How Many Aubrey Huffs Does It Take To Add Up To A Carlos Pena?

By Christopher Heun

Answer: 2.467

This is a case of who’s on first vs. who could have been on first.

The Orioles have been searching for a power-hitting first baseman ever since Rafael Palmeiro left Baltimore the first time, after the 1998 season, possibly to find some clean needles. The search will continue after the season. (For a slugger, I mean, although Raffy may still be juicing and working on that comeback. Who knows?)

Here’s a guy the Birds almost signed last winter but didn’t:

Carlos Pena (2007): 418 AB, 37 HR, .615 SLG

And here’s three guys the Birds chose to use at first base and DH instead:

Aubrey Huff (2007): 479 AB, 15 HR, .438 SLG
Kevin Millar (2007): 393 AB, 14 HR, .430 SLG
Jay Gibbons (2007): 270 AB, 6 HR, .348 SLG

And here’s three other guys the Birds could have had this season:

Adam LaRoche (2007): 489 AB, 21 HR, .462 SLG
Jack Cust (2007): 329 AB, 23 HR, .523 SLG
Josh Phelps (2007): 139 AB, 7 HR, .525 SLG

What makes this sting even more is that Millar is just 13 plate appearances away from vesting his 2008 option, meaning that all three of the ill-fated triumvirate of Huff-Millar-Gibbons are signed for next year.

But back to the present. Carlos Pena hit two home runs, including a grand slam, against Orioles pitchers Wednesday night, to give him 37 HR and 105 RBI for the season, his first in Tampa Bay. In his last nine games, six of which were against the Birds, Pena has hit seven home runs.

Lest you accuse me of cherry-picking stats in his favor, consider that it weren’t for those very same games with Tampa Bay, Aubrey Huff’s numbers would look even worse than they do already. Seven of Huff’s 15 homers have come against his former team; he is batting .390 against them, compared to .258 against the rest of major league pitching.

In other words, in 112 games not against Tampa Bay this season, Huff is batting .258 with 8 homers. For this he is receiving nearly $20 million over three years.

Leo Mazzone, We Pity You

Who could blame him for retiring, rather than endure another year?

By Christopher Heun

None of this is his fault.

And by "this" I mean the 22 hits (including five home runs), five walks and 17 runs Orioles pitchers gave up to the Devil Rays Wednesday night, for a grand total of 34 runs allowed for the three-game series. Plus the 30 runs in a single game not long ago. And the 11 runs in a single inning to the D-Rays in the previous series.

(I know nearly everyone reading this is probably well acquainted with these stats already, and repeating them here is just piling it on, but everyone else is doing it to Orioles pitching, so why can't I?)

Remember all the hope and optimism when Mazzone was hired before last season? For what he's been given to work with, I wouldn't blame him if he quit tomorrow and opened a lemonade stand.

Of course, after his run in Atlanta, he was supposed to be a genius pitching coach. If he can't fix Danys Baez or turn Paul Shuey and Brian Burres into dependable relievers, should we complain? I think so.

I don't want to see any of the following pitchers on the Orioles Opening Day roster next spring, unless there's a rash of injuries to the staff:

Radhames Liz
Garrett Olson
Rob Bell
Brian Burres
Paul Shuey

Liz and Olson are not ready for the big leagues. Shuey was released Wednesday, so that solves that. Burres gave a nice boost earlier in the season but has run out of steam.

And what should they do with James Hoey? He was the the top pitcher in the Orioles farm system last year but has allowed 27 baserunners in 12.1 innings this year.

Points of Pride Still Remain in O's Reach

Losing streak eliminates chances to reach .500; other, smaller goals remain possible for struggling Birds

By Matthew Taylor

The Orioles didn’t lose last night, which would come as even better news had they actually played a game.

The Birds’ painful losing streak started with the embarrassing 30-3 defeat against the Rangers. However, for this O’s fan, the reality of losing a late-game, four-run lead over Johan Santana and with it a win that would have provided a validating end to the late-August misery, somehow hurt worse. Dan Connolly and Roch Kubato track the Orioles’ somewhat traditional “Start of fall.”

Thankfully, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays come to town this evening for a three-game set. The O’s are 10-2 against the D-Rays this season with six games between the teams left on the schedule.

The Devil Rays are like baseball aspirin, a cure for the hangover of an extended losing streak like the Birds’ current six-game slide. They’re the one thing that stands between the O’s and annual last-place finishes. In fact, the Devil Rays are the only team in Major League Baseball that currently stands closer to elimination than the Birds.

CBS Sportsline offers each team’s “Elimination Number.” The Devil Rays’ number stands at three, while the O’s are at 12. Some of our neighbors at or near the basement level include: Texas (14), Florida (15), Washington (16), Chicago (16), San Francisco (17), and Kansas City (18).

Dave Trembley is big on pride. Perhaps hanging around longer than these others teams could serve as a point of pride for the O’s in their remaining games. A much more important point of pride should be winning the season series against the Yankees, as should consecutive series wins against Boston.

The Orioles are 8-4 against the Yankees this season with six games remaining against the original Evil Empire (Sept. 17, 18, & 19 on the road; Sept. 28, 29 & 30 at home). This means that the Birds must finish 2-4 in those games to win the season series against the Yankees, which, according to MASN, hasn’t happened in the previous nine seasons. In other words, at least one long run of losing can come to an end this season.

Speaking of the Yankees, the New York Times addresses Mike Mussina’s recent pitching woes, including last night’s drubbing at the hands of the Detroit Tigers, and questions his future with the team.

Mussina is the most analytical of pitchers, but he seems mystified by this slump. He talked about the small slice of the game that pitchers actually control. But even that much has gone awry, shaking his confidence deeply.

“Right now, I let go of it and I don’t feel like anything good is going to happen,” Mussina said. “It’s tough to pitch that way. You can’t play the game that way to feel like you have no control over anything, and that’s how I feel right now.

“Even the 60 feet, 6 inches, it doesn’t feel like I have a grasp of, and two weeks ago I felt like I could do anything I wanted. That’s how this game is. It’ll slap you in the face when you think you’ve got it. I felt good about it and now I don’t feel good at all.”

The Yankees owe Mussina more than $11 million for next season, but he seems to be nearing the end. It is a scary and sudden reality, and it has knocked him as low as he has ever been.

The same article mentions that the Yankees called up former Birds pitcher Chris Britton after last night’s game.

I’ve long been a fan of Mussina, so much so that I’ve struggled to hate him for committing the ultimate Baltimore baseball sin of donning a Yankee uniform, a fact that I addressed in the July 2006 posting, “Moose Was a Great Bird.”

There’s a part of me that wants us to take Mussina off the Yankees’ hands and hope that he can re-coup some of that old magic in a Birds uniform. After all, the O’s aren’t above nostalgia. We brought back Eddie Murray to hit home run No. 500. We brought back Maryland-native Harold Baines. Why not bring back Mussina?