O, those hapless O's!

Oh, those hapless Baltimore Orioles!

We knew the team was going to suck this year. At least  I did. And I’m too old to buy in to the “rebuilding” bull being marketed once again. I’ve been through too many “rebuilding” years to believe it will ever really happen. I just smile when I hear the young or naive fans talk about "rebuilding." 

While I didn’t expect the team to finish above last place, I did expect them to lose fewer games this year than last … which, as you may recall, was a near-record 115 games in the L column. But it sure looks like they are on pace to beat that number.

So I’m back to cheering like I was toward the end of last year … embracing the philosophy of if you’re going to do something, be the best ever. Set records. Have folks talking about you (remember, any attention is good attention).

The Orioles are so bad, they are garnering national media attention for all the wrong reasons.

Take, for example, this headline from a recent Onion article: “Norfolk Tides Third Baseman Sent Down To Baltimore Orioles.”

Photo Credit: The Onion

The story begins with this: “Hoping to give the still-developing prospect more time to find his game, the Norfolk Tides announced Wednesday that third-baseman Anderson Feliz would be sent down to the Baltimore Orioles.”

Anderson, according to the satirical piece, is dealing with injuries and is in a bit of a slump, so management decided to send him to Baltimore to “build up his confidence.” The plan is to have Anderson continue to work on the fundamentals needed to play consistently in Triple A competition.

It’s cute and a fun little read. How nice of the Orioles to provide such fodder for comedy writers.

Writer Ted Berg had some fun at the expense of the Birds and their fans when he wrote a USA Today sports column titled “At least you’re not a Baltimore Orioles fan.”

Unless, of course, you are. Berg writes: “But no matter how bad it gets this year — and for roughly half of MLB teams, it’s already pretty bad — you can take solace in this: Al least you’re not a fan of the 2019 Baltimore Orioles.”

He then highlights some possible record-breaking performances the team might achieve: They remain on pace to shatter the all-time mark for home runs allowed in a season; they currently have the worst record in MLB with (at the time) 21 wins and 51 losses (since the article was published June 18, the Orioles have “improved” to a record of 22-58 (through June 26); they became the fourth-fastest team THIS CENTURY to lose 50 games (and two of the other teams were also the Orioles, according to Berg.

He laments the team trading away Manny Machado, who he refers to as “the best player they’ve developed since Cal Ripken, and notes that only one of the five players received in exchange for Machado is playing well. Manny just visited Baltimore asa member of the San Diego Padres and killed us with his bat and his glove. No surprise there.

So, the main take-away seems to be that if you’re going to be bad, be the best (worst?) bad you can possibly be.

Perhaps Michael Givens can set the record for the most blown saves. Chris Davis can take two titles with Most Strikeouts Ever and Lowest Batting Average Ever. Maybe a third title could be Highest Paycheck Given for Lousy Performance. The collective pitching staff can be proud of the most homers ever given up by a team. Maybe the team can even boast about having the largest single-season decline in ticket sales. Think about it — the possibilities are endless.

Gotta go — need to rest up for tonight's game!