Matt Albers. Daniel Cabrera. Jeremy Guthrie. Jim Johnson. Dennis Sarfate. George Sherrill. Jamie Walker.
All are key members of the Orioles’ pitching staff, and all missed significant time with injuries this season.
But it didn’t stop there.
Trade acquisition Troy Patton tore his rotator cuff early in spring training, and promising left-hander Adam Loewen’s elbow injuries ended his promising pitching career.
By the time the Orioles concluded their 68-93 season — the team’s 11th straight with a losing record — their injured pitchers outnumbered their healthy ones.
But in Baltimore, that’s nothing new. In each of the past few seasons, the Orioles’ pitching staff has been battered as much by injuries than opposing hitters.
“This team has been pretty snakebitten with pitching injuries the last two years I’ve been here. I’ve never seen a team have so many pitchers injured,” designated hitter Aubrey Huff said. “That’s how you win baseball games, with pitching. We’ve been snakebitten.”
This year, the Orioles used 13 starting pitchers, and 26 players appeared in at least one game by season’s end.
Certainly, poor performance played a role in the inflated numbers, but so did the 16 pitchers who spent time on the disabled list.
Nine pitchers suffered injured shoulders, with six sidelined by ailing elbows and one because of a strained hamstring.
Patton and Jim Hoey missed the season recovering from shoulder surgeries, and Danys Baez, Chris Ray and Fernando Cabrera missed the season rehabilitating from surgeries last season. Loewen had surgery last season, recovered, but re-injured his elbow and has opted to try to make it back to the majors as an outfielder. Dennis Sarfate was scheduled to undergo surgery on his fractured clavicle — a non-baseball injury — earlier this week.
“Are we snakebitten? No, I don’t believe that,” pitching coach Rick Kranitz said. “Guys just have to be ready for the full six months, and not five or four. It takes conditioning early, and you have to be ready for six grueling months.”
In the past, former first round picks Beau Hale, Richard Stahl and Mike Paradis saw their careers curtailed with injuries in the minors.
Jeremy Guthrie recovered from a shoulder injury to become the team’s only member of the starting rotation to finish the season as a starter.
“It didn’t mean anything to anybody for me to go out and start today,” Guthrie said after a season-ending, 10-1 loss to Toronto. “I was healthy, and when I’m healthy I want to pitch.”
The Orioles will address their pitching injuries during team meetings in early October.
“We’re going to look at the throwing program, we’re going to review the conditioning program, the strength program, I think every conceivable avenue will be looked at to see what we can do to improve,” Manager Dave Trembley said. “I think a lot of it could be coincidence, but we’re going to make sure that it’s not and see what we can do to make it better.”
