well it's finally here baseball is back, thankfully.  After a rather unique off season in Baltimore with players leaving and the General Manager wanting to get a job with another team in the division.  We can finally put that all aside and focus on whats important, the on the field play.  There were plenty of good and some bad things from the opening series in Tampa.  The great thing about baseball is there is plenty of time to fix whats ailing you, it's also way too early to panic about anything.

GOOD: Orioles win series
It might be the most simple, but it's the one thing you need the most.  Sweeps are nice and can really spring you into a long winning streak.  However, if you continue to take 2 out of 3 or 3 out of 4, getting 90 wins for the season gets a whole lot easier.  Also, when it comes to playing teams like Tampa, winning series are a must.  The Rays are not expected to do a lot in the AL east this season so just about every time you play them, if you're the Orioles you should win the series.

BAD: Chris Davis goes hit less, strikes out 3 times
Again I cant say this enough, it is extremely early in the season but in the 2 games Davis played he was really quiet.  Davis has a lot of pressure on him to perform this season, after the down year in 2014 and the suspension Davis has a lot to prove.  He's got permission to take Adderall this season so it will be interesting to see what his numbers will be in 2015.  Hopefully for Orioles fans his first two games aren't going to be the norm this year.

GOOD: Steve Pearce
Steve Pearce came to play to start 2015.  He hit home runs in the first 2 games, last two Orioles to do that to start a season both led the league in home runs by the end of the season (Davis in 2013, Cruz in 2014).  I don't think Steve Pearce will lead the league in home runs, but I do think he'll have a really good year if he plays consistently.



BAD: Orioles Starters not going deeper
Before I start my analysis, I'll be the first to admit that I'm kind of nitpicking here.  However, Chris Tillman was the only starter to pitch more than 6 innings in the opening series.  Wei-Yin Chen only lasted 4 and a third, and even though Miguel Gonzalez only allowed 1 run, he couldn't get through the 6th.  The Orioles bullpen might be the strongest aspect of the club but, you cant use 3-5 pitchers from the bullpen every game and expect them to perform well all season.  I'm willing to give a slight pass because it's early in the season but it needs to get better.

GOOD: Travis Snider's first impression
As good as Steve Pearce was in the opening series, Travis Snider was better.  Just look at opening day alone.  Travis Snider drove in the first run of the season, made a diving catch in the outfield and threw out someone at the plate.  He followed that up with another RBI in game 2 and he was on base 4 times.  Travis Snider will very quickly endear himself to Orioles fans if he continues to play this hard.  I'm not saying he'll make us forget Nick Markakis, just make the break up hurt a little less.

The most important thing to realize is that baseball is not a sprint it's a marathon.  After three games for the Orioles there is nothing that is getting me overly excited, but there is also nothing that has me overly worried either.  The birds took 2 out of 3 and now head home for the first time this season to face the Blue Jays on Friday.  Did I mention I love baseball???

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