With the Orioles staring down a possible ninth losing season in a row, Orioles executive vice president of baseball operations Mike Flanagan said he still believes in the team assembled for this season.
“You?d like to see improvement,” Flanagan told The Examiner. “The guys haven?t had a good streak this year, a good sustained streak of 15 to 20 games. You?ve seen a lot of other clubs do that. I think we have that kind of club, but it seems like every time we get rolling either an injury comes along or something out of the blue.”
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Flanagan continued: “They?re not excuses, they?re realities of things that have happened.”
Injuries have indeed taken their toll on the team as it enters the All-Star break after this weekend. The current club inside the locker room at Camden Yards barely resembles the one that started the season, outside of stars like shortstop Miguel Tejada, third baseman Melvin Mora and BrianRoberts.
Outfielders Jay Gibbons and Nick Markakis were sidelined with injuries while Luis Matos, once a starter, was designated for assignment Thursday due to poor hitting and injuries. Players who started the season for AAA Ottawa are getting significant playing time.
Meanwhile, the pitching staff has struggled. Bruce Chen was demoted from starter to reliever, while Rodrigo Lopez and Daniel Cabrera have been inconsistent at best. The lone standouts have been starters Erik Bedard and Kris Benson, as well as closer Chris Ray, who already has 20 saves in his first full season on the job.
“You look how strong this club is up the middle and with [closer Chris] Ray on the end of the bullpen, I still feel good about this club,” Flanagan said.
Flanagan was reluctant to say whether the team will spend wildly in an effort to compete with the Yankees and Red Sox in the American League East. The Orioles once spent on the level of those teams in the mid-1990s, during the team?s playoff run, but with little success.
In 1998 and 1999, the team spent money on aging stars like Joe Carter, Will Clark and Albert Belle, only to see those signings fizzle into low production or injury-plagued seasons. Those signings appear to have scared off the Orioles in the free-agent market, outside of the signing of Miguel Tejada before two seasons ago.
Flanagan said modern economics in baseball and confirmed past failures in the free-agent market have made the team skittish to repeat their spending ways on all-stars.
“We can?t sustain that. We can?t carry that loss. Whereas the clubs that have the greater revenue sources can swallow a mistake or two up and move on and get another player. We don?t have that capability,” Flanagan said.
