Soy un Perdador

The only thing worse than a 4 game losing streak is a five game losing streak. It began with the debacle that was the Oakland sub-series. the Orioles had no business losing those two games, they played horrible defense and gave away two easy wins against a quality team. Then came the two game set against the hated Red Sox where our normally solid bullpen was tagged for the first time this year in back-to-back games and crushing fashion.

Now Cleveland. Nursing a one run lead in the sixth Jeremy Guthrie surrenders 5 runs in the 6 and the Orioles were unable to complete the comeback losing 5-4.

Just like that the Orioles went from 11-7 to 12-11, yikes. I'm not prone to hyperbole this early in the season, but we need to win tonight AND tomorrow. We need to end this streak. 3-4 game losing streaks are going to happen. Every team gets swept once and awhile, and 4 gamers are common too. But once you start getting into 5, 6, 7 game losing streaks you begin digging your own grave. Yes its still early and it IS a marathon and not a sprint, yadda yadda yadda... but my own psyche needs a win tonight, and not just a win but a dominant performance from Bedard.

Tonight Bedard will go up against The Incredible Pronk and the rest of the Cleveland lineup a lineup that Trachsel pretty much dominated for 5.2 innings last night. He changed speeds effectively and had the Tribe off their game. He even K'd the always dangerous Hafner twice. But the Orioles offense was once again stymied. We need Bedard to go deep in this game and give the pen a rest, they have been over worked as the Orioles starters are only averaging a little more than 5 innings a start and as much as some people want to lambaste Perlozzo for his use of the pen, well hen your starters are only averaging 5 innings a start what else is he supposed to do? Send Bynum out to pitch?

In other news:
For some reason people think my opinion matters so today I will be taking part in a joint podcast between me, Mike (from Oriole Magic) and Anthony (The Oriole Post.) Both of those guys are class acts who do great things with their respective blogs and sites, I wish mine was half as productive as theirs are. I am very happy to do this and I will keep you all updated on that.

Ramon Hernandez and Jay Payton have returned to the Orioles lineup. Thank God. That is why I am not too worried about the Orioles offense. Now that we finally have our intended lineup back in Baltimore we can see how good this team really is, which I think is much better than they are currently playing. There is an old saying: You are never as good as you look when you are in a winning streak, and you are never as bad as you look in the middle of a losing streak. Hopefully that is the truth, in every life a little rain must fall and the Orioles have hit a pothole in the road of the season. At least that is what it will look like if we are 5-10 games over .500 and battling around the All-Star break, if not it could be looked at as the beginning of the end.