Orioles: Definitely A Lesser Team

(and a lesser city!)

One of the things that's frustrated me this season was how the team's relentless message of '08 or bust combined with the craptastic start have killed much of the passion. I've written many times before -- you're probably sick of hearing it -- about how I don't get into the ebb and flow of the wins and losses. I watch mostly as a moderately dispassionate observer. I'll smile when they do well, but when they lose, I don't really react, cause that's what we're supposed to do. (That's Article III of "The PLAN!")

Tonight was a little different. I got into it.

I don't know if it's my hatred with Angelos and the Orioles that did it, or if it's the fact that this crappy team (Any team with Micah Bowie, Levale Speigner and Jason Simontacchi is crappy, REGARDLESS of performance) is actually doing well. It's a helluva lot easier to root for a .500ish team than the dog we saw early on in the season.

During my rants in the offseason, that's all I wanted. I didn't expect them to back up the truck to sign Soriano -- funny how all the people crowing about how terrible he was after one month of play aren't saying anything now that he's upped his stats and is having a season as good as last year's. But I did want them to throw a little money, just to make the team .500ish.

Sure, there's no guarantee that they'd do well with extra players (especially because one of the guys I wanted them to target looks like he's on the verge of TJ surgery). But it would've given them the illusion of competitiveness.

As it is, only now, after 3-4 weeks of sustained solid play, am I starting to come around.

Yes, that's probably more a problem with me than the team, but if there wasn't so much buzz about how shitty this team was going to be in the offseason how many other fans would be interested in watching what is a hard-working if imperfect team? (I'll note, too, that some of those expectations of lousy play were coming from the team itself, and that it's not just a media creation as some idjuts seem to always whine.)

On that matter, at least, it seems like the team has shot themselves in the foot a bit.

But for tonight, it was nice to see Lopez sneak that ball down the line, scoring three, after both teams had spent the night trading seeing-eye singles and bloops and bleeders. It was an ugly game. But it was a fun game. It would've stunk if we had lost, but I'm happier that we won. And I'm happier that we won tonight, than I was when we won two weeks ago. That's progress.