2010 Orioles Season Overview

For the six of you that have actually read this blog before, you know I haven't posted anything since the end of April. I had hoped to use this blog to cover the Orioles 2010 season, but that didn't even last a month into the season. I apologize to those who took the time to read what I had posted during the month of April for not keeping up with my blog, and hope that I can gain your readership once again.

Now that the season has come to a close, I figured this would be a good time to start blogging again. I will begin with an overview of the 2010 season, which can be found below, and follow that up with an in depth player-by-player review of the 2010 season. From there, I hope to cover all of the offseason moves the Orioles make, as well as offer my insight and opinions on these moves, as well as any possible moves I feel the Orioles should make.

The 2010 season began with optimism for the Baltimore Orioles. The team had a young core group of position players and pitchers that had shown some development and improvement during the 2009 season, and the Orioles hoped this would carry over into the 2010 season. To go along with these young players, the Orioles front office added several veteran players though free agency and trade that they hoped would compliment their young group of ball players, and improve upon their 64-98 finish from the 2009 season.

Opening night in Tampa Bay started off as the Orioles had hoped. Kevin Millwood pitched 5 solid innings, allowing only 2 runs and scattering 9 hits and left the game with a 3-2 lead. New closer Mike Gonzalez was brought into the game in the 9th to close it out with the 3-2 lead still intact. This is where the season went off the tracks, and sent the Orioles spiraling towards the basement of the MLB standings. Gonzalez allowed two runs in the bottom of the 9th, giving the Rays a 4-3 victory on opening night. This was only a sign of things to come. Gonzalez (barely) picked up the save in the series finale against the Rays, and the Orioles returned to Baltimore for their home opener against the Blue Jays with a 1-2 record. The Orioles were able to overcome a subpar start from Brad Bergesen and took a 6-5 lead into the 9th inning of the home opener. Closer Mike Gonzalez was again brought on to finish the game, but allowed two runs in the top of the ninth, and the Orioles lost 7-6. This began a nine game losing streak for the Birds, and a 15 game span in which they went 1-14. The Orioles ended the month of April with a 5-18 record, not exactly the start to the season they had hoped for. Injuries to Brian Roberts, Mike Gonzalez and Felix Pie throughout the month would go on to hamper the Orioles for much of the season.

The Orioles hoped a new month would bring new results, and with two straight wins to begin the month of May it looked like that may happen. The Orioles went 7-6 to begin May after their horrid start in April. Things were beginning to look like they were turning around for the Birds, but they struggled for the remainder of May going 3-12 over their final 15 games. This brought the Orioles record to an ugly 15-36 after the first two months of the season.

The Dave Trembley Era began during the 2007 season and came to an end three games into June. After being swept by the Yankees in New York, and the Orioles off to one of their worst starts in franchise history, Andy McPhail decided it was time to make a change and replaced Dave Trembley with interim manager Juan Samuel. Trembley guided the Orioles to a 187-283 record in his almost 3 full seasons as skipper of the Birds, including a 15-39 start to the 2010 season. The Juan Samuel "era" got off to 4-13 start before the O's won 5 of their last 6 games in June to finish the month with a 9-17 record, and 24-43 overall.

The Birds had hoped their winning ways from the end of June spilled over into the month of July. Sadly though, they did not. The Orioles lost six of the first seven games before they surprised everyone with a four game sweep of the AL West leading Texas Rangers. Once again though, the Orioles could not carry this momentum any further as the followed their four game sweep with their own four game losing streak, and a 3-13 finish to the month of July. Going into the month of August the Orioles were the not so proud owners of a 32-72 record.

While they began the month of August with a loss to the Royals, this loss marked the end of the Juan Samuel era as Buck Showalter was named the new manager of the Baltimore Orioles on August 2. With this hiring, Showalter became the 19th manager in Orioles history, and the 10th under owner Peter Angelos. The O's hit the ground running and began the Showalter era with a three game sweep of the Angels. The Orioles were able to continue their winning ways as they took 3 out of 4 from the White Sox and 2 of 3 from the Cleveland Indians, giving Buck Showalter an 8-2 start in his first 10 games. With a 9-8 finish to the month of August, the Orioles gave Showalter a 17-10 record in his first month as the Orioles skipper, and the team's first winning month since June of 2008.

For many of the young Orioles, this was the first time they've had a winning month in their careers, and they had hoped to continue their upward trend. It wasn't going to be easy for the Birds as their September schedule included 5 games with the Red Sox and 6 games each with the Yankees, Rays, and Blue Jays (the Jays had beat the Orioles in their 12 previous meetings this season). The Orioles were able to "Buck the Trend" so to speak as they finished the month at a respectable 14-12. This marked the first time the Orioles had two consecutive winning months since 2005 when they put up back to back winning months in April and May.

The Orioles took 3 out of 4 from the Detroit Tigers in October to end the season on a positive note. (Technically, you could say this gave them 3 consecutive winning months, but I'm not going to get excited over 4 games) This left the Orioles with a 66-96 record for the 2010 season (a little under my prediction of 76-86), and gave the Orioles a 2 game improvement over last season. While it was only a two game improvement, it was the first time the Orioles improved their record from the season before since they added 7 more wins to their record in 2004.

The 2010 Orioles can be broken down into two seasons: The Dave Trembley/Juan Samuel Orioles and the Buck Showalter Orioles. The Dave Trembley/Juan Samuel Orioles were marked by inconsistency. These Orioles could only string together winning streaks of two or more only six times, but had twenty, yes twenty, losing streaks of two or more games. The win-loss column wasn't the only place this inconsistency showed up. At the beginning of the season the bats were quiet, while the pitching staff was pitching well enough to keep the O's in most games. Once the hitting started to heat up, the pitching disappeared though. The Birds were not able to put it all together at once very often, and as you can see, when they did they couldn't do it night after night. Injuries may have effected the poor performance under Trembley and Samuel, but that cannot be used as a crutch for their poor record. That is where depth within the organization is supposed to help you and aid the team through their struggles. It was clearly evident though that the Orioles still lack organizational depth. The Trembley/Samuel part of the Orioles season came to an official end when Buck Showalter was introduced as the new Orioles manager on August 2. Trembley and Samuel combined to "lead" the Orioles to a 32-73 record during their time as manager of the Orioles in 2010.

The Buck Showalter segment of the Orioles season was much much better. Knowing they were playing for their roster spots in 2011, the Birds played much better ball over the last 57 games of the season under Showalter going 34-23, two more wins than Dave Trembley and Juan Samuel were able to manage combined. The Orioles were able to play more consistent baseball over the last few months. They picked up the key hits when they needed to. The pitching was much improved after a mid season funk. While the strong finish to the season is encouraging, the Orioles will need to continue to show this improvement next season before they make believers out of me.

This was just an overview of the Orioles 2010 season. Look for a more detailed player-by-player review of the 2010 Orioles coming soon.

For those of you that have actually read all of this, or even scrolled all the way to the bottom, thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope you enjoyed it, and look forward to covering the Orioles this offseason.

Randy Biggs
Baltimore Sports Blog