Truth sets in sooner than anticipated

Mike Burke

A strange karma has seemed to settle upon the Baltimore Orioles, and based on my extensive study of the practices and teachings of Swami Sivananda’s integral (or synthesized) version of the classical yoga paths, combining the paths of raja, hatha, bhakti, jnana and karma yoga, I believe the Swami might be inclined to call this particular karma reality.

With Thursday’s 3-2 loss to the Los Angeles Angels, the Orioles have now dropped 11 of their last 14 games to enter this weekend’s three-game series in Toronto (never a happy place for Orioles karma) at 9-12.

In watching manager Dave Trembley rightfully blow a gasket on Monday night, it was clear home plate umpire Angel Hernandez’s horrendous balk call on Jamie Walker was the face of the O’s skipper’s display of pent-up human emotions that bench coach Mr. Spock would be incapable of understanding. But it didn’t take a deep look at Trembley to also understand the frustration of this season beginning to slip away has begun to scratch the surface as well.

The starting pitching we knew about, and so far it hasn’t surprised — it’s just not very good. As we’ve seen in Jeremy Guthrie’s last two starts, he’s simply not a No. 1 starter. Koji Uehara has been just about what we expected too, which is to say not too bad so far. After that, though, the news gets very bad in a hurry, with no help from the bullpen, thought to be a strength, not being much better.

But let’s not single out the pitching, which is kind of a stupid thing to say since starting pitching affects how everything else works. But for the third straight year, the Orioles’ baserunning has been consistently horrible, which is inexcusable and must be put on Trembley and his coaching staff.

On Wednesday, the Orioles had a bases-loaded, no-out opportunity go up in flames, turning a triple, two singles and two walks into just one run after two innings. The biggest blunder was Chad Moeller, after leading off the second with a triple, being caught off third on a one-out comebacker.

Which brings us to the offense in general, which hasn’t been very opportunistic at all. The Orioles twice in this homestand had the chance to put the Angels away early, but couldn’t do it, because the poor baserunning and poor situational hitting took Angels starters off the hook.

Having Melvin Mora back and healthy will help, of course, but with catcher Greg Zaun struggling and hitting into line-drive bad luck (bringing to mind his uncle, former catcher Rick Dempsey), that itch Orioles fans are feeling is to call can’t-miss prospect Matt Wieters up to the big-league club pronto, but that’s not likely to happen anytime before the middle of May at the earliest.

Come on, they’re trying to get this kid’s feet wet at Triple A so now, less than a month into the season, you want them to throw him into the middle of this mess and say, “I just want to tell you ... good luck. We’re all counting on you.”

Understandable urge, but uh-uh. Not yet.

Patience is also growing thin amongst the fandom with Felix Pie, the one-time can’t-miss outfield prospect the O’s have coveted since president Andy MacPhail came to Baltimore.

The splitting patience began to show amongst the small gathering at Camden Yards even more on Wednesday when Pie was allowed to hit in the seventh with a man on second and one out. Pie went down swinging, and once again looked overmatched doing so.

Trembley then pinch-hit outfielder Lou Montanez for shortstop Cesar Izturis, which was curious, but yet another example of how the club is going to give Pie as many chances as possible. For years the Cubs were just as seduced by Pie’s potential, but had to pull the plug on him at the big-league level because they were in contention and couldn’t afford the hole in the lineup.

Contention won’t be a problem in Baltimore for awhile, and fans, though rightfully tired of it, have to realize this. Pie’s out of options, and the Orioles don’t want to give up on his universally-recognized skill set just yet. They are, however, more than eager to see it put to use.

See what’s going on with Pie after 40 games, and remember: Nick Markakis, while he held his own defensively, struggled mightily at the plate for the better part of a third of his rookie year. Yet manager Sam Perlozzo kept sending him out there and, safe to say, things have worked out pretty well.

In fairness to the frustrated fans, Markakis never looked overmatched at the plate; Pie does, so we shall see. The Orioles, though, are likely to exercise more patience, because the cold reality of things has already set in: There’s nothing to rush for this season other than for Trembley and his coaching staff to get this team playing fundamentally-sound baseball, which certainly is not happening right now.

Mike Burke is sports editor of the Cumberland Times-News. Contact Mike Burke at mburke@times-news.com.