Orioles Victory Card Number 5

Orioles victory number 5: 5-3 over the Toronto Blue Jays

2007 Upper Deck Chris Britton


The Orioles picked up their first win at home since Opening Day and didn't need extra innings to do so. That was nice. Kevin Gausman was the winning pitcher as he went 6 innings allowing 3 runs and striking out 7. It was his longest start of the season and lowered his ERA to 6.60 That might not be an impressive number, but considering it was at 13.50 after his first start, it's a good sign.

Honestly, the pitching really hasn't been the problem this season. While I'm not ready to throw this rotation out against the 1971 Baltimore rotation, they haven't been horrible. Dylan Bundy is on his way to becoming the first Cy Young finalist to not win a game in a season, Andrew Cashner has turned in a couple of decent starts and Gausman has improved. Now Chris Tillman and Mike Wright, Jr have been gas cans in their first couple of starts, but one of them should be booted to the bullpen once Alex Cobb makes his debut on Saturday.

If only they could get the offense rolling on a consistent basis. The team is near the bottom in average and on-base percentage and middle of the road when it comes to runs (but a top-5 team in home runs). They've been held to 2 or fewer runs in 6 of their 12 games, including just one run in each of he previous two games against Toronto.

Their bullpen, normally a strength of the team, hasn't exactly been lights out either having blown four save opportunities out of seven and walking a ton of hitters. Hopefully, with Cobb in the rotation the starters can begin pitching deeper into the games and lighten the workload for the bullpen.  Of course, that's something we hope for every year and have yet to see it happen.  But it's still April so we can still dream.

Orioles Victory Card Number 3

Orioles Victory Number 3: 7-3 over the New York Yankees in 14 innings

2018 Topps Gypsy Queen Kevin Gausman



Yeah, yeah I know. It's only three wins into the season and I already failed to post a victory card before the next game. What can I say, a 14-inning game coupled with a 5:30 a.m. alarm conspired to make this post a little late.  It didn't help that the O's followed their late night victory with a 1:00pm start on Saturday (checking that score to see if I have to do a double post.  Nope. we're good.)

While all due credit goes to Pedro Alvarez for the dramatic extra-inning grand slam, how about another decent start from the rotation. The above pictured Gausman pitched 5 innings, struck out 3 and only gave up 2 runs to lower his ERA to 8.00 on the season. The fact that Gausman kept the new Murder's Row in the ballpark was impressive after the home run fest he had during his last start.
 That's the third decent start turned in by the rotation and gives some hope that they aren't going to repeat the tire fire that they were last year.


More offense from Manny Machado has he hit two home runs (quiet down with the talk of him taking a shine to his soon-to-be-future-home-stadium) and the beleaguered Chris Davis mashed his first tater of the season.

Three wins on the season now for the Birds, including two over the rival Yankees. They did drop Saturday's game, but have the chance to take the series on Sunday as Mike Wright, Jr. is scheduled to make his second start of the season.

Orioles Victory Card Number 2

Victory Number 2 - 5-2 over the New York Yankees 

2018 Topps Gypsy Queen Chance Cisco


When you start a project like this there are two things you worry about. First, that you won't be able to keep up and will drift behind and eventually give up. Luckily, that hasn't happened yet. My goal of posting a card following every Orioles victory before they start the next game is still intact after two wins.

The second thing you fear is that you have some sort of cosmic control over the outcome of ballgames happening a few hundred miles away. That, in some way, by celebrating every win with a cardboard image you are jinxing the team despite the fact that you are 40-some-odd years old and know better than to believe in things like jinxes or curses.

Yet here we are, or more precisely, he we were a few days ago with the Orioles suffering their fourth straight loss and honestly not being remotely competitive in any of the losses. At that point I wondered if this exercise in cardboard creativity was having some adverse affect on their play. We all knew the pitching would be suspect at best, but at least they'd be able to hit, right? Not so much as first the Twins pitching and then the Astros pitching shut their bats off.

With the Yankees and their line-up looming for the next four games, the likelihood of a 1-9 start to the season was not out of the realm of possibility. I also began to ponder if a 21 game losing streak following an Opening Day victory was just as bad as a 21 game losing streak to start the season (hello team of my youth the 1988 Orioles). The answer I came up with was no, but not by much.

Luckily one of the three late Spring Training signings and first man to rock a beard in a Baltimore uniform under the Showalter administration, Andrew Cashner, pitched six strong innings and the bats woke up enough to propel the team to a 5-2 win over Masahiro Tanaka and the Yankees.  So good for them. Cashner picks up the first win for an Orioles starting pitcher on the season (despite Dylan Bundy's best efforts) and Chris Davis is hitting a respectable (for him) .250 when he's not leading off.

So, good job Orioles.  Let's see if you can make it two in a row and send Yankee fans into an early season meltdown.

Nothing to Say - Just an Old Fashioned Giveaway

So as my birthday rolls around it's time to figure out what I'm going to do over the next year of my life.  Since curling up in a ball and bemoaning my lost childhood is not really an option I guess I'll have to go in a different direction.  One thing I would like to do is pare down my collection.

A couple of weeks I went down to the Florida HQ to clean out my condo for a new renter.  That meant moving a closet full of cards. I have too many cards.  Waaaay too many cards.  And now they're cluttering up my in-laws closet.  Which isn't cool.  Not much I can do about that right now, especially since we have no room in Chicago for them. So for now I can only get rid of what I have on me here in the Windy City.

My goal over the next year is give, trade or sell 5,000 cards.  A somewhat lofty goal I think, but something that should be doable (and make the Duchess happy). I'll be keeping track on the blog (thinking somewhere over there to the right, probably where I used to track my TTM autos).

The best way to get started, in my opinion is to give away a set that's been sitting on my desk for a couple of months.  It's the Upper Deck 25th Anniversary USA Baseball set.

It's open (hey I had to see if there was a Carl Crawford autograph) but complete.  That means the lucky recipient will receive the entire 200 card set, 3 autographs, 1 memorabilia card and 1 pin (of what appeared to be a puzzle to put together.

All you have to do to win is be the first person to post in the comments below the answer to the following question:

Which former Team USA star was drafted in first round by the Orioles, hit .305 in his first 110 atbats with the O's, then suffered injuries that prevented him from living up to the Rickey Henderson comparison bestowed on him by former Baltimore great Frank Robinson.

bonus hint - he ended up playing for six major league teams over parts of 12 seasons.

First correct answer posted in comments wins!

I'm Back Into the Swing of Things

Welcome to the new year, folks.  It's that time of year where everyone swears things are going to be different, and that this is the year things turn around.  Heck we survived the Mayan Apocalypse, the Fiscal Cliff and a baby-off between the Royal Family and the Khardashian/West Family - 2013 should be golden!  As for this spot of internet real estate - I will be getting it ramped back up as part of a larger, yearly initiative  I know I've said the same thing in the past, but I swear this time is different...just give me another chance, baby...I promise I'll change.
 
Humans who know me in real life know that every year I give something up.  There is no reason for it, I just do it.  In the past I've made it through years without soda, red meat, beer (otherwise known as the longest year ever) and in 2012 it was fried food.  Three-hundred-sixty-six days without potato chips, Cheetos, fried chicken, mozzarella sticks, doughnuts, french fries, steak fries, sweet potato fries, curly fries, bacon and cheese fries (see a trend), deep-fried Twinkies and various other sweet, sweet oil-drenched goodies.
 
It wasn't really all that difficult, just the occasional craving for Chik-Fil-a sandwiches, and the year turned out rather well.  Actually, 2012 was a banner year at the Chicago Estate.  The Duchess and I got married, I got a job, got promoted at said job and dropped about 25 lbs. Not sure if that is all related to giving up fried food, after the one thing I learned in Pysch 101 is that correlation does not prove causation.  I'm not kidding that's the only thing I remember from that class.  Well that, and the teacher really, really, really liked experiments involving mice.
 
So the number one question I get from Christmas to the New Years is "What are you giving up next year?"  (followed closely by, "Who are you choosing in your Death Pool", but that's a story for another time). The answer this year - nothing.  That's right I'm giving up giving up things. There was just nothing that came to mind when I was thinking about a 2013 challenge   Not that I put a lot of time into it since I really planned on the world ending in December (guess I shouldn't have spent January's rent money on hookers and blow), but when the choices came down to giving up bread (a challenge I've failed twice) and going vegetarian (not going to happen) I figured it was time to take a different track.
 
Instead of giving something up every day I'm going to do something every day.  Everyday, from now until December 31st, 2013 I plan on writing something.  Some of it will end up here on this blog, some might end up on a Tampa Bay Lightning based website and some will stay private.  Sorry, the epic novel I'm writing about cats taking over the world isn't quite ready for the public yet. Even if it's just a couple of paragraphs or a revision of something that i had previously jotted down I want to see if i can maintain a dedicated work ethic in regards to this writing thing.  Already it started out with a bit of a challenge as I started jotting these notes down at 11.55pm, but hey it counts.  
 
I also want to see if I get any better as a writer. I guess that actually is the number one goal. If I really dedicate myself to this craft, can i get better? Shutting down for about three months helped clear my mind (and the number of site visits on the ol' blog) and now I'm writing because I want to, not because I feel obligated to. Forcing myself to write through any blocks that I encounter throughout this year will probably be the most difficult part of the process, but who knows what it will produce.  Some of the pieces that I enjoy the most started out as nothing more than stream of consciousness ramblings.
 
There's also the part of my mind that wonders how many words I can actually write in 365 days.  I'm not sure if I'll publish a word count or not (this page is cluttered enough as it is, but I'll be working on that as well), but I'm sure privately I'll keep a rough estimate of the words that spill out of my brain-hole.  Thanks for taking the time to read this and hopefully I'll keep you all entertained somewhat throughout the year.
 
Oh, and I'll keep you posted on the whole Death Pool thing.....