First half. Half Empty

The Orioles closed out a disappointing first half to the 2007 season with a 2-1 loss to the Texas Rangers that pretty much summed up their season so far.

The hitting is shit and the starting pitching has been better than expected.

And that only makes the 2007 season that more disappointing. When teams have decent starting pitching, they usually hang around until the end of the season, figthing for a playoff spot.

Not the Orioles.

The $42 million dollar bullpen has been a waste. The offense can't score runs. And the Orioles continuously make the wrong roster moves.

And finally, someone other than the fans got frustrated and did something about it.

J.R. House, the minor league slugging catcher, who deserved to be in Baltimore over back-up catcher Paul Bako from opening day asked for his release this weekend and the Orioles gave it to him. Expect to see House on a major league team not as stupid as the Orioles sometime soon.

It became painfully obvious early on that the Orioles would rather waste time with light-hitting utility men and back-up catchers rather than find out if House deserved to be in the majors. And as the season become more and more of a lost cause, failure to call up House only enraged O's fans to the point of pulling their hair out.

Why, in the middle of another lost season, are the Orioles wasting time on players who are no good instead of finding out if the deserving players in the minors can be part of the future?

It's just becoming more and more obvious as time wears on. Managers may come and go, Andy MacPhails may be hired and called saviour, but it's still the same shit different season in Baltimore.

I know MacPhail is new on the job and all, but Marvin the Martian could have landed on Earth yesterday and known what was wrong with the Orioles today. What MacPhail is waiting for is beyond me. And until he starts making changes, those changes aren't going to happen.

So don't tell me that hiring MacPhail is a "change" in and of itself.

And so it goes. These are the days of our Baltimore Orioles. It's the All Star Break and the Orioles are 11 games below .500 and 15 games out of first place.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go see that cool new summer movie, Minority Report.

Oh wait, it's not 2002. Well looking at the Orioles record, it's hard to tell. Silly me.