Rays win, Red Sox lose

The Rays eliminated the Red Sox yesterday in the seventh game of the American League Championship Series.(In my opinion it is still wierd to see Tropicana field full)

The Sox jumped off to an early 1 to nothing lead with a Dustin Pedroia solo home run in the top of the first. John Lester retired his first nine before givng up a run in the bottom of the fourth. Rocco Baldelli single in the fifth to drive in Willy Aybar and give the Rays a 2-1 lead. Willy Aybar homered in the seventh inning to put the Rays up by two as they lead 3-1. In the eigth the Sox had their best chance to comeback, where the Rays used four different pichers, but J.D. Drew struk out with the bases loaded to end the inning.

The Rays won the Game 3 to 1 and now advance to play the Phillies in the World Series

Spring Training?

There has been already several places that have been thrown around for potential spring training sites if the O's do not get a new stadium in FT.Lauderdale.

Sarasota, who lost the Cincinnati Reds to Arizona, could be one possible location due to the higher cost that the Red Sox would demand in a new stadium over the Orioles who have indicated that they will take a renovated one, which makes things cheaper for the city.

Vero Beach could also be a probable location in the future with the Dodgers moving over to the west coast. Since, the Orioles signed an exclusivity agreement with them making the Orioles the only team they can talk to until it expires near Halloween time. Also the Orioles appear to be the only team that might want to move to Dodgertown and is contractually able to due so.

The final place could be Ft.Myers who could lose the Red Sox to Sarasota, thus leaving a vacant slot.

Overall there are many places in Florida that the Orioles have the possibility of having their spring training operations their in the next couple of years.

Never gonna die

The RedSox managed to win last night at Tampa to even the series at 3 games a piece. The Sox have won the last two games after starting the series out by falling behind 3 games to 1. At that time they were written off by many baseball experts and analysts with them saying that this was not the same team as before in 2004 and last year(2007) and that the self called "Idiots" were gone. The sox though did not think that they were done and it showed by their winning of the next two games.

The Red Sox interestingly enough have won 4 out of 5 playoff series when the fall behind 3 games to 1. The curse might just be reversed with the Sox winning a bunch of world series and the Yankees having a drought.

But who cares? No one will eventually because the Orioles will become the dominate team in baseball with stars such as Matt Weiters, Jeremy Guthrie, Nick Markakis, and Adam Jones.

Are you ready?

The past season featured an orioles team that looked very competitive for most of the season and that had a chance to finish above .500 for the fist time in a decade. They were a team that had many new pitchers and some young new everyday players. Thge Orioles outperformed their expectations throughout most of the year until the fell into an abysmal pit the last 2 months of the season.

With last years disapointment hopfully will bring this years joy many of the Orioles players had career years such as Aubrey Huff, Brian Roberts, Melvin Mora, and Luke Scott. The Orioles had one of the best offenses in the American league last year and will probably want to add to it with a big free agent acquisition and call-ups of some of the promising prospects in Bowie and Norfolk.

While the O's offense was above average the pitching was not, The Orioles had injuries affect everyone on their opening day starting rotation and injuries forced Adam Loewen to stop pitching alltogether. In order to suplant their pitching the Orioles probably will call up some more prospects from the minor leagues such as Brad Bergeson, Chris Tillman, and David Hernandez. This all depends on the performance of Garret Olsen, Radhames Liz, and Brian Burres who all had disapointing seasons to say the least.

The part of the O's that we will see changed the most this off season will probably be the starting rotation where they will probably want tomake wholesale changes. If the Orioles sing a free agent like Mark Teixera that will further there already above average offense and if,barring any trades, Matt Albers and Chris Ray can come back healthy the O's should have a pretty deep and solid bullpen.