Casilla with the Twins, via Wikipedia.

The Orioles are having a fairly busy off-season already. First they picked up Ayala’s option whilst declining Reynolds’s, and now they’ve claimed Alexi Casilla off waivers from the Twins.

Casilla is 28 years old and primarily a second baseman, but he’s played some shortstop and third, as well, and is a good boost to the Orioles’ infield. He’ll probably compete for second base with Robert Andino and Ryan Flaherty, as well as the returning Brian Roberts. Should make for an interesting Spring Training, that’s for sure!

The Orioles made some other announcements today, as well, via Dan Connolly:

On Saturday, players who have filed for free agency can begin to talk with other teams. The Orioles have some interest in retaining pitcher Joe Saunders, outfielder Nate McLouth and designated hitter Jim Thome, but no agreement was reached during the exclusive negotiating period, meaning the three will be able to discuss contracts with all interested parties starting Saturday.

Also Friday, the Orioles announced they have outrighted outfielder Lew Ford, infielder Steve Tolleson and lefty Zach Phillips to Triple-A Norfolk and reinstated right-handers Oliver Drake and Stu Pomeranz, lefty Tsuyoshi Wada, infielder Brian Roberts and outfielder Nolan Reimold from the 60-day disabled list.

So there you have it – busy off-season already, huh?

We missed you!

I honestly forgot what it was like to have Brian Roberts in a game. He reminded me by going 3-for-4 tonight and driving in a run, so I guess that clears that little issue up!

Steve Tolleson was optioned back down to Norfolk and Nolan Reimold was moved to the 60-day DL, but at least we have one of the cornerstones of the organization back. (Also, Matusz didn’t break his nose – it’s just bruised. Phew!)

For the most part, this game went pretty well – Roberts returned, Wei-Yin Chen returned to consistency (he scattered four runs over 6.1 innings, with two of those runs scoring at the end in the seventh), and Kevin Gregg got to try to close the game out and gave up a two-run homer to make the score 8-6. Buck had to bring in Jim Johnson because it became a save situation. Fortunately, Jim Johnson closed it out with ease, swiftly eliminating two opposing batters.

To be honest, if we didn’t beat the Pirates, I would have been a little sad since this is a great test for the Orioles – an opponent on their own level. With the teams sporting almost-identical records before the game, I thought that this series would be well-matched, but I was naturally hoping the Orioles would win just so that they could continue to convince the fanbase that they’re going to be a consistently good team this season. So far, they’ve done that except for Kevin Gregg, who is pretty consistently bad, but we don’t have to use him that much.

I rather like the way the Orioles looked tonight – they were able to soundly outperform a team with a record similar to theirs, which boosts my confidence in them even more. I’m still not entirely used to this success, but it’s starting to become something I expect out of them more and more, and I’m finding myself disappointed instead of complacent when they lose. That’s the number one reason I wanted them to especially win tonight, with the return of Brian Roberts – I wanted to see them win for him, for us, and for themselves and know that they could do it.

It’s June 12th. They’re a game out of first place behind the Yankees (and tied with the Rays – thanks, Mets!). I think I officially believe in this team.

At least we have this guy. (Wikipedia)

Well, for that first inning or two things looked great – Adam Jones homered in the second and Arrieta seemed, well, like Good Arrieta tonight.

Then the wheels fell off. Arrieta allowed two runs in the third and three in the fourth, then put two runners on in the fifth before being pulled from the game. Both runs came around to score, as well as a third which was charged to reliever Miguel Gonzalez (who is still better than Mike Gonzalez, to be fair).

Oh, and in the fifth, the umpire defied the Word of God and committed the cardinal sin of ejecting Matt Wieters from the game. Yeah. That’s…not good. Weets was just defending his pitcher (Gonzalez), too.

There was some good in all of this, however. Adam Jones went 3-for-3 with two walks at the plate tonight, slamming two homers on the evening. He’s got a 20-game hit streak going. I’d pick him in Beat the Streak, but then he wouldn’t hit. You can do it, though, since you don’t have my luck.

We also got Endy Chavez back and sent Tommy Hunter to AAA Norfolk. Avery went down to Norfolk, too, but Avery’s still a prospect and he was just filling in for Endy and Nolan Reimold on the roster, so it’s not as big a deal as it is to send down an established Major League starter. I still miss Koji, you know.

If we get swept tomorrow, it’ll be only the second time this year. I don’t even want to look up how many times we were swept by the end of May last year, but I’ll bet you it was a lot more than one or two.

Unfortunately, Bartolo Colon's last name is spelled like a part of the large intestine, which means you get this picture of the giant colon from the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia.

Things learned during this game:

• Nolan Reimold’s name is pronounced ‘Reimhold’ by Mike Bordick and possibly Dan Duquette. There is a German bakery a few towns away from my hometown called Reinhold’s, which is only one letter off. They make lovely cake. I wonder if Bordick’s been to Reinhold’s Bakery in Waldwick.
• Mark Reynolds knows how to stop, drop and roll at first base. This is useful if the base ever catches on fire.
• Mark Reynolds plays disturbingly well at first base, actually.
• Nick Markakis can still throw out runners at second after balls reach him in the outfield. This is reassuring.
• Nolan Reimold can rob home runs even when fans are trying to rob him.
• Robert Andino is good at baseball.
• So is Matt Wieters.
• On the days we finally field well, we can’t win…until late.

Bartolo Colon simply outpitched the Orioles today, and there’s really nothing you can say about that. He made some mistakes that the Orioles should have capitalized on and didn’t. It had to come on a day when the Orioles were actually able to defend and pitch well – it always seems like one or two parts of the equation are there, but there’s always something missing. Today it was offense…until the 9th.

Matt Wieters tied the game up by delivering a two-run double with only one out. He was lifted for pinch runner Endy Chavez (who wouldn’t be needed). Chris Davis was intentionally walked to get to struggling Wilson Betemit…who promptly dumped a ball in the seats. 5-2 Orioles.

This team is genuinely surprising sometimes.

When Britt Ghiroli tweeted this, it was only the 4th inning. More errors happened.

Hey, guess what we’re not good at?

To be fair, you were probably right no matter what you said.

Not even Brady Anderson can save the Orioles from making errors. (Screencap by me.)

Matusz pitched tonight. Matusz didn’t pitch as well at the beginning, but once he started mixing his pitches in, he looked significantly better – he even struck out six over his five innings of work (he pitched to three batters in the sixth and walked two of them – exhaustion and frustration clearly set in). The problem was the defense behind Matusz, which didn’t work even though Matusz was wearing Brady Anderson’s glove. The logic here is that Matusz wearing a glove belonging to a player who was offensively and defensively competent for the Orioles should make the team play well. It’s not sound logic, but baseball is a superstitious game and this is a West Coast series so I’m writing this in a state of incoherent exhaustion.

Over fifteen seasons, Brady Anderson made sixteen errors total. That’s in his career. Granted, outfielders don’t make as many errors as infielders because they don’t have to react as quickly to the ball, but sixteen errors over fifteen seasons is not many. The Orioles already have sixteen errors this year…and this was the fourteenth game of the season.

Matusz threw 100 pitches tonight, with 68 of them being strikes. The problem is that when he threw the strikes and people hit them, nobody behind Matusz could field them. Just like in his last start, Matusz pitched better than his line is going to show – he had to throw extra pitches and struggle through more batters just to clean up after his teammates.

Herein is our greatest problem so far this year – the errors. This team can’t defend. To be honest, they’d probably lose at Capture the Flag even if they hid it in the dolphin tank in the National Aquarium. The starting pitching this team’s gotten has been overall acceptable, and when the offense starts clicking, they’re pretty good, too. (The offense has been hit-or-miss, but that’s a whole other story.) The fact of the matter is that this defense is just not acceptable – how this team has a winning record is completely beyond me.

There’s an old baseball adage that goes “pitching wins championships.” Pitching is part of defense, especially when a pitcher throws to contact with the intent that the ball will be popped up or weakly grounded. You can’t win if you can’t make the other team stop scoring, and the Orioles just can’t do that.

I’m too tired to go and get the clip of the Morris Marina having a piano dropped on it, so just go back two entries and you’ll find it. It’s there.

Addendum: If you want something nice from this game, Nolan Reimold was a triple away from hitting for the cycle, including a two-run homer in the seventh. He should be starting every game, guys.

Bringing this back because I don't have any good shots of Nolan right now.

I missed a good portion of this game because of the engagement that I have every Tuesday night (Asperger’s social skills practice), so here is the most succinct recap I can give you without actually having watched a good majority of the game:

NOLAN REIMOLD AND J.J. HARDY DID STUFF

Really, that’s pretty much it. Nolan Reimold jacked a two-run shot in the top of the 6th, which J.J. Hardy promptly followed up with a solo homer. In the bottom of the inning, A.J. Pierzynski doubled in two runs to provide the only Chicago offense of the night. And that was pretty much everything, although Jim Johnson struggled a bit more than usual in the ninth (granted, there was an error that made things a little worse there, but amazingly for the Orioles nothing bad happened).

I guess an alternate summary could be EVERYTHING HAPPENED IN THE 6TH INNING or something like that.

Yep. Anyways, not watching the game is not fun, so tomorrow I get to watch the entire thing. Yaaaaay!

Tonight we learned that Po of Teletubbies fame is a White Sox fan. Or maybe an Orioles fan, too, despite his jersey. Either way, he had great seats at tonight’s game.

There was some good news from this game, and it came in the form of Jake Arrieta. Despite errors all around him, he managed to remain composed and push through, which is a huge step for a pitcher on the road to maturity. That being said, even though the offense got him a no-decision by tying things up late, he was let down by his defense, and that was mainly on Chris Davis.

Let’s talk about Chris Davis really quickly. It was painful, so I’ll try to get through it really quickly and go back to watching Richard Hammond run things over with a tank, which is what I’m doing now as I write this. Let’s not talk about the crush I had on Hammond in high school, okay? Basically, Chris Davis ruined the sixth inning by failing to catch two balls. This led to Arrieta having to make five outs total in the inning, throwing 30 pitches. It’s really not fair, considering that over his first five innings Arrieta only threw 65 total. He was cruising through this game.

Also of note is that Matt Wieters made two throwing errors tonight. Generally, he doesn’t make too many of those, but he’s made three this year already after making five total last season. That’s…not good. We need to fix that, Weets, because that’s disconcerting. Very, very disconcerting.

Oh, and Nolan Reimold made an Ike Davis catch (which means he flew over the railing but held on to the ball). Except there was a runner on third and it became a sac fly because Nolan was in the seats. Yep. I think that pretty much sums this game up in a nutshell – stuff like that.

Suddenly, everything changed in the ninth. Nolan Reimold hit a solo homer to bring the score to 4-3, and after an out Adam Jones slugged one, too, tying it up. And once again, there was free baseball. This is the tenth game of the season and the Orioles have already gone into extras twice already – three times in ten games is a little strenuous on the viewer in some cases, no?

Tonight, though, was a good case. Mark Reynolds led off in the tenth and hit what looked to be a long fly ball out to center. It was dropped, which somehow placed him on third base even though he didn’t hustle right out of the gate. Things got stranger when Chris Davis, the goat of the game up until this point, doubled off the wall in left field, which scored Reynolds. Andino then followed with an infield hit, which meant there were men on first and third with no outs for Nolan Reimold, who started the rally in the ninth. Nolan smacked a base hit, bringing home Davis. J.J. Hardy bunted, hoping to advance the runners…and ended up getting on base, loading them up instead.

The first out didn’t come until Markakis came up with the bases loaded and Andino was forced out at home. That’s how weird this tenth inning was. Jones followed with a strikeout, which continued his rough night at the plate, though. Meh.

And then God Weets hit a grand slam, making it 10-4. Pedro Strop, who came on in the ninth, ended up getting a win. He shut the door easily in the tenth and this team actually clawed back to a victory.

I can’t even. Between Richard Hammond driving a freaking tank on my TV and the Orioles doing this, I just can’t.

I should probably just go to bed now. Yay winning? Yay winning!

Once again, the Orioles play a game in which they go into the 9th inning tied.

This time, though, Nolan Reimold decided to change that.

With the two bird teams in the AL tied 4-4, Nolan Reimold stepped up to the plate and absolutely crushed a two-run homer to give the Orioles a 6-4 lead at a crucial moment. It certainly made the decision to give him a fair shot in left field this season look pretty darn good, didn’t it?

Then again, things look good when you’re successful. The Orioles are now 5-3, which is a surprisingly good record considering that they’ve played against two of their AL East opponents so far (and still have one more game against the Jays tomorrow). That effectively places the Orioles in first place in the AL East due to their being the only team that has five wins so far.

As I write this, the Red Sox are closing out a 13-5 win over the Rays. That puts the Rays’ record at 4-4, which has them tied with the Yankees and Blue Jays, and the Red Sox at 3-5, which still puts them in last place – but let’s be honest, it’s only been eight games. That being said, the Orioles have looked pretty good against teams with which they’re more evenly-matched – they handled the Twins easily and they’ve done nicely against the Blue Jays. The Yankees, naturally, were more of a problem, but at the very least, we’ve established that the Orioles can play well against teams on an even playing field.

So far, anyway.

Arrieta actually had a no-decision tonight, so this is just about the most useless cartoon ever, but I really don’t care because it was fun to draw. I might as well use it for all Arrieta recaps, actually.

Anyway, as usual, Jake Arrieta successfully kept the Yankees in check, allowing three scattered runs (two in the first on a homer) on his own before leaving with two outs in the seventh and a walked runner on first. Of course, Luis Ayala then let that runner score, which is why Arrieta only got a no-decision. Boo.

C.C. Sabathia, on the contrary, had a surprisingly rough night – the Orioles made him work starting in the second inning, but he soldiered through six innings and gave up four runs (Robert Andino had a two-run single and Mark Reynolds had a two-run double). Normally Sabathia owns the Orioles, so this was a surprise to me.

Oh, and then the Orioles were unsuccessful with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth, so extra innings happened again. And then they had two outs in the tenth and Nolan Reimold and Mark Reynolds collided trying to make a catch and Kevin Gregg gave up a two-run homer to Nick Swisher and they were losing. And then they lost. And that was pretty much it.

Welcome back to mediocrity.

Well, they had to lose sometime. Since I’m a little sad about that, here is a picture of Louise and Barnaby wearing rabbit ears.

Brian Matusz got his first start of the year tonight, and he struggled out of the gate – 30 pitches in the first inning alone. There was an error behind him, as well, and he exited after only four innings – he’d given up four runs in that span, with three of them coming in the fourth inning.

The thing that bothers me the most about Matusz’s outing tonight is that he threw 96 pitches, but only 52 for strikes. That’s about 54%, which isn’t too bad, but when you’ve walked four and you’ve only struck out one, it’s a bit of a glaring statistic. In that span, he saw 21 batters – comparatively, Ivan Nova, the starter for the Yankees, went seven full innings, saw 29 batters, and threw 92 pitches, 62 of which were strikes (67.4%). Big difference, considering that Nova had seven strikeouts.

To be fair, Matusz only gave up six hits, two of which came in the first, two of which came in the third (when no runs scored), and two of which came in the fourth. The fourth, Matusz’s bad inning, was an issue namely because Matusz walked too many people and there was an error from Nolan Reimold. Had Matusz’s pitch count not been as high, he might have been given a chance to work through that inning, but given that he’s coming off of surgery and other issues, yanking him was probably for the best, at least tonight.

On the positive side, Matt Wieters homered, doubled, and singled twice, so there’s that, at least. Sometimes, all you can do is look at the positives and be happy that they happened.