Where do we go from here?

The Orioles were destroyed by Jair Jurrjens last night, one hit shutout. Ugh.

The Orioles are sitting at nine games under 500 right now, 13.5 games out of first and fans are pretty much ready to once again call it a season before the All-Star Break. The Baltimore Sun ran an interesting story today entitled “A Step Forward?” Basically, yes the Orioles record is better than last year, a lot better actually but so what. The same problems are still lingering. It still boggles the mind how year-after-year the worst-case-scenario happens for the Orioles.

Take last year: Injuries to the starting staff, Reimold’s ankle and other struggles, Adam Jones can’t take a walk, Brain Roberts’ back, Wieters’ struggles, Garrett Atkins, Kevin Millwood, Michael Gonzalez.

Now this year: Markakis has no power; Brian Roberts (again); Wieters still not Jesus; Vlad is a singles hitter; Matusz ; Tillman; Bergesen; Guthrie; Britton struggles out of the gate, Michael Gonzalez.

The Orioles starters still aren’t pitching deep into games, there are still bullpen concerns and the offense disappears so often that they are starting to put pictures on milk cartons. Buck Showalter is not a miracle worker and too much weight was put on his shoulders from day one. You can blame the Orioles marketing department for that one as it played on the emotions and desires of a long suffering fanbase. But he is a manger, a great manager, but anyone expecting a complete turnaround simply because of his presence in the clubhouse was kidding themselves.

So now the Orioles have improved from historically bad to just bad. There really isn’t any way to sugarcoat it anymore. Yes, teams have come back from lower lows and there is a lot of season left to play but what can the Orioles do?

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