Gary Lambrecht, The Examiner
2008-05-02 07:00:00.0
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BALTIMORE -

As the Orioles began the second month of their season of reconstruction on Thursday afternoon, they were on pace to finish with 90 wins. No fooling.

With all due respect to Baltimore manager Dave Trembley, who gets a bit irritated by all of the talk about how this hungry squad has surpassed the customary low expectations around here, raise your hand if you think the Birds will keep it up for the next five months.

Anyone? Not even you, Mrs. Trembley?

On the surface, I’m not too caught up in the 15-12 record the Orioles put together in April, which was good for second place in the American League East. Sure, it was their best opening month since 2005. That was a year like several others of recent vintage, a year when they found all kinds of ways to tumble, in that case all the way to their eighth straight losing season.

What has drawn me in with this group points to some other numbers. Nine times already, the Orioles have come from behind to win. Even bigger, they are 7-2 in one-run games.

The significance of that can’t be understated, even at this early point of the 162-game slog. It points to competitiveness, heart, timely hits, decent starting pitching, a deeper bullpen and the presence of a legitimate closer. It also means the Orioles already have won more than half of the one-run contests they took last year.

Last year, the 10th straight losing season at Camden Yards, the Orioles were 13-31 in one-run decisions.

Show me a baseball team that can’t win the tight ones — can’t hold an early lead with a shaky bullpen, can’t steal a base or produce a hit to ignite a big inning, can’t shut down the opponent with good starting pitching, can’t escape trouble with great defense — and I’ll show you a loser.

I’ll show you the Orioles for much of the past decade.

At least this team, for now, seems to have a grasp on how to hang around and win a game. Or just hang around and compete. It’s a start, even though watching the Orioles engage in the act of hitting (.247 team average) is not easy on the eyes, and watching Trembley working his bench is...wait a minute, he has no bench.

 “We’ve got a much better bullpen, the starting pitchers have done a great job keeping us in there. Offensively, it’s someone different every night,” said first baseball Kevin Millar, who is representing the cleanup spot with a .215 average and seven extra-base hits in 107 at-bats. “We have a scrappy group. It’s not a fancy baseball group with a bunch of fancy statistics. We’re going to grind you out.”

The only grinding during a 4-2 loss to Tampa Bay on Thursday was Trembley’s teeth, while the punchless Orioles were trying to solve the immortal Matt Garza. The Birds produced one base runner after Adam Jones’ game-tying, two-run homer in the fourth inning.

The Orioles seem to have one part of the equation figured out pretty well. They have stockpiled a good supply of arms, even though you wonder how long Trembley can stick with 13 pitchers, given how that limits his ability to make late-game moves with his offense and defense.

For now, the model of success is pretty clear: Find a way to get into the middle innings with a lead, and allow a bullpen augmented by the likes of Matt Albers, Randor Bierd, Dennis Sarfate — and of course, closer George Sherrill (10 saves) — to take care of the rest.

So far this season, the Orioles are 9-0 when leading after seven innings, 10-0 when leading after eight.

The Orioles are not going to win 90 games. But if they keep finding ways to get into the tight spots and collect their share of victories along that route, this season will get more interesting.

I’ll take that.

Gary Lambrecht writes about the NFL, Major League Baseball and college sports. He can be reached at glambrecht@baltimoreexaminer.com.