For years us Oriole fans have endured countless excuses on the poor performance of the team. While many of them have merit (we are members of the AL East), excuses become a losers easiest medicine. That is something Baltimore baseball fans have had to perpetually deal with, year after year.
Injuries are another scapegoat everyone blames (even us fans). That is because, frankly, injuries can often surprise you. This year with a laundry list of Orioles being hurt at one point or another (Roberts, Scott, Hardy, Lee, Matusz, Arrieta, Izturis, Uehara) its easy to say "THAT IS WHY WE ARE BAD!" But the reality is folks, every team has injuries. Furthermore, not that many of them are unpredictable... Roberts- it was a foregone conclusion that he would be out AT LEAST a couple months (evident by keeping Izturis around), Hardy- has had frequent injury woes, Lee- picked him up while he was injured, Uehara- injured a couple times each year, Matusz and Arrieta- At least one starter goes down every year per team, its not unpredictable that two would. Injuries are part of the game, they are no excuse.
There is one place where the Orioles fans might find a valid scapegoat. That is when it comes to Pitching Coach Rick Adair. Those who are calling for his firing are acting on our quickest of impulses. They see the formula- Orioles Pitching Decent - Mark Connor = Orioles Pitching TERRIBLE. The only problem is Adair may not be to blame. It is just a bad situation. Pitching coaches work so closely with the starting pitching in the majors. They know their exact flaws and strengths. They know them, in many cases, better then their mothers do. Rick Adair being thrust into that role and not finding immediate success is not a surprise (time is required). The pitching staff's inadequacies currently may not be due to Adair (in general), but more due to the learning curve. I hate to say it, but Connor kind of left us here in Birdland... alone.
The excuses in Baltimore have to end, but that doesn't mean sometimes you don't just have bad luck.
I agree I think that we are gonna need some more time to settle into Adair. But u also think that oriole fans have not only been making excuses but also been saying we need time cus of our young players but nothing has changed we haven't been above .500 in sooo long
ReplyDeleteMy argument is more that year after year, everyone around the orioles (including fans) are looking for excuses. You don't see that with winning franchises. They own up to their mistakes and do what is necessary to win the next year.
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