Jeremy Guthrie's uncharacteristic mound meltdown was just the beginning of an ugly evening that also has featured Melvin Mora limping off the field with a hamstring injury, Ramon Hernandez getting ejected for arguing balls and strikes and some apparent friction between reliever Fernando Cabrera and manager Dave Trembley.
In other words, it's late August and the Orioles are falling apart, which isn't going to be pretty. That's one of the reasons I made such a case for Trembley's contract extension. I know it's supposed to be a foregone conclusion, but the players are getting tired and grumpy and the fans are getting restless. The longer his job security is considered a non-issue, the more likely it is going to become one.
Somebody told me the other day that there are some players in the clubhouse who are not so enamored with Trembley's management style anymore, and I couldn't help but laugh. There isn't a major league team -- and that includes the three teams with 80-plus wins -- that doesn't have a player or two who thinks the manager is an idiot. The farther you go down the standings, the more of those players there are likely to be.
If you want the best example of that I can come up with, it would be the Rays near the end of Lou Piniella's tenure with the team. The guy is a proven winner and the Rays had never won anything, but you'd be surprised how many players thought that Piniella was the problem and weren't afraid to go off the record to tell that to a national baseball writer they had never met before.
The point I'm trying to make is this: The 2008 season was supposed to be a washout from the start. Now that's it's finally washing out, it's not fair to start pointing fingers and trying to evaluate everybody based on revised expectations, especially in a rapidly deteriorating competitive environment.
AP photo
