As the O's annual late-second-half nosedive nears its completion, it's time to wonder out loud (for one of the final times in '08, but in preparation for such times in '09) why the hell there are exactly zero (0!) members of the Birds' rotation capable of pitching consistently into and out of the fifth inning.
We're not counting Jeremy Guthrie here, who's on the Disabled List and won't pitch again this season. Who we are counting is Radhames Liz, Garrett Olson, Brian Burres, Daniel Cabrera and, when he still was a pitcher, Adam Loewen. Not to mention all the arms down on the farm that are having trouble making the leap.
Is it an organizational problem? The O's haven't developed a single top-flight MLB pitcher since Mike Mussina in the early 90s. Sure, you could count Erik Bedard. But he never made it through a full season in Baltimore's rotation and made only 15 starts this season, his first in Seattle.
It seems that any pitcher the Birds bring up to the Bigs either can't throw enough strikes to get through five innings with less than 475 pitches, or doesn't have the health to get through a full season. This from the organization that once sported four 20-game winners in the same summer and counts Hall of Famer Jim Palmer amongst its home grown talent. Palmer, for the record, completed 211 of the 521 starts he made in his career. That means he's batting .405 when it comes to pitching all nine innings of a ballgame.
So why now are pitchers unable to last a whole season pitching every fifth day, when guys like Palmer pitched in a four-man rotation? Major Leaguers were discouraged from lifting weights until the 1980s; might this have something to do with the apparent extra wear-and-tear on a pitcher's arm?
I know that it's unfair to compare Palmer, a Hall of Famer, to every retread trotted out to the mound at Oriole Park in the last 10 years. I know that the game has changed since Palmer's heydey in the 60s and 70s and that pharmacology has played a large role in baseball becoming a more offensive game.
I also know middle relievers make loads of green to get anywhere from one-to-three outs. I know pitchers are managed differently because of it.
All I'm saying is maybe, just maybe, the O's organization took the league-wide move toward specialized pitching a tad too seriously.
Do you really need an eighth inning specialist?
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