The trade deadline has come and gone, with the Orioles (probably correctly) deciding to stand pat. Some thoughts on the non-trades and other things:

Taking Joe Blanton's contract off Philadelphia's hands would have been fine. Having the Phillies pick up most of it and throwing a mediocre prospect their way wouldn't have been the worst either. That they reportedly requested Jon Schoop is, I'm assuming, a joke.

Blanton is a decent enough pitcher; he does have excellent control. Since moving to the NL his strike-out rate has gone up (to above average), though he can be prone to the long-ball (some of that is surely his home ballpark). His 3.60 xFIP over the last three years is actually 25th in the Majors (min. 350 IP). Part of that is his 13.6% home run per flyball rate getting regressed though, and his 4.12 FIP is a far less impressive 69th (and his 4.75 ERA is 95th out of 103). Checking in on Blanton is smart, but with him still being owed $3 M for the rest of this season, I wouldn't expect much (if any) excess value there. And he's a free agent after the season (when he could potentially be signed on the cheap as a back-end starter with some mild upside).

Somewhat doubtful, but maybe Blanton even passes through waivers and the O's can take a crack at him this month.

Chase Headley is a good third-baseman - one I would have been happy to see the Orioles pick up a couple years ago - but with San Diego's high asking price, I'm OK not making that move either.

A lot of Headley's offensive value comes from his walks (10% walk rate career, 13.5% this year) and moving out of Petco doesn't do anything for that. You'd think he'd get more hits, but his career BABIP is .339 as it is so there's probably not much (if any) room for growth there (it is .369 career on the road, but that's not likely to be sustainable). So Headley would hit some more home runs, but I'm not sure how much his production would really improve (relatively speaking). And above-average hitting third-baseman who's also a plus on defense (+9 UZR/150 career, +8 DRS/150) is a quality player - perhaps one bringing $30 M in value above his salary to his team through 2014 (he has two more arbitration years left).

Is that worth Jake Arrieta AND 2-3 good prospects? Arrieta's 6.13 ERA this year is ugly, and he's not exactly tearing it up in Triple-A (7 K/9, 3.8 BB/9, 3.78 ERA), but his 4.03 ERA and 3.83 xFIP point to a potentially above average starter. Four years of control of an average-ish starting pitcher is pretty valuable - perhaps worth as much as Headley straight up. I'd have probably gone through with that, and maybe included one prospect (but not multiples, or one of the O's best). It might even make more sense to pick Headley up after the season instead of now, as his 2012 production doesn't likely mean a great deal to the Orioles (I'm still not confident they end up higher than 5th place in the East) and he might come cheaper no in the middle of a pennant race.

The O's were linked to a number of relievers, but managed to avoid the stupidity that is a middle-of-the-road team trading prospects for guys who will maybe throw 20 innings the rest of the year. The current bullpen was well assembled (Jim Johnson: converted mediocre starting pitching prospect, Pedro Strop: trading away an expensive and not very good Mike Gonzalez, Darren O'Day/Luis Ayala: cheap free agent pick-ups, Troy Patton: extra piece in a trade for a quickly becoming over-priced Miguel Tejada (Luke Scott was good return by himself) - the worst relievers in the pen this year came from moves that looked bad at the time, in Kevin Gregg and Dana Eveland*). It would be a shame to mess up one of the things the team has done well.

* Tyler Hanson is batting .271/.378/.486 in Triple-A for LA this year, while Jarrett Martin is striking out a batter per inning in A-Ball (though with a 5.6 BB/9). Not mind-blowing numbers, but Eveland did just clear waivers with no team wanting him for free.

The team finally realized that despite being a right-fielder with a big contract, Nick Markakis was probably the team's "best" lead-off hitter. Since coming off the DL and being slotted into that first spot, he's hit .378/.416/.524. The power is a bit lacking and he's only walking 6.7% of the time, but a .363 BABIP combined with exactly 1* strike-out in 89 PA makes up for a lot of things. Markakis is actually having his best offensive season since 2008, and had a chance at 20 home runs if he hadn't gotten hurt. The -9 UZR and -6 DRS (in limited time) are brutal though, sharply cutting into his value. He just doesn't have much range in right, and his arm isn't what it used to be. Maybe it's worth seeing if he can be an asset at first-base next year (not that that will happen, what with his recent Gold Glove and all)?

* It came against Anthony Swarzak of the Twins on July 19th, who actually K'ed the side that inning.

Jim Johnson is fine. He's a groundball pitcher with some occasionally poor infield defense behind him, and he doesn't strike out many batters. Sometimes that leads to giving up a few hits (and, subsequently, runs) in an inning - potentially even in a (gasp!) save situation. He's a good but not amazing closer who benefited from some good luck early in the year and had the pendulum swing the other way recently. The lack of K's is why, even though giving it a try would be fine, converting Johnson into a starter probably wouldn't be as amazing as some people think - I'm not sure how much better he'd be than a Brad Bergesen.

It's a little funny - JJ throws 94-95 and Pedro Strop throws 96-97, and yet their combined strike-out rate is only 11.9 K/9. There are 11 relievers who are beating that by themselves this year (led, of course, by Aroldis Champman and his ridiculous 16.9 K/9) - one of whom is David Hernandez (13 K/9 - boy, has the Mark Reynolds trade been disappointing). Both Johnson and Strop do get a ton groundballs though (they're numbers 2 and 5 in the Majors, min. 40 IP).

One could actually argue that Troy Patton has been the team's best reliever this year, getting K's (8.2 per nine), minimizing free passes (2.1 BB/9), and getting groundballs (48%). His 3.46 xFIP matches Jason Hammel for best on the club, and he's actually been relatively effective against righties (3.84 xFIP) as well as lefties (3.14 xFIP).

Chris Tillman is throwing harder than he has in years - touching 97 and averaging 93 mph with the fastball - and doing it without walking the park (3 BB/9 so far). With his expanded arsenal (fastball, curve, change, cutter, slider), throwing strikes could enable him to turn into an average-ish starter. The extreme flyball tendencies will probably always be a bit of an issue, but if he can get into enough good counts to turn his off-speed stuff into out pitches then he should be able to up the K's (6.8 per nine currently) enough to make up for it. Especially given batters are swinging through the fastball more than they used to.

Adam Jones has sure slowed down, and doesn't look like he'll crack the 5 win barrier this year. He's hit just .268/.308/.464 in June/July after a torrid start, but that's not even that much worse his 2011 numbers. The defensive number on him look bad (-5 UZR, -14 DRS), but when I watch games it still seems like he's getting to more balls than he used to. That's what the stats are for, I guess. Still, ZiPS sees Jones as a 4-ish win player right now (which still makes his contract more than worthwhile unless he declines precipitously).

Matt Wieters has traded off having good/bad months with the bat - 152 wRC+, 64, 123, 56 - which means we should get to enjoy August. Hitting a ton of pop-ups isn't helping, as his BABIP has fallen by 11 points for the second year in a row (to .265 now). Still taking walks, showing some pop, and being great behind the plate though. Wieters probably isn't getting to 5 wins this year either, which I guess means he's a bust.

Chris Davis isn't good. He's been better than I expected (which was below replacement level), but even the extra home runs don't do enough to make up for the lack of walks and the large number of strike-outs. .262/.308/.467 is fine - it's about how well Jones has hit the last two months - but the bar for offense is lower for center-fielders. A 1B/LF/DH needs to do more than that, especially when he's not a good fielder (which Davis isn't). Maybe he turns himself into an average player at some point, but I still don't see it. Mighty strong though.

It was good to see Brian Roberts back, sort of, in that I never thought he'd be healthy enough to play in the Majors again. Even if he made it back though, I was doubtful he'd be any better than Robert Andino. And boy howdy was that part accurate; 17 games, -1.1 fWAR. That's probably the worst production from anyone in baseball this year (min. 70 PA), as everyone who has a worse fWAR had more playing time in which to suck, while Roberts was costing the O's about two-thirds of a run per game relative to even a replacement level player. With labrum surgery ending his 2012, it sounds like Roberts is actually looking to come back for 2013 - but I'm not sure I see the point in that for the team.

The Orioles' run differential is still ugly at -51, but that's pretty much just the Angels and Rangers (-52 in just 13 games). They all count though, and the O's have a below average offense (which has the potential to be average), a poor defense (not really debatable), an uneven rotation, and a solid bullpen. That's not a play-off caliber team, nor would it be even if they had added a Josh Johnson or a Shane Victorino (or whoever). But hey, enjoy the ride while it lasts. And they only need to play like a 72-73 win team the rest of the way to get to .500 (which is good, since that's more or less what their run differential says they are). Given recent history, that would be worth cheering for (even if not worth selling out to go for).

I heard someone on the radio say they're happy to trade Dylan Bundy, Manny Machado, and every other prospect for the Zack Greinkes of the world. You know, because the Orioles are incapable of developing prospects. The thing is, if you think an O's will never turn a prospect into a Major Leaguer then you should quite following the team now - the O's are not the Yankees, and even New York needs some cheap cost controlled players (they can't afford to pay the market rate for all their wins). And people don't seem to understand that you're not just getting a player, but you're getting a contract too. Zack Greinke is great! All else being equal, I'd be fine dealing prospects (who are very unlikely to turn out even close to as good) for him. But all isn't equal; when you trade for Greinke, you only get him for two months. Then, if you want to keep him, you have to give him a whole lot of money (which the Orioles could do after the season anyway, if they were so inclined). That's money that can't be used for something else. Even if you want Peter Angelos to "open the wallet", the team just isn't going to have a $200 M payroll. Just because trying to build through the farm system hasn't worked doesn't mean it can't work - and given the fundamentals of the AL East, they don't actually have a choice but to go that route. Make the big signing/trade when you really are one piece away - not when one piece is only hopefully going to bring you to being one (more) piece away (as they are now).

In an effort to bolster a flailing offense, the Orioles have acquired DH Jim Thome from the Phillies in return for prospects Kyle Simon and Gabriel Lino.

I really like Thome, but he's 41 years old, has no defensive value, and is batting a solid (but not outstanding for a DH) .242/.338/.516 this year. He's also left-handed, as is Chris Davis and (effectively, with his platoon splits) Wilson Betemit. Maybe Thome provides the O's with half a win over replacement the rest of the year, and maybe he's actually taking the playing time from what would have been replacement level production. If the O's actually make the play-offs based on that half win, I'll be extremely surprised. More likely, Thome could be the difference between 81 and 81.5 wins, which some fans are more than happy to trade prospects for (which I think is dumb, but others have different priorities).

Simon is a 21 year old right-handed pitcher. He has a 3.96 ERA, 4.4 FIP in High-A ball, after being the team's 4th round draft pick last year. He'll get some groundballs and has a good walk rate (2.6 BB/9), but doesn't seem to miss many bats (6.1 K/9). Doesn't seem like a huge loss for the team, given that his upside might be back of the rotation innings-eater or middle reliever.

Lino is a 19 year old catcher. He's had some trouble in A-Ball this year - .218/.283/.342 - after a more impressive season in Rookie Ball (.282/.371/.462). Catchers who can stick behind the dish and potentially show a combination of patience and power at the plate are not that easy to find, and my understanding is that Lino has that potential (even if he's far from a sure thing).

Here's the thing; this trade is fine if the Orioles are actually as good as their record this year would indicate (42-35). But they're not - they've been outscored by something like 20 runs, and the bullpen is unlikely to continue to be this good. The pitching will hopefully be fine overall, but that's about all you can expect from them. And the offense has struggled, and even after adding Thome there are going to be at least a couple of holes in the line-up. And the defense will suffer - Thome at DH means that Wilson Betemit, Chris Davis, and Mark Reynolds all need to wear gloves to get their bats into the line-up, and that's gonna be ugly. The O's are in a decent position to finish at or above .500, but that could still leave them in last place in the AL East (and they're likely the least talented team in the division). They're not making the play-offs this year unless they get unbelievably lucky - and that's OK, because just not sucking wouldn't have been great before the season started.

The unexpected success early in 2012 is great, but that's more for what it means for the near future (contention might not be as far away as it looked a little while ago) than what it means for this season. To take the wrong lesson from that and sell out subsequent years in a misguided effort to try to make a run this year seems foolish. Buying at all didn't sound like the best idea, but going small-bore could have been fine (Thome for just Simon, as was initially reported, wasn't great but not terrible). Giving up even one of the lower-tier prospects from a shallow farm system for marginal improvement (at best) in an effort to be less bad (going forward) is... very much like the Orioles. In fact, it's been kind of Dan Duquette's M.O. so far (Dana Evaland, for example). Not one of my favorite things about him.

Hopefully Manny Machado for Matt Garza isn't coming down the pipe-line now. Because even though it would make the Thome trade make more sense, selling out to make a run this season would be insanity.

Yesterday the Orioles held an event at Camden Yards with Bloomberg Sports to show off the Bloomberg Baseball Data Tool they've started using (you know, the one that makes those graphics we see on the broadcast showing that Brian Matusz throws 55% fastballs, 15% change-ups, etc.). I unfortunately forgot my notepad, so the recap is all from memory.

Dan Duquette* spoke briefly at the beginning, talking about the O's using all the data available to improve the club (for example, with Buck Showalter employing the infield shift this year) and mentioning that part of the reason the O's pulled their advanced scouts (who traditionally go to scout the clubs the team is about to play) is that the Bloomberg Tool provides them all kinds of data on those clubs (much of it things the scout wouldn't even pick up).

* It was the first time I've seen Duquette in person and, though this sounds stupid, it seemed like he was an actor playing 'Orioles General Manager Dan Duquette'. Maybe it's the voice or the hair?

Next up was the head of Bloomberg Sports (who has also the guy who started SportsVision), whose name I don't remember. He showed us the publically available Bloomberg Fantasy Baseball tool (which does stuff like suggest trades for you to make based on the strengths and weaknesses of your team as well as the other team) and, much more interestingly, the Pro tool used by Major League clubs (25 of 30, I believe).

Now that was neat. The interface seemed well built and relatively easy to use, though we mostly just looked at PitchFX data; what pitches Adam Jones has seen this year, the fastballs Jones has seen, the pitches he's seen with 2 outs, the pitches he's seen from Justin Verlander, etc. Pretty standard PitchFX stuff, but easy to chop up and it looked nice - clicking on a pitch that Jones hit for a home run brought up a video clip of it. There was also some cool looking pitch sequencing graphics. None of it was something that I couldn't put together myself, but drop-down menus are just a bit easier to navigate than writing code to run against a PitchFX database and their graphics looked a touch better than what Excel would spit out. Those were only a couple tabs out of somewhere between 5 and 100 though, so there are surely more aspects to it.

Rick Peterson then gave his own presentation focusing mainly on - basically - the importance of not falling behind in counts as a pitcher. Peterson came off as a good guy, but the presentation was not the best*. One of the first slides in the PowerPoint was of batting average and slugging percentage when a ball is put into play in each count, and he said those numbers haven't changed in 10 years. That immediately set of alarm bells, since offensive levels overall are way down from where they had been (slugging has dropped almost 30 points). Maybe he meant that the numbers were the same relatively speaking (between the counts), or maybe he hadn't updated his table recently. Either way, at least some people took it seriously (one person started a question by referencing the point as true).

* I'm being somewhat nit-picky. Sue me.

Peterson also talked about batting average on balls in play on pitches at the bottom of the strike-zone (the "220 line"*, since the batting average there was .220). Not terribly surprising as the batting average on groundballs was .237 last year (via Baseball-Reference). He didn't mention any sort of line for up in the strike-zone though - and the batting average on flyballs was actually even lower at .218 (obviously line-drives muck around with these distinctions). The audience probably wasn't the right one for it, but this is where using wOBA would have been much better (or even OPS, since the gap for 2011 was almost 300 points). Liked the line about a "hot hitter" being one who's been getting a lot of balls thigh-high in the middle of the plate recently, and a "cold hitter" is one who hasn't.

* Apparently one of the reasons Jim Johnson has been one of the best closers in baseball this year is because his batting average on balls down in the zone is really low. Well yeah, a crazy low BABIP tends to lead to fewer runs allowed (JJ's is .140 overall and .131 on groundballs). The thing that makes Johnson good isn't so much that he has a low BABIP on pitches down as that he keeps pitches down (and limits free passes). Thus the 66% groundball allowing him to post a pretty good xFIP (~3.40) despite a low strike-out rate. That xFIP ranks Johnson just 55th among qualified relievers** and 13th among pitchers with at least 5 saves. though.

** A few spot behind Alfredo Simon, who's posting a 1.91 ERA, 2.56 FIP, 3.32 xFIP line for the Reds - sure glad the Orioles cut him so they could hold on to Kevin Gregg (amongst others).

This led to a graphic saying the most important things for a pitcher are groundballs and swings and misses though, and I can certainly get behind that. I was thinking about asking him about the tension between the two - since fastballs down are more likely to get groundballs, but fastballs up are more likely to get whiffs* - but didn't think it was worth holding things up and assumed I'd just get an answer about how you want both. Peterson said one of the reasons the Orioles staff has been so good this year is that they get a lot of groundballs and swings and misses**.

*ahem, Jim Johnson
** the O's are 15th in groundball rate and 22nd in contact rate against (and 25th in strike-out rate).

The next bit was about the importance of the 1-1 count and either ending at bats quickly or getting ahead in the count and to 2 strikes. This is a "duh" in the same way that FIP is ("getting lots of strike-outs while not walking guys or giving up home runs is good - who knew?!"). So the batting average on 0-0, 1-0, and 0-1 counts is ~.325 - never mind that there's a 75 point difference in slugging between 1-0 and 0-1. And while OBP after (not just on) a 1-2 count is ~.225, the OBP after a 2-1 count is ~.390. Actually, I think it was maybe 1-2, 0-2, and 2-2 versus 2-1, 2-0, and 3-1, because I recall his OBP difference being a fair bit bigger than that - closer to .220 vs. .450. In any case, the point was "Efficiency"; ending at bats quickly or getting ahead in the count. Because good pitching staffs will do those things 70+% of the time, whereas average ones will only be at ~68%. Assuming I counted correctly, the Orioles are right around average this year after being below average last year. Interestingly that matches up better with their FIP/xFIP (about average) than their ERA (better than average).

Anyway, not particularly novel or well presented from my perspective (there was some straight comparing of batting averages between, say, a certain count and pitches in a certain location, which you can't really do, partially because some pitches will be in both buckets), but it seems like most of the people in the room got a fair bit out of it and that's good.

Peterson also talked about the bio-mechanical analysis that team has started doing (including running all of their Major Leaguers and some prospect, including Dylan Bundy, through it during Spring Training) that's allowed them to identify and modify pitchers' motions. Not sure it was exactly related, but he showed an adjustment they made to John Axford when Peterson was with the Brewers to change where he stood on the rubber and the improved results*, and that you could see it on the release point data from the Pitch FX. Also, that a similar change was made with Jake Arrieta recently (18 K's to 3 walks in 20 innings since he was supposed to go to the bullpen, by the way).

* ERA from the first half of the year to the second half fell from just over 3 to just under 2! What an amazing improvement for a reliever throwing ~30 innings in each sample! Especially since his strike-out to walk ratio actually got worse and he walked a higher proportion of batters he faced later (even though the purported reason for the change was to improve his control)!

Overall though, I liked Peterson's emphasis on process and using all available data. When someone asked him about players' reactions to the bio-mechanical analysis and data, he had a nice point; players have blood taken for their physicals, and if tests come back saying they have high cholesterol they don't wave it away. Same thing - it's science!

I asked the Bloomberg guy about if anything is done with the PitchFX data before it's integrated into the system, but he didn't really get where I was going so I talked to one of the behind the scenes people. Basically, it's just raw data and the Bloomberg system is handy for doing the hard work of data mining with a nice user interface. It does allow for adjustments though, so the Orioles can, for example, select which source they want the pitch classifications to come from, hard code them to correct mistakes*, or even put together a team-created algorithm to overwrite things. That's pretty neat.

* His example was Clayton Kershaw's slider being labeled a curveball last year. Also brought up the neural networks used for pitch identifying with the PitchFX system, so he knew what was up - how about a presentation from that guy?

I'm not sure just how much value added there is for the club with this Bloomberg system, but I'd certainly like one to play around with. Seems like maybe it could be more useful to others in the front office than the baseball analytics department, who I'd assume (hope) already had something not tremendously different in place (that is, maybe they're doing things a little faster or neater now, but hopefully they're not really doing anything they couldn't have done before). There is something to be said for not only having the data but actually using it though, and that seems like more of the direction the Orioles are going in (thankfully).

The game after the presentation was... less good. The two home runs Brian Matusz allowed were bad, but he also gave up a bunch of hits in dis-pleased BABIP God fashion (.459 on the day, with at least one ball that should have been caught in the outfield and a few grounders that got through the infield). Brian Robers laying down a sacrifice bunt with two on and no outs and the team down 3-1 in the bottom of the 5th was awful since (a) he's not a particularly good bunter, (b) it wasn't a surprise at all to the Angels, especially after he didn't get it down the first couple pitches but kept trying, (c) he was ahead in the count at one point, and we know how much better hitters are when they're ahead in the count, right?, and (d) the score was not conducive to playing for one run anyway. The Orioles rightfully didn't score again in that inning, or in the following inning when they loaded the bases. In true 2012 style, they scored all 3 of their runs on home runs (by Steven Pearce and Wilson Betemit). The Angels were worse, picking up 17 total hits but still scoring 6 of their 7 runs via the longball (and in the case of Mark Trumbo's shot off of Tommy Hunter, it was really long). 7 > 3 though, so the O's fell to 41-32, 4 games back of the Yankees in the AL East.

The Orioles made a go of it in New York yesterday, but came up just short. Getting swept while only scoring 3 runs in the three game series is pretty bad (though you do have to tip your cap to the Mets' pitching staff - especially RA Dickey, who is one of the best stories in baseball this year). With Adam Jones no longer hitting the cover off the ball - just .268/.307/.408 with 2 home runs in June - the O's offense has struggled of late.

By month:

April: .249/.305/.426, 93 wRC+, 4.2 runs/game, 1.3 HR/game
May: .248/.321/.441, 105 wRC+, 4.8 runs/game, 1.6 HR/game
June: .240/.294/.361, 74 wRC+, 4.0 runs/game, 0.8 HR/game

The team doesn't walk all that much and they strike out a ton, which leaves them reliant on the power production. That was a concern early in the season, and as the balls have started leaving the yard less frequently, the team has had more trouble putting runs on the board (and they've maybe been fortunate to score as often as he has; 72 in June vs. 63 wRC). If they could continue scoring 4+ runs for every home run they hit while also bumping the latter up, that would be nice though.

In June, O's have gotten a combined 202 PA (an average of ~3 line-up spots per game) of .231 wOBA production from Ryan Flaherty, Steven Pearce, Steve Tolleson, Endy Chavez, Ronny Paulino and Robert Andino. On top of that, Brian Roberts hasn't done much since his three-hit debut (.242/.278/.242 overall) and JJ Hardy has walked just once this month and is hitting .213/.222/.300. So that's a top of the line-up not doing much, combined with a bottom of the line-up made up of what should be bench players. No wonder it's been ugly out there.

I was always a big Erik Bedard fan - his stuff when he was on was fantastic, and the 15 strike-out game he had against Texas was probably the best pitched game I've ever seen live (batter were literally going back to the dugout shaking their heads). It would have been nice to see him do well tonight (though not quite well enough to win), and it wouldn't have been terribly surprising to see him mow down the O's while Tommy Hunter got knocked around a little by the Pirates.

The Good:

• Tommy Hunter threw 4 perfect innings to start the game, striking out 3. How exciting would it have been if he could keep that up?!
• The decision to bat Chris Davis third against a lefty seemed questionable, but he had a very nice plate appearance his first time up, working a walk, and added a single and a double later.
• Matt Wieters went 4-5 with a pair of double, and took some nice swings - short stroke, and he hit the ball with some authority.
• Mark Reynolds had a couple doubles himself (plus a single), as he took some opportunities to hit the ball to the opposite field. Then he turned on one, sending it into the left-field bleachers for his 5th home run of the season. His batting line is up to .245/.369/.439 now.
• Steven Pearce walk, doubled and homered, driving in 5 runs against his former team (Wieters also had 5 RBI, making it the second time in club history that's happened - Cal (6) and Will Clark (5) did it in '99).

The Bad:

• Tommy Hunter then proceeded to give up 5 runs on 7 hits (including a home run), before being pulled to start the 7th. At least his walk rate is down to 1.8 per nine for the season!
• Robert Andino was the only O's starter not to get on base, and in his between-inning Movie Review segment he said he didn't like Star Wars. So I guess it serves him right, what with him being weak with the force and all.

The Final:

The Orioles put 27 runs on the board against the Pirates as they swept this series. The NL is... not as good as the AL. Was helpful to the O's run differential though (+11 now). It was also good to see so many fans at the park (~30,000) for a Thursday night game against Pittsburgh.

Jake Arrieta was supposed to being moving to the bullpen to work out his hypothetical "problems" - pretty much just a high BABIP over his last 6-7 games - but with Brian Matusz's start having to be pushed back after he bunted a ball into his face during practice (sounds like he's mostly OK though), Jake got one more chance to make a start. Many people wanted Arrieta demoted to the minors, and facing the Pirates (.225/.279/.361 this year with an atrocious 71 wRC+) isn't that far off.

The Good:

• Arrieta didn't disappoint, racking up the strike-outs with some sick breaking-stuff and getting a lot of groundballs. He ended up allowing a number of hit (.357 BABIP), but they were mostly scattered instead of clustered which kept the runs off the board. If the timing was slightly different, he could easily have allowed 4-5 runs and everyone would have called for his head - while he actually pitched just as well. Hopefully this will buy him some more time in the rotation. Final line; 7 IP, 7 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 9 K.
• Chris Davis is strong. First time up he doubled deep to left-field to drive in a run, and later he hit a broken-bat home run to right when it almost looked like he stopped his swing half-way through. Davis is on pace to hit 30 or so homers this year, and if he does that while keeping his BABIP up (.367 this year, ~.340 career) then he can be an OK player despite all the strike-outs and the lack of walks.
• Wilson Betemit doubled and homered as well, adding a single for his third hit.
• JJ Hardy picked up 3 hits, and Mark Reynolds and Steven Pearce each had 2.

The Bad:

• Brian Roberts went 0-5 with 2 K's. Not quite as impressive as his 3 hits from last night, but it was nice to see him back on a baseball field.
• Matt Wieters didn't have the best night at the plate, going 0-4 with two weak groundouts to the right side (one for a double play) and a couple flyouts.

The Final:

The win puts the O's in position to go for the sweep against former Orioles Erik Bedard tomorrow night. It also gets them back to 10 games above .500, meaning the only need to play at a .450 clip the rest of the way (~73 wins over 162 games) to finish at the level for the season.

I haven't seen an entire Oriole game start-to-finish in a while unfortunately, or posted anything about the team. Got bits and pieces of various games though, and have been following some news. Some assorted thoughts:

The Record:

The O's are now on pace to win 91 games instead of 100, which is still fine. They've been outscored on the season 246-250, but they're still playing well enough overall to have some hope of finishing over .500 at the end of the year. Swtich the order of the games around a little, and fans would be more excited to be tied for first place in the AL East in June instead of all worried.

The Draft:

I was hoping that shortstop Carlos Correa would fall to #4, but the Houston Astros popped him with the #1 overall pick. With three position players off the board, the Orioles had their choice of pitchers and selected college right-hander Kevin Gausman. I'd generally lean away from picking pitchers early, but taking a position player just for the sake of taking a position player doesn't make sense either and Gausman was considered by many to be the top pitcher in the draft. And hey, I do like a guy who can get both whiffs and groundballs.

It would have been nice to see the O's go for a little more upside in later rounds, with the idea of perhaps signing Gausman under slot and parlaying the savings into going overslot later (they may have done this to a small degree with a couple picks). Drafting relievers is anathema to me, but it sounds like the O's are planning to try all/most of them (including second round pick Branden Kline) in the rotation first. So, assuming all the important guys sign, it seems like it was a good but perhaps not great draft.

The Injuries:

Nick Markakis being out for a month hurts, certainly, but he's at 0.0 fWAR this year to begin with, and even as a 2.5 win player the team only loses a half-win or so. Hopefully last night's game is an indication that Buck won't keep batting Endy Chavez AND Robert Andino at the top of the line-up (that's a lot of outs from spots where you need guys to get on base, and a lot of extra plate appearances handed to guys who can't really hit).

Having half the line-up sometimes being Chavez (.166 wOBA), Andino (.281 wOBA), Steve Tolleson (.288 wOBA), Ryan Flahery (.203 wOBA), and Ronny Paulino (.295 wOBA) is brutal. Can't win if you don't score.

The Cold Streaks:

Matt Wieters started the year on a tear, but has hit just .181/.271/.277 since that game in Boston when he caught all 17 innings. His BABIP in May was .225, which goes nicely with his 9.6% line-drive rate (which is, to put it lightly, really bad).

Adam Jones is 5-24 (all singles) with 0 walks in June so far. Not that that is a big deal (just 6 games), but if he's not going to keep hitting a .400+ wOBA clip then the team is going to have some trouble scoring runs in the near term.

Jake Arrieta is 1-5 with 7.96 ERA in his last 6 games (prompting some people to suggest he be sent to the minors). His control hasn't been the best over that stretch (4 BB/9 - due in part to 4 walks in 4.2 IP his last time out), but that's not completely atrocious and he's still striking out batter (8 K/9, and his overall whiff rate has gone from 16% misses on swings to 23%). Arrieta's BABIP against is .364 and he's given more home runs that you'd expect given his groundball tendencies. Yeah, he needs to issue fewer free passes, but he'll be fine. He does appear to be throwing more four-seamers than two-seamers recently - perhaps to throw strikes? - but that might just be coincidence.

The Signings:

Jamie Moyer? Really? Beyond all the age stuff, he wasn't all that effective in the National League this year (for Colorado, sure, but still) - how is he going to pitch in the AL East?

I honestly had no idea Lew Ford was even in this country before the O's signed him. His .382/.434/.592 line in Triple-A this year comes courtesy of a .448 BABIP (.302 career in the Majors). He hasn't played in the big leagues since 2007, or posted an above average batting line since 2004. And he's 35 years old.

Nate McLouth is only 30 and actually hit as recently as 2009 (.256/.352/.436), so there is that. He's done precisely bupkis for the Pirates this year though (29% strike-out rate, .205 BABIP, no power)

The Cavalry:

Much to my surprise, not only is Brian Roberts playing baseball this year, but he's doing a half-decent job of it (.267/.378/.533 in 11 minor league games). 6 of his 8 hits have gone for extra-bases (5 doubles and a homer), and he has 6 walks to 6 strike-outs. We'll see if he can keep that up at Triple-A for an extended period of time, but perhaps he really can help the team a little bit this year (though I'm still not sure that, when accounting for defense, that he'd outplay Robert Andino).

Again, to my slight surprise, Zach Britton might actually make it up before the All-Star break. He only has 18 IP in the minors so far (13 K, 5 BB, 1 H), but replacing a Tommy Hunter with a (hopefully) healthy Zach Britton could be pretty good.

Chris Tillman is striking out batters more frequently than he has in years (8.7 K/9) while not walking the park (3.5 BB/9). He could be a decent shot in the arm for the rotation if/when someone gets hurt/tired.