When the 2007 edition of the Baltimore Orioles gathered in Fort Lauderdale this spring, several observers remarked that, if everything broke right for the Birds, they might have as many as nine players finish with 20 or more home runs this year.
Miguel Tejada, Melvin Mora, Jay Gibbons, Aubrey Huff, Kevin Millar, Ramon Hernandez and Jay Payton all had already enjoyed big league seasons of 20 or more home runs during their careers, and Brian Roberts (18) and Nick Markakis (16) had come close. The expression “offensive juggernaut” crept into several conversations along the way.
What is it they say about the “best-laid plans?” With 98 games to play this year, only Markakis is on track to top 20 home runs, Mora might just get there and the other seven guys likely will have to settle for a number in the mid-teens or less.
Injuries have obviously played a role in the black-and-orange power outage. Hernandez and Payton have both spent time on the DL. Millar and Gibbons aren’t everyday players this year. The others simply haven’t been driving the ball.
You can chalk up part of the problem to the aging process. Tejada just turned 31, though he looks older than that, and has seen his home run numbers fall annually since he arrived. It’s not fair to assume that he’d always put up 34 home runs and 150 RBI like he did in his first season in Baltimore in 2004. But his propensity to hit the ball on the ground to right field this year has to be of some concern to team officials.
Mora is 35, and like Tejada, has seen a decline in his offensive numbers. Gibbons is only 30, but over the past few seasons has been plagued with a series of back, hip, and knee injuries that have limited his playing time and potency at the plate.
The 2006 Orioles scored 768 runs. At the one-third pole this year, they were 27-27, and were on track to score 729 runs, clearly a move in the wrong direction. So much attention has been paid to the occasional meltdowns ofthe beefed-up bullpen, but manager Sam Perlozzo had it right the other day when he said the club can’t wait much longer for some of his hitters to get it going.
“We’re wasting a lot of good pitching when we can’t score,” he said. “We need some guys to pick up the pace. We need to get going.”
Perlozzo obviously understands that if the club can’t get going, he might be told to get going. As we’ve stated in this space many times, changing skippers, more often than not, has only a transient effect on a roster. In the Orioles’ case, in particular, a successor is not likely to come from within, and anyone from the outside would need the rest of the season to figure out his own game plan.
Summer officially arrives next week. Oriole hitters are hoping their bats heat up along with the weather.
Contact Phil Wood at [email protected].
