Kurt Birkins gets the loss, his first.
Sam Perlozzo needs to get his head examined. And then he needs to be fired. The pitching was outstanding for the Orioles last night. Adam Loewen pitched 5 innings of shut out ball with 4 strikeouts. He yielded 5 hits and 4 walks, but he also hit Gary Sheffield with a pitch in retaliation to Miguel Tejada getting hit earlier in the game. You know that will earn him respect from his teammates. The next 6 innings were pitched by 6 different relief pitchers, who each had low pitch counts after their inning was up. How in the world do you not let somebody who is pitching well continue when the game is tied at 0 and our offense looks like they would have trouble scoring against High School pitching? John Parrish struck out the side in his inning, Chad Bradford needed only 9 pitches to retire the side in order, Danys Baez gave up a hit and a walk but struck out a batter in his scoreless inning, Chris Ray struck out 2 batters in his 1-2-3 inning, same thing for Jamie Walker in his inning, and Scott Williamson had a strike out and pitched out of a jam in his inning. They guy who lost the game (besides Sam Perlozzo, of course)? Kurt Birkins. The guy who was brought up instead of a lefty masher for the bench, which would have been very necessary in this game, and hasn’t pitched since March 31st back in Spring Training. Birkins gave up 4 hits, walked one, and struck out one, but the big hit was a grand slam by Craig Monroe with 2 outs. That makes two games now that the Orioles have lost because of grand slams. And all I can think is…. fire Sam Perlozzo.
Like I said, the hitting looked like it couldn’t hit High School pitching. Of course, for the first 7 innings that had to do with Justin Verlander, the reigning rookie of the year who was on the top of his game. We couldn’t hit Fernando Rodney either, or Wil Ledezma (shocker – a lefty), or anyone for that matter. Corey Patterson had 2 hits, a single and a double, and Melvin Mora had a double (after we were down 4-0). Miguel Tejada, Aubrey Huff, and Kevin Millar each had singles. Our only run came on a balk in the bottom of the 12th inning. This is how bad our hitting is right now: we don’t have a single batter with a batting average over .250. And its not like we can use our bench, Freddie Bynum came in to pinch run for Huff in the 11th, and he didn’t run! He did what Huff could have done, stand there. Jay Gibbons was allowed to bat against a left handed pitcher in extra innings, that shouldn’t happen. Meanwhile, Jon Knott hit his second homerun in AAA and JR House had 2 more hits to bring his average up to .430. Again, all I can think is…. fire Sam Perlozzo.
Player of the day: The Orioles pitching (besides Birkins) – 11 IP, 0 ER, 7 H, 5 BB, 13 K
Tonight, the Kansas City Royals come to town. Luckily they have a right handed pitcher going for them in Gil Meche (1-1, 4.40) tonight. While unluckily, the Orioles have Steve Trachsel (0-0, 4.05) going for them. The bullpen needs to get ready again. Go O’s….. fire Sam Perlozzo.
