A Long Season Ahead of Us: Bedard Lit Up; More Roberts, Gloom & Doom, The Roundup...

First off, hope everyone is having a good weekend and we are only less than eight days from real baseball.

It's obvious that the Baltimore Orioles will have their 11th losing season, and parts of the season, will be frankly painful -- let's keep in the mind changes made.

Second, we finally have started to rebuild -- something that needed to be done long ago. With new blood on the roster, perhaps they can be part of the core for the subsequent seasons ahead.

As mentioned yesterday, Jeremy Guthrie will get the Opening Day nod, and the team made the right choice. Steve Trachsel may be a veteran; however, the numbers don't lie -- Guthrie is better.

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Well, our former talented, surly, enigmatic ace, Erik Bedard is being lit up in Cactus League action.

From the Sun: Former Oriole Erik Bedard struggled for the third straight start, giving up seven runs in five innings in an 8-3 loss to the Royals. After the game, Bedard -- whose ERA dipped to 9.50 -- said he doesn't know why he's struggling. "They're hitting it out of the ballpark," he said. "It's only going to concern me if it happens during the season."

Not that Spring Training has really been a indicator of performance during the regular season, considering the profile of the trade and the expectations of Bedard, Seattle may want to be a little concerned.

Granted, he started out in a so-so fashion in 2007, and then was virtually unbeatable in May and thereafter, he'll need to get himself in gear if Seattle is going to contend in the AL West

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Meanwhile, Brian Roberts is still an Oriole and is dealing with trade talk the best he can, albeit, he's bothered by it all; Kevin Millar was hit on the hand on Friday, and while he didn't break anything, he suffered a laceration on his finger and will miss a few games. As well, he'll be batting (cleanup?) perhaps when the year starts -- the question is will Huff and he even hit 30 plus homers as a tandem?

Roch Kubatko reports that Mike Costanzo, Omir Santos and Luis Terrero will report to minor league camp as they have been cut from the big league squad. Meanwhile, there should be a final round of cuts taking place this week and a lot of the guys mentioned may not make the team due to a numbers game.

The Washington Post's Marc Carig notes that the bullpen, spearheaded by a lot of youngsters, will try improve a portion of the squad that was nothing but atrocious in 2007.

Rocky Cherry seems to be ready for the demotion, despite his excellent Grapefruit League season, and the Baltimore Examiner has a piece on Luis Terrero.

WNST's Nestor Aparicio wonders who George Sherill is; alas, while Nestor loves the Orioles, he knows they won't be good and the losing is killing the community at large, and a vital part of the area around the Camden Yards -- the businesses.

No matter how you feel about WNST, his thoughts on the impact of business that depend on foot traffic from Oriole Park thanks to the losing is undeniable.

Although it is looking like Tike Redman will be a reserve player (assuming he even makes the team), he's still taking out the time to be a mentor to Adam Jones, who will be the everyday centerfielder.

The Baltimore Sun's Ray Frager thinks the Orioles have bright spots despite it all; WNST's Drew Forrester is ready for the Orioles lose, however, he wants to see some improvement with the organization on the field and PR-wise.