If at the beginning of the year someone told me that the Orioles would be in second place, two games out of first place at the All-Star Break I'd have been pretty pleased at the notion.  The relative disappointment regarding the Orioles current position that's been emanating recently from the Baltimore faithful is, of course, the function of raised expectations.  The Birds, after all, spent the lion's share of the season's first half in first place and spent most of the previous three-odd weeks prior to the Break playing their worst baseball of the year.  A bit of the edge was taken off the calamitous sinking feeling that afflicted many Orioles fans as the All-Star Game approached by the club's resurgent performance against the AL East leading Boston Red Sox on the final weekend of the season's unofficial first half.  The Orioles took three of four games from Boston, largely on the strength of Thursday's rain and the brilliant performances by Bruce Chen and Rodrigo Lopez on Saturday and Sunday respectively.

The Orioles' postseason chances as the season continues Thursday are greatly aided by the lack of a complete team in this year's version of the American League East.  The Orioles are a flawed club, certainly, but so are their competitors.

The Toronto Blue Jays, who have arguably been as big a surprise as the Orioles this season, will be without ace starter Roy Halladay--a serious candidate for the Cy Young Award before suffering a non-displaced fracture last week--for at least a month.  The Jays have been staying on the fringe of contention with Halladay, so it's hard to imagine how they'll avoid slipping back without him.  

The Red Sox continue to put a potent offense on the field, but their pitching staff is loaded with question marks.  The rotation has had no more than one dependable starter (Matt Clement) and the bullpen has, if anything, been even less reliable (right-hander Mike Timlin has been the only relief pitcher Boston has been able to count on).  Now the BoSox are hoping that erstwhile starting ace Curt Schilling will provide a dependable late-inning arm.  

The Yankees have also been an offensive wrecking crew, led in recent weeks by Jason Giambi's redux, but New York is a poor defensive club and arguably has an even bigger pitching mess than Boston.  The Yankees have had no truly consistent starters this season, and the effective part of the bullpen has largely been limited to Mariano Rivera, sore-armed and overworked Tom Gordon, and to a certain extent, Tanyon Sturtze.  The Yankees are incredibly thin in terms of pitchers, as each injury to a New York hurler has shown.  New York has had to slug its way into a competitive position and there's absolutely no reason to assume that this won't continue to be the case.

Both the Red Sox and Yankees can be expected to attempt to make deals, as the July 31 waiver deadline approaches, to strengthen themselves, but it's unclear at this point what they'll be able to pull off.  Neither team is rich in high end minor league players that other clubs want in "talent for talent" deals and the Yankees, in particular, are limited in their ability to assume the cost of other club's salary dumps.

So, in light of all that, what needs to happen in Baltimore for the Orioles to take advantage of the problems elsewhere in the East and win the division?

1.  Derail the Injury Train  It's not a coincidence that the Orioles' roll petered out--and ultimately crashed and burned--as the club suffered injury after injury to key position players beginning in early May and continuing until early July.  Of the nine players in the opening day starting lineup, six have missed significant time thus far this season, with four going on the disabled list and the other two missing enough time that they might as well have been placed on the DL.  In addition, reserves B.J. Surhoff and Geronimo Gil have also been placed on the disabled list this season.  It's no secret that the Orioles' organization is extremely limited in terms of position player depth. This was evidenced in bold relief when starting center fielder Luis Matos broke his finger on an early May bunt attempt and was replaced on the big league roster by Jeff Fiorentino, a 2004 draft pick in his first full season of pro ball and playing at Single-A Frederick.  The Orioles actually played remarkably well in light of all the injuries, but ultimately the replacements became palpably overexposed (e.g. Chris Gomez), or never really stepped up in the first place (e.g. David Newhan).  Baltimore simply cannot weather substantial injuries to position players on the big league roster; another siege even remotely like the one in the first half (of the starters, only catcher Javy Lopez remains injured, and the hope is that he'll be ready to go within three weeks or so) will almost certainly doom the Orioles to also ran status.

2.  Deal with the Ponson Scenario With Erik Bedard, the most consistent, reliable and productive starter the Orioles had until he was placed on the disabled list in late May, poised to make his first post-injury start next Monday, the Birds are about to experience a substantial boost to their starting rotation.  With Bruce Chen apparently healthy again, as evidenced by his excellent performance against Boston last weekend, with Rodrigo Lopez coming off one of the best starts of his career (also against the Red Sox last weekend), and with Daniel Cabrera--still inconsistent, but continuing to show regular flashes of dominance--the Orioles arguably have the division's best starting staff.  But Sidney Ponson remains a black mark on the rotation.  Ponson is either injured, and not admitting it, or is in a serious state of decline due to career pitch overload, or something...but his stuff isn't what it once was and his command is no better than it's ever been.  Since seeing his ERA dip below five following a solid, if unspectacular start in Pittsburgh in early June, Ponson has made six starts, covering 34 innings.  He's allowed 55 hits, including six home runs, 30 runs (all earned), walked 12 and struck out 17.  He's 1-4 in those games with an ERA of 7.94.  For the entire season, Ponson has allowed 186 baserunners in 107 2/3 innings pitched.  His ERA for the year is presently 5.93.

Ponson is signed through next year.  He's scheduled to start one of the games in Seattle this weekend.  I have no expectation that the Orioles are going to cast him aside any time in the immediate future.  But at the very least, I'd like to see them turn Ponson into a legitimate fifth starter.  The Orioles haven't really had a fifth starter at any point this year.  A fifth starter, for most teams, is the guy who's skipped when the team has an off-day, and who works out of the bullpen as a long man or mop up reliever when not scheduled to start.  The Orioles haven't skipped a pitcher's turn, except due to injury, all year.  Ponson has allowed fewer hits than innings pitched in only three of his 18 starts this year and not since May 11 (a string of 11 consecutive starts).  Opponents are pasting him to the tune of a .331 batting average this season and he's fanning fewer than five men per nine innings.  Only six of Ponson's starts this year have been of the "quality variety."

Ideally, jettisoning Ponson entirely might well be the preferred course of action, but at the very least it would seem it's time to minimize the number of games he appears in, barring some miraculous "on a dime" turnaround.  

3.  Settle the Sosa Situation  Sammy Sosa was a good gamble, in my estimation, this off-season, but unfortunately the experiment hasn't been a successful one at all.  Sosa hasn't really had a single legitimate hot spell all season, and over the last few weeks, he's been beyond wretched.  Orioles fans have been forced to look upon the occasional walk and the periodic hard hit foul ball as positive signs.

Since hitting a home run against Colorado on June 18, Sosa has seven hits in 58 at-bats (.121), with one extra base hit (a double), giving him a slugging percentage of .138.  He has drawn nine walks in that time, but his OBP during this stretch is only .239.  In the same period, he's fanned 15 times.  He's sat out three games since June 18, and, legitimately, you could count the number of hard hit balls off Sosa's bat--fair or foul--on both hands.

So, Sosa's in a horrid slump.  Maybe beyond horrid.  But the problem is that he wasn't particularly productive before this pitiful downturn.  For the season, Sosa is .225/.305/.383, roughly equivalent to the miserable 2004 campaign endured by Jay Gibbons.  When the Orioles acquired Sosa, with all of the discussion swirling around about whether Sosa was in full blown decline as an offensive player, virtually everyone comforted themselves with the thought that, no matter how bad Sosa might have fallen, he would certainly significantly outperform Gibbons' incumbent right field numbers.  Incredibly, it hasn't happened, and we're now more than three months into the season.

There are, really, no in-house replacements for Sosa, which is certainly one reason why his (virtually) every day appearance in the starting lineup has persisted as long as it has.  But I would have to think that the Orioles are basically hoping against hope that, over the All-Star Break, Sosa has remembered how to hit, much as Jason Giambi appears to have done recently.  This isn't simply a matter of Sosa not hitting as well as the club has hoped.  Since mid-June, Sosa has devolved into, essentially, a bad-hitting pitcher in the middle of the lineup.  Obviously this can't continue much longer if the Orioles hope to contend the rest of the way.  I submit that the Birds have perhaps 10 more days to see if Sosa is capable of at least becoming something akin to a major league caliber hitter--not Albert Pujols but at least Larry Bigbie--again.  If not, I believe that the Orioles will have to acquire someone who can fill that role.  The Orioles simply can't continue to have an automatic out in their lineup, particularly given the offensive caliber of the teams they're competing with.

4.  Have Steve Kline Figure Out How to Retire Left-Handed Hitters Again  I don't regard this with the same importance that I place on points 1-3, but it is, I believe, relevant.  Right now, the only situational lefty in the bullpen other than Kline (as the closer, B.J. Ryan obviously doesn't count) is Tim Byrdak.  I can't imagine that the Orioles want to go through the final 2 1/2 months of the season depending on a journeyman like Byrdak as their only situational lefty option.  There are few if any alternatives in house other than Kline.  (A trade is a possibility, of course, but there are more pressing needs in that regard and the Yankees and Red Sox are arguably even more anxious for left-handed relief help, so it's a seller's market.)     

For the season, lefties are tattooing Kline to the tune of .333/.394/.583.  Right-handers are just .175/.333/.365 against him.  What's odd about this--beyond the obvious reverse platoon--is that it's without anything resembling recent precedence.  In 2004, lefties were .143/.263/.190 against Kline.  In 2003 lefties were .243/.314/.336 against him.  In 2002 they were .230/.313/.333.  In 2001 they were .243/.314/.318.  What the heck is going on this year?  Kline's clearly doing something very different.  I don't pretend to know what it is, but this is a guy who's been pretty tough on lefties during his career (and very, very tough in 2004).  There's simply no history of him getting killed by left-handed hitters.  I have to believe that this can be turned around, somehow.  It would be a big help to the Orioles if it did.

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