Better Know a MLB Team: Part Three

My third team I will be covering is the Baltimore Orioles. They have taken second place from the Yankees as of 5/19/07 and are average baseball.

Here is some history of the Baltimore Orioles. In 1953, "baseball's owners unanimously agreed upon the move of the St. Louis Browns to Baltimore." There first season as the Baltimore Orioles in 1954 they went 54-100 and were 57 games out of first place in their division. In 1961 the Orioles won 95 games but still fininshed 14 games behind the Yankees. In 1966 the Orioles defeated the L.A. Dodgers in their first trip to the World Series in a 4 game sweep. In 1992 a new stadium was built for the Orioles, it is called Camden Yards. On September 5th and 6th 1995 Cal Ripken Jr. (left) became baseballs all-time "Iron man" by tying and breaking Lou Gehrig's consecutive games played streak with 2,130.

Now, to this season. Right now the Orioles are 19-23 but are 10 games behind the red hot Red Sox. They are 12-8 at home but only 7-15 on the road. They are 11-9 against the AL East but have struggled against the Central (7-12) and the West (0-2). In their last 10 games, they have won 5 and lost 5. They also have struggled during the day (4-8) and on turf (2-7) and are average at night (15-15) and on the grass (17-16). They have played a lot of 1 run games, going 5-8 in those games. However, they are very good in extra innings, going 3-1.

This season, the Orioles have decent infielders but their outfield struggles. The infield has names like Melvin Mora, Miguel Tejada, Brian Roberts and Aubrey Huff. There outfield has Nick Markakis, Jay Gibbons and Corey Patterson (left). Markakis is the best hitter of them all, batting .250 (ouch!). There pitching staff isn't anything grand either. I haven't heard of most of them. Many of the players for the Orioles are people who were on the Chicago Cubs roster in the last couple years, such as Corey Patterson, Paul Bako, Freddie Bynum, Scott Williamson and many years ago Steve Trachsel. And going by how well they did in Chicago, it could be a long year for the Orioles.

Information from http://baltimore.orioles.mlb.com/bal/history/index.jsp