A New Feeling For the Baltimore Orioles: Pride

Take a curmudgeony manager, a stubborn GM, inexperienced pitchers, and a mish-mash of old hitters and this is what you get—last place in the AL East.

The Toronto Blue Jays are far too good to stay in last place all season, but I’m not sure you’d trade your roster for this one straight up. Are there any exciting young players on this team?

Alex Rios hardly counts and Aaron Hill has been in the league for four years. Vernon Wells and BJ Ryan are way overpaid. Scott Rolen for Troy Glaus has been a disaster so far, and Matt Stairs and Gregg Zaun are on the wrong side of 35. Reed Johnson and Frank Thomas have both been given away in the past three months.

Wait—weren’t the Orioles supposed to have been the worst-run team in the Majors? Yikes.

——

Last night the O’s stuck it to 38,000+ Red Sox fans, and a couple hundred Oriole fans, by handing the now second-place Red Sox a 5-4 defeat. Coming up big was Luke Scott with a three-run HR off of Josh Beckett, and Jim Johnson pulling a rabbit out of the hat getting out of a bases-loaded no-out situation. George Sherrill added to the fun by locking down a five-out save that included a David Ortiz ejection.

I love this team. I love the fact that David Trembley looks like William Shatner. I love that they didn’t give Adam Jones a take two on his team picture. I love that we ripped off two teams, and are better without our second and third-best players from 2007. I love the Orioles' Magic song. Most importantly though, I love that we give a shit. Win or lose, it’s OK to be an Oriole fan again.