The Good:

• Other than the second inning - which had walk-walk-three-run homer - Jeremy Guthrie did a fine job. Final line; 6 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 2 BB, 5 K.
• Jim Johnson had two shutout innings in relief
• Matt Wieters hit a home run to dead center-field (his 15th of the year) and also singled and drew a walk. Plus nabbed a runner trying to steal, per usual (when actually given a decent chance).
• Mark Reynolds singled and walked twice, and looked pretty good at first-base (where he might be playing next year). 
• Nolan Reimold had a couple hits and a walk.
• Nick Markakis walked twice - making it three straight games he's done that, which is not only a career high but is tied for the most for an Oriole since 1955. It also brings Nick's August walk rate straight passed 10% and up to 11% - easily the highest month since June of 2010.
• Ryan Adams had a couple hits, including his walk-off "single" to deep center-field.

The Bad:

• Bottom of the 8th, O's up 4-3, single and a walk put two on with none outs. So of course Buck has Robert Andino bunt. And of course Wieters gets forced at third. And of course, even after the next batter also walks to load the bases, the O's fail to score. The team's success rate using - or at least attempting to use - the sacrifice bunt is very probably now under 10% this year. It's actually kind of funny that as much as I complain about it though, the O's still have the fewest sac hits in the majors. But that doesn't count all the screw-ups, of course.
• The 9th inning was a mess. A hit and a walk from Kevin Gregg put two on. The Jays tried to give away an out with a bunt, but the batter pulled the bat back... and both runners advanced. The fielders moved in for the bunt, but that left no one covering third (and then second, when the shortstop started towards third). I don't think I've ever seen that play before. That was followed with a game-tying hit, and intentional walk to Jose Bautista, and unintentional walk to Adam Lind to load the bases, and then mercifully a inning-ending groundout.
• Does Buck learn? Apparently not. Bottom 10, Wieters and Reynolds on again, no outs, Andino up. Tries to sac bunt... ends up striking out (fouled off the two-strike attempt). If all I had was these two innings, I'd be OK with firing Buck (edit: apparently Andino was bunting on his own in the 10th, so Buck was only 0-1 instead of 0-2).

The Final:

So Kevin Gregg blew the save, and then Willie Eyre gives up the go-ahead run (despite out-pitching Gregg - he gave up a triple on a ball that Matt Angle displayed a great deal of range on but misplayed (and didn't catch), and then the run scored on a wild pitch) before getting the win (which once again shows how dumb the win rule is). On the bright side... after Mike Gonzalez and Kevin Gregg, maybe even the casual Orioles' fan will now know that the team should not to give a fair amount of money to merely OK relievers (or solid relievers with injury histories, which is comparable). O's pick up the extra-inning victory in the first game of the series almost in spite of themselves. But I'll take it.

The Good:

• Alfredo Simon looked pretty good, mixing up his pitches and occasionally getting the Yankees looking. He didn't generate too many whiffs though, and when he missed the strike-zone, it tended to be up. Still, a fine start against the majors' top offense. Final line; 7 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 2 BB, 6 K, 1 HR.
• Mark Reynolds hit his 31st home run of the season, which puts him just one away from his 2010 total and would also be tied for first in the NL.
• JJ Hardy hit his 26th, tying his career high (from 2007). He just loves those high and inside fastballs (though this one was more middle-in).
• Nick Markakis walked twice and stole a base.

The Bad:

• Other than the two solo homers, the O's didn't really have any offense. No singles, one double, plus three free passes.

The Final:

A valiant effort, and if you told me the Orioles would go yard twice and Simon would have 6 K's and last through 7 innings I think I might have predicted a Baltimore win. Oh well.

Some Mariano Rivera facts (coming into the game), since I looked them up:

• Has appeared in more games vs. the O's than any other team;
• 3.13 ERA vs. the O's is 5th highest vs. any team
• OPS+ of 121 by the O's is also 5th highest, and that's despite just a .260 BABIP
• 6.7 K/9 versus the O's is his 3rd lowest

Not that that stopped him from picking up the save, of course.

With the storm having come and gone, the O's continued their series with the Yankees today with a double header.

Game 1:

The Good:

• Zach Britton had his best start in quite a while, perhaps going back to his shutout in May. He kept the ball down - when he missed the zone, it tended to be low - and that limited the Yankees' chances to increase their major league home run lead (181). And he did a nice job getting swings and misses with his off-speed stuff (~47% whiff rate with the slider, ~30% with the change).  Final line; 7 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 5 K. I don't love that he was left out for 120 pitches though, but given he didn't seem to be laboring all that much and the weather was OK I guess it's not too terrible.
• Mark Reynolds went 3-3 with a double

The Bad:

• Bartolo Colon countered Britton pretty well most of the game, as the O's didn't work a free pass, had just 7 hits, and where kept off the scoreboard until the 7th inning.

The Final:

Jim Johnson and Kevin Gregg finished things off as the O's took the first game 2-0, making it 6 victories in a row.

Game 2:

The Good:

• JJ Hardy singled and doubled, while Nick Markakis doubled and drew a pair of walks.

The Bad:

• Brian Matusz averaged over 89 mph with his fastball, and looked alright minus the longballs (which are not insignificant, of course). Final line; 5.1 IP, 6 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 2 BB, 5 K, 3 HR.
• Mark Reynolds and Ryan Adams each K'ed 3 times; the last of which were numbers two and three of the 8th inning, which started with the O's loading the bases. Vlad started the streak of punch-outs by swinging at a pitch that was so far out of the zone that PitchFX didn't even register it in their location box.

The Final:

With the 8-3 loss the winning streak ends at 6. Not bad... that's actually the team's longest such stretch since the beginning of the 2008 season. And it makes avoiding 100 losses much more likely, as the O's only need to go 10-31 down the stretch (not that they haven't been that bad over 30 games before this year).

The Book's annual Fan Scouting Report project is up:

"Baseball's fans are very perceptive. Take a large group of them, and they can pick out the final standings with the best of them. They can forecast the performance of players as well as those guys with rather sophisticated forecasting engines. Bill James, in one of his later Abstracts, had the fans vote in for the ranking of the best to worst players by position. And they did a darn good job.

There is an enormous amount of untapped knowledge here. There are 70 million fans at MLB parks every year, and a whole lot more watching the games on television. When I was a teenager, I had no problem picking out Tim Wallach as a great fielding 3B, a few years before MLB coaches did so. And, judging by the quantity of non-stop standing ovations Wallach received, I wasn't the only one in Montreal whose eyes did not deceive him. Rondel White, Marquis Grissom, Larry Walker, Andre Dawson, Hubie Brooks, Ellis Valentine. We don't need stats to tell us which of these does not belong.

The Project

What I would like to do now is tap that pool of talent. I want you to tell me what your eyes see. I want you to tell me how good or bad a fielder is. Go down, and start selecting the team(s) that you watch all the time. For any player that you've seen play in at least 10 games in 2011, I want you to judge his performance in 7 specific fielding categories."

Help Tango - and everyone else, really - out: http://www.tangotiger.net/scout/.

Mike Flanagan passed away yesterday, taking his own life. Just terrible, terrible news. My condolences to his friends and family.

You can watch Jim Palmer (amongst others) discussing it here.

There were reports from WBAL (since retracted) that the reason for the action was Flanny's feelings regarding his part in the O's struggles (or, at least, the fans' perceptions of them), which would be deeply sad if true. No matter how much we may care - and I imagine Flanny cared about as much as anyone - it's still just a game. I may never have watched Flanny pitch, and I was certainly critical of much of his front office work, but he was a big part of the Orioles and I'd take a hundred more losing seasons to reverse the last two days.

More from Dan Szymborski, Tim Kurkjian, Buster Olney, and Rob Neyer (with a collection of others).

My post at MASN's Orioles Buzz this week is on Alfredo Simon's progression from Tommy John injury to flame-throwing reliever to potentially decent starter. Check it out here.

The Good:

• Shutdown Sauce! Alfredo Simon looked great, missing bats with the slider, the splitter, and especially the fastball (something like a 30% whiff rate between the two and four seamers combined). Final line; 8 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 8 K, 1 HR.
• JJ Hardy went 3-5, which wasn't one of the best offensive nights for an Oriole.
• Vlad had 3 hits as well, but his included a double.
• Matt Wieters doubled as his only hit, but he did walk 4 times. And threw a runner out trying to steal.
• Mark Reynolds went 3-5 with a triple.
• Nolan Reimold only had one hit, but it was a three-run homer.

The Bad:

• Adam Jones left the game early due to illness. Hope he's OK.

The Final:

This was the best O's game I've seen in quite a while. It's only two games, but the Birds are making a case for not actually being the worst team in the AL this year.

Some notes on Wieters' 4 walks:

• It was the second time this year and Orioles walked four times (Luke Scott).
• First time since 2007 that an O's catcher did it (the immortal Paul Bako), and the 5th time a catcher has done it (Bako, Chris Hoiles, and Elrod Hendricks twice).
• The 46th player in franchise history to do it - the 64th time overall (Brady Anderson holds the record with 4 such games).
• Only the 5th time in franchise history that a batter walked four times and had an extra-base hit. Nick Markakis had an identical line (1-1, double, 4 BB, 2 R, 1 RBI) in 2008.

Wieters actually raised his season walk rate from 7.4% to 8.3% in one day. Hopfully that keeps going up.