Tag Archives: Baltimore Orioles

The Lodestar of Losers

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“Hey, I know the rules. Someone has to have the worst record in baseball. I just wish it wasn’t the O’s.” ~ A thoughtful Orioles fan in this morning’s Baltimore Sun. (Oh wait … hey, it’s me!)

I am in a bad mood this morning.

Fun Fact 1: The Baltimore Orioles lost their 100th game last night and the Kansas City Royals will likely lose 100 before the season is through. The Boston Red Sox would have to stink mightily to not win 100+.

Fun Fact 2: In 2017, three teams – the Dodgers, Indians, and Astros – each won more than 100 games. No one lost 100.

Fun Fact 3: In 2016, one team – the Cubs – won 100+. And, one – the Twins – lost 100+.

Fun Fact 4: In 2015, one team – the Cardinals – won 100. No one lost 100.

Fun Fact 5: In 2014, the Orioles, with 96 wins, won the AL East. No team won or lost 100 games.

Fun Fact Analysis 1: Losing 100 is rarer – and, ergo, much more interesting – than winning 100.

Fun Fact Analysis 2: The Baltimore Orioles winning the AL East in 2014 is the best part of this analysis.

(Am I helping?)

There are other teams that have had worse seasons than the 2018 Orioles. I don’t care. The Orioles are the worst of now.

When you go from trying to win games, to trying to win “to salvage the season,” to “we’re rebuilding, so we’re not really trying to win at all,” it requires a new mindset.

I still don’t know what that mindset should be.

Why are you still smiling?

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We Broke The All-Star Break

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The Baltimore Orioles entered the All-Star break — baseball’s halfway point — on Sunday with two things:

1) A 28-69 record which is almost, but not quite, the worst record in baseball. (Ummm, thanks, 27-68 Royals?), and

2) Shortstop Manny Machado, a starting All-Star and one of the best players in the game.

The Orioles leave the All-Star break with just one thing. Almost, but not quite, the worst record in baseball.

Some things that might be helpful for you to know, should your team ever end up being as awfuliciously bad as the Orioles are this season.

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Baseball’s Perfect Imperfection

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I’m embarrassingly non-controversial.

Well, when it comes to baseball anyway. There are no dust-ups here, my opinions are welcoming of all other baseball opinions. I don’t like to argue.

Sure, I have controversial opinions about other stuff.  And, I’m sure you’ll agree I’m right about all of them.

Hash Browns vs. Home Fries.

By Marshall Astor, via Creative Commons 2.0

Home Fries.

Sylvester vs. Tweety.

Sylvester. Please, Tweety sucks.

Serial Comma vs. the Dangerous Anarchy of Punctuation Without The Sanity of the Serial Comma.

Serial Comma, Serial Comma, and Serial Comma.

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“How The Other Club Won A Victory From The Orioles.”

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Baltimore Sun, June 28, 1892

“The Oft-Told Tale.”

Dear Baltimore Orioles,

Me, again.

You’ve lost three straight to the Toronto Blue Jays.

The Blue Jays … whose motto this season is “We stink, too, but nowhere near as bad as the O’s.”

I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you how awful you are. Do you?

(Not you, Adam Jones. You’re still trying. You can stop reading now. This is for everybody else …)

This may seem like uncharted territory to some of you, but really it’s not.

Look at the 1892 Orioles.

They stunk, too.

Baltimore Sun, June 29, 1892

Baltimore Sun, July 14, 1892

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“The Word Is Lachrymose.”

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At 17-40, the Baltimore Orioles have the worst record in baseball. They have won just two of their last 10 games. I don’t even remember the wins. All I remember are the losses … every single day a loss … an endless parade of gloomy, lifeless, uncaring losses, like the endless days of rain that have dumped some 20 inches in our pitiful mushy yard since this pitiful baseball season began.

This mud pond used to be the road to our house. Better bring your swim fins!

Hey, I know the rules. Someone has to have the worst record in baseball. I just wish it wasn’t the O’s.

Public Domain, 1901

Grantland Rice In His Ball Playing Days. Vanderbilt Captain and Shortstop. 1901

Dear Grantland Rice, Legendary sportswriter, poet, and understander of loss, futility, and baseball’s broken dreams, what say you?

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The Orioles Win And A Passel Of Opossums Are Born

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Nine.

The Baltimore Orioles have won nine games this season, including their game last night.

Finally!

This gives them, still, the worst record in baseball. They are 17 games back of the Yankees in the AL East. (The Yankees have lost 10 games this season; the Orioles have won nine.)

Thanks to a walk, an Orioles error, and a double steal, the Royals had the tying run in scoring position in the 9th last night.

But, don’t rain on my parade today, Mr. Pickles, because a win is a win. They got the last out.

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The Orioles, Mayflies, And Milk

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Congratulations, Baltimore Orioles! You lost another game last night. But, if you’re going to lose, at least you did it in historic fashion.

Orioles starting pitcher Dylan Bundy couldn’t record a single out in the first and so was pulled, but not before giving up four home runs to the Kansas City Royals. Apparently, no starting pitcher has given up four home runs before recording an out.

Embed from Getty Images

 

If you’re going to be bad, be historically bad.

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The Orioles, Opossums, And Poetry

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The Baltimores are in last place.

But, there’s a bright side too, today.

Last night it didn’t get far worse,

Because they didn’t play.

Despite my nagging and feeble poetry, the Orioles season has not turned around.

I wrote to them on Sunday which did no good, because they lost on Sunday, too.

Thank you Cincinnati Reds for losing last night — you have, at least for the moment, nudged just under the O’s to have the worst record in baseball.

Off days are becoming a solace. At least I won’t be disappointed.

You know that old saying, “You can’t lose if you don’t play.”

Well, it goes something like that.

One hundred years ago today, May 8, 1918, the Boston Braves were having a bad start, too. They began the season 5-13, a .278 win percentage.

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The 1896 Orioles Opossum

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 “The charm of the work of the Baltimores is that every man is alive and thoroughly in earnest, playing ball for all he is worth all the time. It is a very hard club to beat, and it is the verdict that there is little wonder this club won the pennant last season.” ~ The Boston Herald, Spring 1896

Dear Baltimore Orioles,

Me, again.

I guess I don’t have to tell you why I’m writing.

At 8-25, you’re tied with the Reds for the worst record in baseball.

Last night.

You’re worse than the terrible everyone predicted you’d be.

You’re 16 games back of the AL East leading Red Sox, which is pretty nuts, because you’ve only played 33 games.

Things are terrible bad in Birdland. Horriblaciously, rottenificously, awfulmoungously bad.

So bad I have to make up words to describe the badiciousness.

This is “unbelievably bad” territory.

You blow first innings, you blow ninth innings. Those innings in-between? You blow them, too.

And, extra innings too … because …

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“Oh, This Is Not Good.”

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First, some good news.

The Baltimore Orioles won last night, defeating the Cleveland Indians 3-1.

There you go.

I don’t have any more good news, so if you want to stop reading now, I totally understand.

O’s left-fielder Trey Mancini slid knee-first into a brick wall in the eighth. You don’t need to be a stat-wonky baseball fan to understand the bad-newsedness that comes when bone hits brick.

You can watch it – over and over, from multiple angles, and in slow motion – here.  As Jim Palmer says, “Oh, this is not good.”

That Orioles win last night, the first in more than a week, brings the O’s record to 6-14.

The Orioles are in last place in the AL East, 11-1/2 games back of another team whose name escapes me at the moment … um …

… I dunno.

Whatever. Another team. Good for them.

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