Showalter: O’s Not Longer Yanks Feeding Ground
Via David Schoenfield –
Once the crown jewel franchise of the American League, with Camden Yards packed every night, the O’s have been a joke for an entire generation of young baseball fans. Baseball, in Baltimore, was dead.
And then the Orioles hired Buck Showalter. And Buck ain’t gonna accept losing. That’s why I love his blasts about Derek Jeter and Theo Epstein. The message isn’t really about Jeter and Epstein: It’s a message to his team. We’re not going to let the Yankees and Red Sox continue to kick the crap out of us.
Over the past 10 seasons, the Orioles are 68-116 against the Red Sox; they’re 62-122 against the Yankees. They went 2-16 against Boston in 2009 and 3-15 in 2006. They’re 10-26 the past two seasons against the Yankees.
This is not acceptable for Showalter. He took over a team in 2010 that was a pathetic 32-73. Under Showalter the O’s finished 34-23, including a 6-6 mark against Boston and New York.
I hope Buck is right. Should make for an interesting A.L. East this season if he is correct. Imagine if all five teams in the A.L. East finished above .500 this year. That’s never happened before.
Steve Lombardi wrote:
You hope Buck is right about what? That the O’s start beating the Yanks?
Honestly, if I didn’t know you personally, I’d swear you’re not at all a Yankee fan. This goes beyond the removal of blinders and the casting aside of fanboyism and polly-anna or whatever else. This is just a weird thing to say.
I’d rather see my fav team win a ring by beating the best of the best than see them win a bunch of games against the Washington Generals.
The complexity of Steve’s fandom becomes more fascinating to me every day.
Is every team in the AL East finishing with a .500+ record even possible? I wouldn’t think so what with the unbalanced schedule.
I remember in 1991(?) every team in the AL West finished with at least a .500 record.
Steve Lombardi wrote:
Um…that’s called the playoffs.
Steve Lombardi wrote:
If every team were over .500 then no team would be that much better than .500 to really differentiate the “best of the best” from the “Washington Generals.” You’d basically be watching a bunch of 88-91 win teams beating up on eachother.
Raf wrote:
Highly improbable, but mathematically possible. But every team would like have to win every game against non-al east opponents.
If the 4 teams go 36-36 against their own 4 divisional foes, then they all have only to win 46 of the remaining 90 non-divisional game, and they’ll all go 82-80. With a five team playoff for the division title at hand.
How likely? Oh, about the same probability as dealing 4 distinct royal flushes in a 4-handed game of 5 card stud.
If every team finished with a winning record we would be yelling how the Yankees were awful because they could not beat the soso teams. I don’t want parity! I want my team to win. I don’t vote for the other team to beat us!
If the Orioles were smart they’d fire HIS BOY ELROY!! now so they can ensure his successor will get them to the World Series ASAP……and so far it’s 67% that the team will win it all the following year.
Tiki Barber must even be laughing at Elroy’s bad luck.