Tony Giro, The Examiner
2008-05-09 07:00:00.0
Current rank: Not ranked

BALTIMORE -

Legendary Orioles manager Earl Weaver won 1,480 games employing the mantra “pitching, defense and the three-run homer.”

Current Orioles skipper Dave Trembley would settle for his team to master any one of those three facets of the game, as the Orioles’ free fall continues.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Entering Thursday night’s game in Kansas City, the Orioles were losers of five straight, 7-of-8 and 9-of-11 to fall two games below .500. They are nose-diving so quickly they should petition for the month of May to be officially changed to Mayday.

In the amount of time it takes first base coach John Shelby to yell “back” to a baserunner, the Birds have slipped from sole possession of first place to their familiar perch: last place in the American League East.

(By the way, what in the name of Tippy Martinez is going on with the runners at first base? So many Orioles are getting picked off, I’m starting to think opponents have snipers in the dugout. Maybe Shelby should give each player who reaches base a handheld GPS so he can find his way back to the bag on pick-off attempts.)

The disheartening thing about the Orioles’ recent struggles is they are a scrappy, likable and competitive bunch who is in nearly every game. But because the Orioles aren’t doing the, “little things,” as Trembley likes to call them, April’s prizes have given way to May’s demises.

Basically, instead of finding ways to win games like they did early in the season, they are now finding ways to lose.

When the club was doing the “little things” and catching breaks from the baseball gods, they were winning close games and flaunting their orange and black foliage as proudly as a peacock. A couple of Birds even went so far as to peck at some local media members for questioning the team’s fast start.

Now that they are struggling to run the bases, turning that crucial, inning-ending double play or advancing runners to get them in with less than two outs, the Orioles aren’t doing quite as much chirping.

I’m not saying the players believed the hype, but maybe they thought they were a little better than they really are.

The fact is the Orioles have a Nicole Richie-thin margin for error. They do all the “little things” right and they can hover around the .500 mark for the season. They don’t, and it’s hello darkness, my old friend.

No one expected their red-hot start to last. That’s not a condemnation, an excuse for playing poorly or a lowering of Trembley’s high expectations.

It’s the truth.

The Orioles simply do not have the horses to run with the thoroughbred New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox or even the stud Toronto Blue Jays and Tampa Bay Rays in baseball’s toughest division.

And let’s face it: before the season started, the Orioles had about as much shot of winning the A.L. East as Carmelo Anthony has of being the Fraternal Order of Police’s Citizen of the Year.

The good news about this recent nose-dive — if there is such a thing — is it doesn’t stem from locker room dissension, utility player detention or one player’s jealousy over another’s salary ascension like it has in years past.

The simple fact is the team just isn’t that good. Sure, they have some pieces to the future puzzle, but there are huge holes throughout the roster. As the saying goes, a team is only as good as its weakest link and the Orioles have more weak links than a Texas-Mexico border fence.

And now 34 games into the season, those weaknesses are being exposed like Janet Jackson at the Super Bowl.

Tony Giro is a lifelong Baltimore sports fan who blogs on examiner.com for fans. If you subscribe — it’s free — you’ll be e-mailed each time Tony posts a column. He can be reached at timeout@baltimoreexaminer.com.